Destiny 2 set to receive new ‘Seasonal Challenges’ in Season 13

Last year, in late April, Bungie released a blog update on their upcoming plans to alter how Weekly bounties worked in Year 4 in Destiny 2. In this blog Design Lead, Tyson Green said the following: “...we want to make this better by replacing Weekly Bounties with a mechanism that provides players with a set of non-expiring and account-scoped objectives each week that grant lots of Season Rank progress (more than the Weeklies they replace). That way the return on effort is better, more consistent between players.”

Bungie has been fairly tight-lipped about this new mechanism until the latest ‘This Week at Bungie’ blog post where they revealed Season 13 would see the introduction of Seasonal Challenges.

As with all changes of this caliber, it’s important to understand the context and Bungie’s philosophy behind the changes. In the TWAB the Destiny 2 Design Team chimed in to give a quick rundown on why they decided to go in this direction. “During production of Beyond Light, we started looking at the problems of bounty fatigue and FOMO, as well as Seasonal legibility (i.e., “What is in a Season?” and “How to I engage with it when I log in?”)”, said the developers. With these questions in mind, Bungie came up with the following goals for Seasonal Challenges:

• Provide a guide to new, returning, and veteran players for what to do today/this week.
• Guide the player through the Seasonal content, week-over-week.
• Encourage players to engage with complexities and nuances of the Seasonal activity and rituals.
• Reduce the penalties on XP and Bright Dust for missing a given week.

But how exactly do these Seasonal Challenges work and how do they differ from Weekly bounties you may be asking? Here’s the breakdown:

• Seasonal Challenges are a new set of objectives that can be completed by the player and can be accessed from either the Quest Log or Season Pass screens.
• Each week, for the first 10 weeks of a Season, between three and ten new Challenges can be completed for a good amount of experience. The experience gained is based on how difficult or time-consuming the challenge is.
• These challenges can range from completing Strikes, gaining Power, gaining reputation ranks, or completing a Grandmaster Nightfall.
• These challenges are account-wide and can only be completed once per account.
• Once a new week of challenges becomes available they do not need to be done within that week. If you skip playing when week four challenges become available you will still be able to complete them in week five.
• Not only does completing these challenges reward experience, but also seasonal currency and other items.
• Most of these challenges will disappear once the Season ends so be sure to finish off and redeem any incomplete ones to claim your rewards.
• As a bonus for Free to Play players, Bungie says that while some challenges require the Season Pass, roughly 60% of these new challenges can be completed without buying it.

Bungie also states that with the above introduction of Seasonal Challenges, the Weekly bounties from the Gunsmith Banshee-44, Zavala, Shaxx, and the Drifter will be removed.

Many of you might be wondering what will happen to the Bright Dust earned from these removed Weekly bounties. Don’t worry, Bungie has given us some solid info on exactly how much Bright Dust can be earned from these new challenges.

Completing each Seasonal Challenge involving the core activities of Strikes, Crucible, and Gambit will award between 75 and 300 Bright Dust depending on the difficulty of the challenge. On top of this, an end of Season bonus of 4,000 Bright Dust will be awarded to those players who complete a large number of these challenges. As a final offering, 120 Bright Dust is also gained on any character who completes the ‘Complete 8 Bounties’ Vendor Challenge.

So, in terms of Bright Dust earnings over the Season we have the following:

Seasonal Challenges Bright Dust (All Players)

• Free Seasonal Activities – 6,000
• Seasonal Extra – 4,000
• Total – 10,000 Bright Dust

Season Pass Bright Dust

• Free Path – 7,500 (All Players)
• Paid Path – 3,000 (Players who own Season Pass)
• Total – 10,500 Bright Dust

Weekly Ritual Vendor Challenge Bright Dust (All Players)

• 120 Bright Dust per ritual vendor, per character, per week
• 14,040 total if completing all required weekly Challenges over the course of Season 13

What do you think of these new changes? Are you going to miss Weekly bounties? Is there a better way for Bungie to approach this? Bungie is asking for feedback on this new system and how they can possibly tweak it for future Seasons. Be sure to comment below or as a reply on Twitter with your thoughts.

Destiny 2’s Season 13 is set to launch on February 9.