While everyone was busy getting ready for the Xbox Gamescom Showcase, Bungie had their annual Destiny 2 Showcase and revealed a metric ton of new Destiny 2 sweetness. Let’s break everything down.
Season of the Lost
Available Today
Season of the Lost and Cross Play are available now. Season of the Lost see the return of the fan favorite, Mara Sov, the queen of the Awoken. She has returned to the Dreaming City at long last, bringing long dormant Awoken technologies back to life. The new seasonal activity, Astral Alignment, pits 6 players against the forces of the aforementioned Xivu Arath in an attempt to chart a path towards locating her majesty’s lost coven. This season also gets a new Weekly Mission in the Shattered Realm. Similar to last Season’s Expunge, players will use the data they’ve collected from the Astral Alignment to “Wayfind through the Shattered Realm in search of Mara Sov’s lost tech witches.”
Along with the new story content, which serves as a direct prequel to the upcoming Witch Queen expansion, the Season of the Lost includes the typical Seasonal exotic weapons with the Ager’s Scepter, a new Quest-Based Exotic Trace Rifle, and the Lorentz Driver, the free seasonal Linear Fusion Rifle. This season also sees the return of 3 Destiny 1 exotics that in the Nothing Manacles, No Backup Plans, and the Radiant Dance Machines Season 15 also introduces Stasis elemental weapons in the Kinetic weapon slot so as to give players the freedom to use them in Match Game modified activities.
Cross Play, as outlined by Bungie previously, grants players across Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and Google Stadia, to finally play together. Today’s launch is the first step in bringing players together. No voice or Text chat is supported between platforms at this time, but future updates are planned to bring parity between each platform, including supporting text chat on consoles via USB keyboards, as well as voice chat “soon after launch”.
The Witch Queen
Available February 22, 2022
The Hive God of Cunning and Lies, Savathûn, has finally made herself known. She has invited us to come to her Throne World, to face her Lucent Brood, an army of new Light-Bearing Hive Guardians. Our goal is simple: Enter the Throne World, discover it’s secrets, and uncover why the Traveler, the one responsible for all that we know as good in our world, has chosen to give the Witch Queen it’s precious Light.
This expansion does more than just introduce one of the most anticipated villain’s in Destiny’s lore. It also brings everything you’d expect from a Destiny expansion, and more:
- A new Campaign: The Witch Queen has imbued herself and her brood with the power of the Light. Journey to a new destination in search of answers. Including a Legendary difficulty version with it’s own exclusive rewards.
- A new weapon Archetype: The Glaive is Destiny’s first first-person melee weapon which sits in the energy weapon slot and performs powerful melee attacks, energy blasts, and energy shields
- Weapon Crafting: A first for the series, and a natural progression from the beloved Umbral Engram system, allowing players to craft their perfect rolls for the weapons they will soon know, as well as those they’ve already come to love
- A new Destination: Savathûn’s Throne World. Trudge through the gnarly swamps, scale her Hive infested crystalline castle, and explore untold, ancient Hive secrets
- A new Raid: aboard a sunken Darkness Pyramid ship, you and your fireteam must confront the ancient dangers imprisoned there.
- Conflict Eternal: A new 6 Player activity, but so far all we know about it is simply it’s player count.
- Light Subclass Rework: Each season of Year 5 will see the Light Subclasses receive the Stasis treatment in full top to bottom reworks, turning the less interesting subclass paths into Aspects and Fragments, allowing for even more player expression and freedom.
Along with the Expansion, of course, comes Destiny 2 Year 5 Seasonal content. This will spans Seasons 16-19, offering fans of Destiny 2 even more content after they wrap up the main course of the Expansion, plunder it’s Raid, and solve Savathûn’s riddles. These seasons as well as some exclusive incentives like 2 brand new Dungeons, are included with the Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Deluxe Edition, priced at $79.99 USD. The base experience for the Witch Queen will launch at $39.99 USD.
Happy 30th, Bungie
2021 also marks the 30th anniversary of Bungie. To celebrate this massive milestone, Bungie is releasing the Destiny 2: 30th Anniversary Pack. This extra content includes a new dungeon in Destiny’s fabled Loot Cave in the Cosmodrome, new weapons and armor themed around Myth, Marathon, and armor ornaments inspired by Halo, and the return of Gjallerhorn, a Destiny 1 exotic rocket launcher that has been sorely missed by the Destiny community since the launch of Destiny 2. It will also include a new Free-to-Play matchmade activity that offers new secrets to unravel and cool rewards to help commemorate the legacy of Bungie. This package is available for $24.99 USD on its own, or is included in the $99.99 USD Deluxe Bundle, which will include The Witch Queen expansion, all Year 5 seasonal content, and the 30th Anniversary Pack.
…And Beyond
Destiny first released in 2014. In 2017, Destiny 2 took over at the platform through which Bungie would continue to tell their stories. In 2019, when Bungie announced their independence from Activision as a Publisher, they made sure to let us know that Destiny 2 wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon. They reinforced this last year during the Beyond Light reveal stream, letting us know that they were committed to telling a story that wouldn’t wrap up in just a single 6 hour expansion campaign, but would instead evolve their seasonal model to continue the conversation long after the credits rolled. At that time, they revealed not only Beyond Light, but also The Witch Queen and Lightfall. Bungie said that they’d be wrapping up the Light and Darkness saga that they began with 2014’s original Destiny release. In the months that followed, they let us know that the scope of the conclusion to this story was too big for just two expansions, so they announced there would be yet another release following Lightfall to tie up all of our loose ends.
The Final Shape is that conclusion to the Light and Darkness saga Bungie promised us last year. There was plenty of skepticism from me whether they’d truly continue to build Destiny moving forward, but the reveal today confirmed that The Final Shape, despite what its name might imply, is far from the the end of our journey. Bungie has reaffirmed their commitment to continue telling stories in the world of Destiny long after The Final Shape. The world of Destiny might look dark as we move into yet another year of villains temped by the Darkness’ powers, but its future looks to be brighter than ever.
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is available for preorder across the entire Xbox family of consoles and will release on February 22, 2022.
