On February 12, 2023, Joe Blackburn, the game director for Destiny 2, tweeted a mysterious image of a blank wall with a sticky note affixed to it. Seems pretty routine, right? No, not quite. A “State of the Game” post detailing Destiny 2: Lightfall and the upcoming year would be published on Bungie’s website the following day, as promised by the sticky note.
For those who haven’t read them before, every so often the Destiny development team posts a blog updating players on the game’s current status, their vision for the future, and any upcoming updates to the game or expansions. About once every year or two, the developers will release a blog post that reveals interesting new paths for the game. These postings are usually quite detailed, and the contents are rarely leaked.
Expand Players’ Imaginations
Beginning as the piece went up, Blackburn discussed how the team’s goal with each major Destiny 2 update is to get the gears going in users’ heads. This is especially true in Season of the Seraph, where hints and clues all around the cosmos hint at an untold story. Blackburn admits that this wasn’t true for all of our releases last year and that it’s going to make improvements across numerous releases to attain the final aim, but that some gamers have sophisticated and intriguing theories and others opt to take things as they see them.
Season 20 premieres alongside Lightfall, and Blackburn has announced that it will be titled Season of Defiance. Without the requirement for Umbral engrams or energies, Guardians can focus on a specific season with nothing more than Glimmer and an appropriate seasonal engram. These engrams will be archived and followed in conjunction with seasonal suppliers as well.
It will no longer be necessary to have a large quantity of seasonal money in order to access the bonus chest after the conclusion of seasonal activities in Destiny 2. Instead, keys will be scattered over the galaxy, unlocking seasonal activity chests with improved loot. Blackburn adds that this shift in perspective will alter how people view the supplementary chests. He explained that, unlike modern seasonal currencies, players would not receive keys automatically upon completing tasks.
The following are links to some of the Destiny 2 articles we’ve written previously-
- Destiny 2 Patch Notes 2.77 and Hotfix 6.3.0.5 Now Available
- Destiny 2 Latest Update: Titan Exotic and Storm Grenades Get a Reality Check
For Future Reference
Season 21 will be called Season of the Deep, the first time Blackburn has announced an upcoming season’s title in advance in quite some time. After hearing from players, we decided to remove merchant upgrades completely from Season of the Deep and the following season as well. Blackburn clarifies that this doesn’t imply the return of the vendor upgrade system is off the table, but rather that players should expect to see more experimental and novel gameplay in the future.\
Like the introduction of the Shattered Realm in Season of the Lost and the premiere of the Battlegrounds in Season of the Chosen, “additional unique” activity experiences will be available in Season of the Deep and Season 22.
More Changes to Weapon Crafting
Blackburn also pointed out that the process of crafting a desired weapon can be “too random,” but that having the option to create the precise weapon with the exact perks Guardians seek can dull the thrill of getting a weapon dropped with a good roll. As a result, there will be a reduction in the number of available weapons and an increase in the worth of those that are designed to last thanks to random perk rolls. To accommodate this shift, non-crafted weapons will get the capability of being improved beginning with the Lightfall expansion. Because of this, the weapon can continue to level up, use mementos, and unlock new features and abilities even after being dropped.
In order to “meet the full potency of a created weapon,” Guardians can use the enhancing ability to improve the existing roll of a randomly rolled weapon. At the start of Season of the Deep, this will go live with Lightfall raid Adept weapons. The eventual goal is to have this feature available for “most” non-crafted weapon drops.
Once a Guardian has completed a pattern on a hand-made weapon, they will no longer be able to use Deepsight on that weapon again. This increases the worth of weapons with a crimson rim. If Guardians do not already possess the pattern, they will be able to activate Deepsight on craftable weapons beginning with Season of the Deep.
Bring Challenge Back to Destiny
Already, Bungie has admitted that most lower-level basic material adds little difficulty to the game. In light of this, the development team just released a sneak peek at the upcoming changes to Guardian abilities through an ability tuning preview. The cost of resilience mods will increase from 1 to 2 for minor mods and 3 to 4 for big mods, and the level of damage resistance offered by resilience will be altered, since Blackburn observes that some enemy combatants simply aren’t hitting as hard as the team intends.
Now that outstanding builds are more accessible to more players thanks to the introduction of build crafting updates and loadouts, Bungie is releasing a balancing patch to gear-driven boosts. Blackburn stated that the Season of the Seraph seasonal Battlegrounds’ difficulty was balanced with the abilities of Guardians and the team’s vision of the game. Consequently, the challenges in Season of Defiance will be comparable to those in the Vanguard Ops playlist. Along with this, patrolling Neomuna will be as challenging.
Enriched Content
While some Guardians may be afraid to enter, the Crucible is a key part of Destiny 2 that offers a variety of different challenges each time you play. In Season of Defiance, Blackburn announces that the Countdown mode will return, along with a respawn variant called Countdown Rush, as part of Bungie’s recent update to the PvP component of the game. Before the round concludes, players must detonate two bombs on the map.
Skillful and astute players will be rewarded in PvP with the introduction of Checkmate Control, which will alter weapon damage, ability uptime, and ammo. Meltdown, a new Crucible map for Season of the Deep, and a new Vex Network map for Season 22 are both in the works. In the penultimate season preceding The Final Shape, the Citadel will once again make its way to the Crucible.
Blackburn also said that in 2023, the team will push updates to make it clearer to Guardians why they won or lost rank points in Competitive and make it easier for players to climb to their best-matched Crucible rank, and that they are currently examining the reward and matchmaking systems for Trials of Osiris.
PvE is Good
Season 22 of Destiny 2 will introduce a new exotic mission rotator. Previous out-of-the-ordinary missions including Presage, Vox Obscura, and Operation: Seraph’s Shield will be featured here on a revolving basis. The development team’s long-term goal is to utilise this framework to implement additional canonical missions. Is it possible that this will lead to the release of a previously shelved expansion?
Both Lake of Shadows and Arms Dealer, both of which can be found in the strikes playlist, will have their objectives and encounters “reimagined and updated” to make them more current and to bring them in line with the complexity of more recent strikes. Some of Season 16 and Season 19’s Battlegrounds will be added as Nightfalls to the playlist. Due to its inclusion in Season of Defiance’s Nightfall rotation, the Mars Heist Battleground is the first to get this new look. This means that four of the six Nightfalls that can be used as Grandmasters are brand new to the game.
Guardian Seeks Guardian For Fun and Frolics
Bungie has an interest in improving Guardians’ social interactions. As a result, with the release of Lightfall, Commendations will become an official part of the game. Players can express their gratitude to one another for their time spent in-game via the Commendations system. Unlike the Perceptive and Knowledgeable titles, which may be acquired in both raids and dungeons, the “Pacesetter” and “Saint’s Favorite” titles are only available through the Trials of Osiris.
By defaulting more players into text channels throughout the board, the game will attract more people. Opting out of text chat will be simple and will not become mandatory.
In the upcoming holiday season, not only will a new dungeon be added to the game, but also the Fireteam Finder. It will have global queuing, keyword tagging, automated joining, and approval/denial functionality for Fireteam leaders, so players can join from anywhere in the game.