Here’s 5 things Bungie got right in Destiny 2 since Beyond Light

There's no denying that in the last few months there has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Bungie and Destiny 2.

A lot of this controversy has been focused on the new implementation of sunsetting and the frustrating experience of Stasis within the Crucible.

While a lot of the negativity surrounding these two topics is warranted, there have been quite a number of things that Bungie succeeded in throughout Destiny 2’s most recent Seasons.

Exotics

Last year, Destiny 2 saw a significant leap in the uniqueness and creativity of new Exotics within the game.

Weapons like Duality, Ruinous Effigy, Witherhoard, and The Lament hit the trifecta of being visually stunning, extremely run to use, and quite powerful within their niche. These weapons are a far cry from some of the original Destiny 2 weapons like Skyburner’s Oath and Sweet Business which can honestly come across as fairly boring in comparison.

Then there was the new Exotic armor in Beyond Light which really kicked up a notch from previous releases. Necrotic Grip, in combination with Thorn, saw an extremely fun and deadly new build that made light work of PvE encounters. Hunters and Titans also received Mask of Bakris and Icefall Mantle respectively which changed the class ability to something new entirely. Bungie pushed the envelope with Exotic design in 2020 and it was great to see it pay off.

Story/Character Development

Since the inception of the franchise, Bungie has struggled with creating meaningful stories within the game mission themselves. A lot of the more interesting developments happen across text-based lore entries that the player can unlock and read by completing Triumphs. While these lore entries are fantastic for the most part, it is always a real shame to have to experience them through text alone.

However, one character narrative has seen almost universal praise from the community and that is the story surrounding the Crow. Back in Forsaken, Awoken Prince Uldren Sov released the Scorn Barons from the Prison of Elders and gave Cayde-6 his Final Death. This expansion eventually culminated in the player Guardian killing Uldren. Many months later a new cutscene was seen that showed a Ghost coming across the body of Uldren and in a huge twist of irony, reviving Uldren as the Guardian named Crow.

The interesting thing here is that when someone is revived as a Guardian they are essentially a clean slate with no memories of their prior life. This was problematic for Crow as he had no idea the damage he had done to the people of the Last City and why all Guardians and humans he came across treated him with such contempt. Crow and his Ghost, who he named Glint, mainly kept to themselves but were eventually forced into servitude by The Spider of the Tangled Shore.

Across Season of the Hunt, the player Guardian helps Crow and Spider with managing the infestation of Wrathborn, mind-controlled servants of Savathun, across the Dreaming City and Tangled Shore. Throughout the Wrathborn Hunt and Hawkmoon missions we see, through in-game dialogue, the internal struggle of Crow between wanting to embrace his future as a Guardian and thinking of himself as unworthy of the honor due to his past actions as Uldren Sov.

This struggle culminates in the final Hawkmoon mission where, in a touching moment Crow states: “We fought Savathun’s Taken, we channeled the Light, and we turned something dead and gone into something beautiful...I’m not just a Lightbearer. I’m not the man I was before. He’s gone forever. I’m an instrument of the Traveler’s will. I’m a Guardian.”

It was great to see a sort of blow burn of character development over the Season that actually took place in game. Hopefully Bungie can take this approach and run with it into future Seasons as it was one thing they really nailed in the current Season.

Umbral Engrams

One of the hardest parts of developing a looter shooter like Destiny is developing a worthy compromise between the grind and respecting players time. You don't want to hand out the god rolls on weapons too easily or players will grab what they need and start to play less. You also don't want to make the god rolls too hard to get as otherwise players simply won't bother.

In Season 11, Season of Arrivals, Bungie introduced a new ‘Umbral’ engram for players to grind for. An interesting aspect of these engrams is that additional resources were able to be used on this engram, in conjunction with a special machine known as a ‘Prismatic Recaster’, to focus the engram loot pool towards certain weapons. This could even be focused all the way down to a loot pool of only two weapons giving the player a 50/50 shot at the weapon they were chasing.

With these Umbral engrams Bungie struck gold. The player was finally given agency over what they were grinding rather than a single engram filled with 20 pieces of gear. This was the perfect compromise that was talked about previously. With Umbral engrams the player had a very good chance at receiving the weapon they wanted, but getting the god rolls would still take a decent amount of work.

These special engrams were so well praised during Season of Arrivals that Bungie has decided to reintroduce them to the game in Season 13, which is set to start on February 9.

Stasis Subclasses (In PvE)

While the aforementioned controversy of Stasis in PvP has been talked about at length before, few tend to raise how absolutely dopamine-inducing Stasis can be in PvE content. It truly is remarkable that Bungie has created three unique feeling subclasses that all play around a similar theme. I dont think ive taken off one of the Stasis subclasses while playing PvE in some time now.

Everything about the design of these subclasses is pure bliss. The audio of Stasis crystals shattering, the dubstep beat that plays at the end of Warlock’s Super activation, the visual of hundreds of tiny Stasis shards exploding across the battlefield, is really all something to behold.

The most important thing is that these subclasses are exceptionally fun to play. Using Shatterdive as a Hunter to completely wipe out a large group of frozen enemies, sliding across the ground as a Titan to explode Stasis crystals, gliding through the air as a Shadebinder Warlock reigning freezing icicles from above. These are all core experiences within the Stasis subclasses and they never get old.

It's been rumoured that the green ‘poison’ and red ‘fear’ Darkness subclasses will be coming to Destiny 2 in the coming expansions. It will be interesting to see if Bungie can make these new subclasses as entertaining to play as Stasis.

Quality of Life Changes

Throughout the last few Seasons, Bungie has made it their mission to try to make Destiny 2 the most rewarding and entertaining experience it can be. This has been done by introducing a huge amount of quality of life changes that smooth out the experience and keep the player engaged in relevant content. While each of these changes might not seem that significant on their own, they collectively go a long way into making Destiny 2 the game both Bungie and the player base want it to be.

Here is a quick list of some of these changes made recently:

• Ghost Shells 2.0
• Grabbing bounties through the official Destiny 2 companion app
• Legend/Master Lost Sector Exotic farming
• More Powerful/Pinnacle gear sources
• Deep Stone Crypt end raid chest
• Champion Mods slotting into armor instead of weapons
• Removal of elemental affinity on certain armor perks
• Increased Enhancement Core drop rates
• And loads more…

While Bungie really delivered on these above features, Destiny 2 still has a long way to go. The community is kind of in a frenzy at the moment and this article simply serves as a reminder to those folks that Bungie does in fact listen and that Destiny 2 is still a game worth sticking around for.

Do you have anything else that you feel Bungie did right in recent Seasons? Leave a comment below or as a reply on Twitter to let us know.

Destiny 2’s upcoming Season, rumoured to be called Season of the Chosen, will start on February 9.