Lightfall, the next expansion for Destiny 2, is only a couple of weeks away. And in the lead-up to it, Bungie has released a new blog post that details changes and additions for the next season. The post focuses on the new season to come, and some structural changes coming to Destiny 2 in a few weeks. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of details to look through before Lightfall comes out for Destiny 2.
To kick things off, the post begins with Bungie outlining some key goals for Destiny 2 moving forward. These goals focus on adding difficulty to Destiny 2, enriching the game’s content, as well as expanding “players’ imaginations” in the future. These are fairly big goals and Bungie admits that it may take a while to achieve them. But we’re already seeing steps towards these goals. In fact, a few weeks ago, Bungie confirmed that the infamously powerful Resilience stat was getting a nerf.
New details about Destiny 2: Lightfall – Season of Defiance
Lightfall‘s core content isn’t going to be the only thing to arrive in Destiny 2 on February 28. Alongside it is Destiny 2‘s next season, called the Season of Defiance. And Bungie says there are “substantial iterations to our current model coming to shake things up,” which means a couple of things. A key step towards this is that progression will be simplified. There will be fewer currencies to earn, and there won’t be any Umbral Engrams or Umbral Energies to unlock. Instead, there will be Seasonal Engrams stored on Seasonal Vendors as opposed to your inventory.
There are also some more details about Seasonal Activities in Destiny 2‘s next season. First up is a change coming to how you unlock chests at the end of a Seasonal Activity. Right now, you need to earn a certain currency and use that to unlock a chest at the end of the mission. But going forward there will be keys that drop throughout the game that can be used to unlock the chests instead. The rewards that these chests drop will also apparently be better than what you can currently get.
Image via Bungie
Other details for the next season include changes to Destiny 2‘s Vendor Upgrades. Previously, Vendors have had these massive upgrade trees with perks that don’t feel very substantial. But in the Season of Defiance, there will be fewer upgrades to unlock. The post goes on to say that these upgrades will be “more potent” with a few of them “offering a variance on the way you interact with the seasonal activity.”
Revamped game modes
There will also be some new game modes to check out, as well as a few returning ones. For Crucible, Countdown and a respawn variant called Countdown Rush are planned to make a return. Some Crucible Labs modes are also in the works, with one called Checkmate Control. This mode will change things like weapon damage, ammo, and “ability uptime” to make it a mode that values smarts instead of supers.
For Destiny 2’s PvE, there are some neat details there, too. Bungie plans to add in more Exotic missions, as well as an Exotic mission rotator. In Season 22, Presage, Vox Obscura, and Operation: Seraph’s Shield will all feature in this rotation. Strikes are also getting a bit of a revamp. The Lake of Shadows and Arms Dealer strikes are having their “objectives and encounters re-imagined and upgraded” to start off. However, Exodus Crash and The Inverted Spire will feature less in Strikes playlists in the future. These strikes haven’t been updated in a long time but lack the engagement parity of more recent Strikes.
Image via Bungie
There’s plenty more to come
These are just scratching the surface of the changes on the way to Destiny 2. So be sure to read the blog post in full when you get a chance. The Season of Defiance is the first step in bringing some major changes to Destiny 2. And the majority of these changes are necessary to keep the game feeling fresh. For the most part, these are all in service to making the game ready for The Final Shape in 2024. But until then, it’ll be interesting to see how Destiny 2 changes when Lightfall releases, and its future seasons begin to roll out. Expect to see more details about Lightfall and future seasons of Destiny 2 as more content is released.
