Back in February 2022, I wrote about my first impressions on The Witch Queen expansion. Over the past year, there have been a lot of changes, and I’m looking forward to the changes coming in Lightfall, so I thought I’d put down my thoughts about where Destiny’s at now and what I’m looking forward to in the future.
Campaign
The legendary campaign was a great addition, which was difficult but rewarding. The campaign itself was a great journey, leading you through Savathûn’s Throne World and into a final confrontation with the Queen herself. There was a bit of mystery woven into the narrative, appropriate for the queen of deception and lies. I thoroughly enjoyed the campaign, though it only took me about three days to complete. I played most of the campaign solo, and it took about 30 minutes to an hour for each mission (which, compared to single-player games, seems about right).
After the campaign, a number of other missions open up that can be repeated and reveal a little more narrative. There’s the “Altar of Reflection” missions where Savathûn has basically left recorded messages for you. These messages are typically “two truths, two lies” and provide more background narrative. Then there’s the “Preservation” mission that leads you into one of the Witness’ pyramid ships where several interactive objects provide a lot of narration from Rhulk, a disciple of the Witness with information about where their people came from and how they started on the path of Darkness.
Overall, the campaign was very fun and had several memorable moments.
Seasons
The seasons over the past year have been pretty good, with some that push the narrative and some that serve more as placeholders, which has become the norm.
Season of the Risen
Season of the Risen aligned with the campaign, providing more content around the Lucent Hive, and the investigation into how they got their power and how to fight them.
The new seasonal weapons were a great way to launch weapon crafting, with several I still use like the Syncopation-53 stasis pulse rifle, Piece of Mind kinetic pulse rifle, and Explosive Personality solar grenade launcher. The seasonal exotic, Dead Messenger, is still a powerful weapon that I see most often used in PvP (though it’s great in PvE as well). A few of the random drop weapons are so good I wish I could craft them, like the Krait and Herod-C stasis auto rifles and Perses-D stasis scout rifle.
Season of the Haunted
Nicknamed “Season of Therapy”, this season had narratives centered on the personal demons of Crow, Zavala, and Caital. The Derelict Leviathan, Calus’ ship, returned to the moon and was a fantastic patrol zone, with an open-world event and great enemy density.
Weapons from the Season of Opulence returned, with some favorites like the Calus Mini-Tool SMG, Beloved sniper rifle, and Drang (Baroque) sidearm. The new seasonal weapons were kind of a flop, though I still enjoy my Without Remorse shotgun.
Season of Plunder
Season of Plunder felt like a filler season, with Guardians chasing “Artifacts of Nezarec”. Nezarec was a Guardian in the lore who was tempted by Darkness and became a Disciple of the Witness. (Warlocks have an exotic helm called “Nezarec’s Sin”.) Eramis has been awoken from her icy prison (she was frozen at the end of the Beyond Light campaign) and has been collecting these artifacts. You “borrow” a ship from Spider and venture out to steal these artifacts back from Eramis’ lackeys.
Though narratively it felt like filler, the seasonal activity was fantastic. Everything was appropriately pirate themed, from the weapons and armor down to the soundtrack. You set out from your ship and launch yourself to an enemy ship, then storm through several encounters on the ship before facing an enemy captain.
Season of the Seraph
As with Season of the Lost at the end of Beyond Light, Season of the Seraph seems to mostly serve to set up Lightfall, though I loved the narrative. We start off retrieving Clovis Bray to help us revive Rasputin, the AI Warmind built to serve as humanity’s protector. The seasonal activity has us performing “heists”, delving into Warmind bunkers to retrieve parts of Rasputin’s code to reassemble him. Meanwhile, the Hive and Scorn are in the bunkers attempting to take control of the warsats to attack Earth and the Traveler. When Rasputin regains control of the warsats, we learn that using them to wipe out our enemies would play right into Xivu Arath’s plans, serving as a massive sacrifice to empower her. Rasputin starts searching for an alternative, but in the end determines that the only option is to destroy himself and the warsat network. In an epic finale, we infiltrate the control facility for the warsats, inject Rasputin’s code, and just barely manage to stop Eramis from turning the warsats on the Traveler.
Like Season of Plunder, the activity this season was great. It was at a set difficulty, five levels above your current level, ensuring it provided a good amount of difficulty. Bungie has said that it’s the model they plan to use in the future.
Light 3.0
The Witch Queen expansion brought the “Light 3.0” class reworks over the course of the year, and I think they were very successful, at least from the perspective of a Titan main. I know there are several classes that are still very weak (all roaming supers) or overly powerful in particular modes (void overshields in PvP), but I feel like the changes have helped breathe new life into the classes.
Void 3.0
I think the Void rework for Titans was near-perfect. In Destiny 1, Void was meant to be the “immovable object” aspect of Titans, and Void 3.0 gave us the ability to create Void overshields with our barrier, making Titans (and allies) very tanky. I didn’t play Void much before the rework, but it’s become my go-to when I need durability for high-level content. I used Void during the final boss fight during my solo Seraph’s Shield exotic mission runs.
While I’m not a Hunter or Warlock expert, I think the Void rework turned out well for these classes as well. For Hunters, Void epitomizes their stealth aspect, with plenty of options to gain invisibility (which is still a nightmare in PvP, even after nerfs). For Warlocks, their Child of the Old Gods pet and easy access to the Devour buff is very powerful.
Solar 3.0
I think Titans “won” the Solar rework. Solar was my preferred subclass before the reworks, and I mostly ran the aspect with sunspots (since the sunspots were powerful and it had my preferred super). However, I loved the throwing hammer melee, which could be retrieved to instantly restore my melee energy, but it was part of a different aspect. The 3.0 rework for Solar now lets me use the throwing hammer, create sunspots, and use my preferred super. The addition of the Loreley’s Splendor exotic helmet also lets me create sunspots with my barricade ability, allowing me to create a healing and ability regenerating sunspot whenever I like. I haven’t used Solar much since the Arc rework, but it’s probably still my favorite subclass.
Hunters got a much more powerful Blade Barrage super and a new dodge ability to instantly apply Radiance, which provides a weapon damage buff. Warlocks got a grenade upgrade aspect, which gives them some of the most powerful grenades in the game.
Arc 3.0
The Arc rework has been a lot of fun. Titans got a new “thruster” dodge ability that replaces our barricade and a new “thunderclap” charged melee (the first such melee in the game). Between the thruster ability, the Arc “speed booster” buff, and the standard Arc shoulder charge melee, Arc Titans are extremely mobile. Arc is also the Titan’s grenade class, so we have some overcharged grenade abilities. During Season of Plunder, when the Arc rework was introduced, there were some modes where I could use grenades as my primary weapon. Things have been nerfed since then, but I can still spam grenades in most content, and the extra speed and mobility has kept me playing the class throughout the past season.
Hunters got a new super that allows them to throw their Arc Staff at a location, where it sticks and creates an AoE damage field. It’s hilarious when a Hunter with good aim impales it in a boss’ face. Some players have also found out you can impale it in a sparrow and get a roaming damage field. Warlocks got aspects to enhance the Ionic Traces generated from most Arc abilities, giving them better ability uptime; as well as a new “ball lightning” melee and an aspect that changes their melee into a lightning dash with a small AoE (which, with minor buffing, can get one-hit-kills in PvP).
Looking Back
Looking back, I think this has been a great year for Destiny. One of the main draws for me has always been the story, and the narrative has been progressing steadily throughout the seasons. Weapon crafting has eased the weapon grind a bit, with some really great crafted options, and the process was simplified quickly after its initial rocky release. The Light 3.0 reworks have made buildcrafting a lot more fun and opened up a lot of possibilities.
Overall, the changes over the past year have kept me excited about what’s coming next.
Looking Ahead
Bungie has been pretty open over the last few weeks about what’s coming in Lightfall, and while I’m mostly excited for what’s ahead, some of what they’ve shown hasn’t had the best reception.
I’ll start with the things I’m most excited about, though.
Quality of Life
Lightfall is bringing a number of quality-of-life changes, like a new loadout system, fewer currencies, and some streamlining to several systems they’ve used in the past. I’m most interested in the loadouts, since that should help with buildcrafting and loadout swapping without needing to use an external app.
The buildcrafting itself is getting a big change, with armor elemental affinities going away (good riddance), and a completely new “armor charge” system with mods built around it. It sounds like buildcrafting will be easier but also allow more variety.
There are also some improvements coming around weapon crafting and random drops. Random drops will gain the ability to have the enhanced perks on crafted weapons, which should make a good roll of a weapon valuable (rather than random rolls of craftable weapons being trash since you can’t enhance them). Weapons that cannot be crafted will no longer drop with Deepsight Resonance (the way you unlock crafting recipes), which should make things a bit clearer for new players. And there’s been a little talk that the economy around crafting weapons will change as well, though I haven’t seen many details around that.
Guardian Ranks
Guardian Ranks should be a great way to determine where a player is in their Destiny career and provide guidance to new players for things to do. I’d like to think that I’ll be near the top when the ranks are introduced (having played since launch), but I haven’t run most of the raids so I’m sure I’ll be behind on things. Regardless, I think it’ll be a great way to understand how experienced players are.
More Social
Bungie have said they’re switching to opt-out for text chat, which should let players communicate more easily. (There are probably some players who don’t even know there’s text chat in Destiny.) They’re also adding a new “commendation” system after matches, which should let players reward each other for friendly play. The LFG functionality that’s currently in the Destiny app unfortunately isn’t coming with Lightfall’s release, but hopefully isn’t far behind.
Strand
The unveiling of the new “Berserker” Strand subclass for Titans has landed pretty poorly, and Bungie’s damage control since then hasn’t done much to inspire confidence. Hunters look great, and Warlocks look amazing, but Titans have been presented with another melee-heavy class with a roaming melee super (making the vast majority of our supers roaming melees, something like 5 or 6 of the 8 total). Comments from Bungie after only made it worse, with one of the lead designers saying “…at the end of the day, you’re holding the fist on the cover”, which, aside from being poorly worded, is a position that Bungie themselves have put Titans in, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. During the ViDoc with the development team, they were obviously excited to talk about Hunters and Warlocks, then had little to say about Titans. It’s to the point where I’ve spent the last week building up my Warlock so I can enjoy the new subclass.
All that said, I think the Berserker Titan will be plenty strong, and will likely be one of the most powerful melee subclasses in the game (it had damn well better be, since that’s it’s one trick). The reception from the community isn’t really based around the strength of the class but rather about its originality, which basically seems to pick parts from other subclasses and combine them. In the case of the super, it’s basically the same as the Stasis super with some different flavoring. I’m hoping it’s fun, but I’m hoping more that they come up with something better for The Final Shape.
Closing Thoughts
The Witch Queen has been a great expansion for Destiny, adding some much-needed changes with weapon crafting and the Light 3.0 rework. It pushed the narrative, both revealing The Witness and moving toward our final confrontation.
While the unveiling of Lightfall has been a bit of a flop for Titans, I’m still excited about the future of Destiny. I’m just disappointed with how the Titan class is shaping up overall. I think the design team at Bungie has largely forgotten what it means to be a Titan; devolving us into the punching class which, while certainly part of the identity, is boring and completely ignores a large part of our class identity. Hopefully they can course-correct before The Final Shape.
Beyond that, I’m very excited about what’s coming to Destiny. The new social aspects should make it easier to reward players and identify those worth playing with. When the LFG functionality is introduced, it should be easier to find groups for higher-level content. Combined with Guardian ranks, it may even prove a better way to restrict who can join you (i.e., an alternative to the “know what to do” groups in the app).
There are some great things coming, and I’m looking forward to seeing how things shape up.