Bungie addresses Sunsetting after Destiny 2 backlash, reveal how they plan to adjust

The issue of sunsetting has been a hot topic amongst the Destiny 2 community since it was revealed earlier in the year. While most of the player base was hesitant about a significant portion of their gear becoming obsolete, many remained hopeful that when sunsetting went live in Beyond Light that it would be implemented in a manner that would please both Bungie and the community. Sadly, this was not the case.

Soon after the release of Beyond Light there was an immense influx of negative posts from social media aimed at Bungie at how sunsetting had been implemented. The crux of the matter is that many believed that Bungie had simply gone too far with how much gear had become obsolete in end game content against how little new gear had been introduced.

In a recent developer blog, Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn engaged with the community on the steps Bungie would be taking in the coming Seasons to try to correct course when it comes to sunsetting. For those of you who don’t know Blackburn, he was originally a part of the raid team and had a large influence over the development of Season of Opulence, a Season often called Destiny’s best so far.

Blackburn started off with talking about Bungie’s philosophy behind sunsetting and how this relates to the player experience:

“Our goal from the beginning with Infusion Caps is to improve and keep Destiny 2 fresh over time - what we’re most looking forward to is how this system will introduce innovation to the season-over-season meta, how creative builds from the community will shine, and how we can continue to deliver more unique hand-crafted gear that aligns with the world narrative and where the universe is going.”

Blackburn then acknowledges that there were some clear misses with how sunsetting was introduced with Beyond Light, namely how small the reward pool is and much unobtainable loot is within the game.

As for how the team at Bungie plan on correcting these misses, here’s the breakdown.

Growing the Power Ecosystem

A lot of significant changes to the gear ecosystem will be coming to Season 13 according to Blackburn. “Season 13 is the first chance for us to prove our commitment to growing the overall Power ecosystem with each release in Year 4. We want to make sure that, with each new season, there are more weapons to take with you to tackle that Nightfall Ordeal or Master Bunker E15 than there were before.” says Blackburn.

To achieve this Bungie is doing two things. The first is to introduce six new Legendary weapons in Season 13, two for each core activity. This will act as a sort of rolling vendor refresh in the same vein that Destiny 1 had with its refreshes every major expansion.

The second is the return of some Destiny 1 weapons as Nightfall exclusive weapons. The Swarm, Shadow Price, and The Palindrome will soon be returning to Destiny 2 in Season 13. I for one am extremely excited for Shadow Price as it was one of the first Legendary weapons I was able to obtain and it carried me through my first clear of Vault of Glass. Adept versions of these weapons will also be available from Grandmaster Nightfalls.

Youtuber and Streamer Aztecross recently uploaded a video about what he thinks would be a great way for Bungie to easily implement vendor refreshes.

In this video Aztecross basically describes the above system of reintroducing older Destiny 1 weapons with a Destiny 2 perk pool. It’s great to see Bungie is moving in this direction.

Keeping Current

In Season 13 Bungie will be attempting to strike a fine balance between having a large amount of obtainable loot for the player while also not bloating out the loot pool.

“We want to make sure that players have a way to earn all Power-relevant weaponry in the live game. If a group of new Guardians is just getting into Grandmaster Nightfalls and they see guides on YouTube involving Warmind Cells, we need to provide a path for them to participate.” says Blackburn.

Blackburn continues with “At the same time, we don’t want to be clogging up the reward streams with weapons that are about to exit the Power ecosystem. So anything that’s only going to be around for a few more months shouldn’t be something a player can accidentally obtain.”

To address this issue Bungie will be allowing players to still earn Season 11 and 12 weapons in the World loot pool while Season 10 rewards will still be able to earned, albeit a more focused source through the Gunsmith.

Quality and Quantity

Even though Beyond Light launched with some truly powerful and breathtaking weapons, Blackburn acknowledges that Bungie simply didn't deliver in terms of the overall quantity of new weapons. “But where we succeeded in quality, we failed in quantity. Even as Season 12, the Deep Stone Crypt, and the full breadth of Europa weapons came online, the total count of weapons in Beyond Light is lower than we want.” states Blackburn.

To combat this, Bungie is making a huge change that truly shows their commitment to fixing the slightly bungled situation of sunsetting. In order to truly deliver on both quality and quantity, Bungie will be hiring additional staff for their Rewards team in order to keep a steady supply of new weapons into the Destiny 2 ecosystem.

Blackburn attempts to temper expectations with the following statement: “This isn’t going to be a change that the community will feel next week, but it does put our best foot forward as we step towards The Witch Queen and Lightfall.”

Even though this change won't be felt for a year down the track, it still shows that Bungie is committed to finding a balance between their vision of sunsetting while still respecting the players.