Bungie Outlines Destiny 2's Future For 2023 And Beyond

After sending out a cryptic tweet of an orange note on a wall, Destiny 2's Joe Blackburn set the stage for the 2023 State Of Destiny 2. Released today, Blackburn touched on many topics players have been highlighting in recent months and for some areas questions still remain. But before we talk about what I wish was covered, lets talk about what was:

Season Of Defiance:

Season Of Defiance was confirmed to be the first season in Destiny 2: Lightfall. With it, Defiance will bring about an end to the various currencies and items the seasonal models have been known for. Umbral Engrams, focusing currencies, and all of the random keys will now be combined into one nice new system: glimmer and a seasonal engram. Now to focus for specific gear your basic requirements will be just that, basic. This is great news as every seasonal vendor has needed so many different items and currencies that you typically get more annoyed than excited to continue progressing through the weeks. To make it even more exciting, Blackburn stated seasonal vendor upgrades will also be more dramatic and will have less options to focus.

Season of the Deep:

Yes, we already know the next season's name. Blackburn stated this season will focus on the feedback collected during defiance while trying to create a fresh experience around the seasonal activity. Blackburn hopes the team will be able to capture the magic of activities like the first time experience of the Shattered Realm or Battlegrounds.

Weapon Crafting:

There will also be a lot of changes to weapon crafting and what is possible to craft with Lightfall. Blackburn stated there will be fewer weapons that are able to be craftable as they hope to inspire players to chase after certain loot. To help these weapons match up to crafted weapons, Destiny will be adding the ability to enhance non-crafted special weapons (Like Adept). Enhancing will allow your weapon to level up, use momentos, and they gain access to enhanced weapon specific perks. Enhancing will essentially become a new way to level up your non-crafted weapons and make them stronger than the typical drop.

For Deepsight weapons, Bungie will also add the ability to activate Deepsight on any crafted weapon. If you are lucky to get a red bordered weapon in game after Lightfall drops, it will now mean that weapon still has pattern progress to complete. No longer will you have to check if you have maxed out that weapon specifically anymore.

Challenging Content:

Destiny got its name from challenging content. It wasn't a random strike or jarring mechanic, it was from its End-Game Raids and fabled Trials PVP mode. Challenging content is where Destiny used to shine and what truly lured its playerbase in. Blackburn addressed that in recent time they have noted Destiny 2 has become less challenging, however, he attributed it to power creep. While some, including myself, will disagree about that being the main issue behind challenging content, Blackburn stated the team is focused on abilities for the year ahead. This is no suprise as Bungie already put out a blog highlighting how many abilities will see an increased recharge time. However, Blackburn did highlight how damage resitance mods for resilience will see an increase in energy cost by one point. Blackburn hopes this combined with a balancing patch to gear driven buffs will help bring the Guardians down a notch.

Blackburn also highlighted that Destiny 2 will see its difficulty knob cranked a bit as they intend highten the base difficulty in hopes it will bring more heat to the fire. I was personally hoping we would see more information about Raid Contest Mode being permanent or maybe a new mechanic to make Grandmasters more interesting but for now it seems we will be continuing with the same content while coming under a little more fire.

PVP:

PVP did not recieve much in the State of The Game. More time will be spent on Crucible Labs and three maps are expected to land before The Final Shape, one of which being Citadel from the DCV. Bungie also will be focused on bringing the treatment Iron Banner got last to Trials going forward. That was it.

Exotic Mission Rotator:

I don't know if its because I begged for this in my last article or because it really sounds that cool but the Exotic Mission Rotator is actually coming to Destiny 2. Right after the TWAB announced missions like Seraph's Shield would be vaulted in Destiny 2, Blackburn swooped in with this blog post to highlight activities such as Presage and Seraph's Shields are here to stay. Season 22 will bring a Rotator playlist where missions such as Presage, Vox Obscurea, and even more popular classic missions will return back to Destiny 2 under a rotational playlist. We might see the return of Zero Hour and Whisper Mission in 2023.

Strikes:

Strikes will soon see a small refresh as well to help combat the power creep everyone has been feeling. Strikes that were easy to run through blindfolded such as Arms Dealer or Lake of Shadows will see encounters reimagined with difficulty in mind. Here Blackburn also reiterated how Battlegrounds will soon join Nightfall Strikes. No mention was made of Grandmaster Battlegrounds but take a moment and think about how chaotic that could potentially be.

Friends Are Nice:

Blackburn closed it out with another mention on being a good fireteam member and how soon Destiny 2 will even reward you for such. Chat will now soon be an opt-out experience where Bungie is hoping to encourage players to talk to one another more regularly.

LFG will also be added later during the year and with it Bungie is hoping to provide a solid baseline for operation. Tagging, descriptions, and more will all be a part of the system when it launches and Blackburn states the team is prepared for this first draft of the system to have some kinks along the way.

Overall this was a nice foundation for Bungie to start with in 2023. I was hoping for a rework to the Clan system, more social spaces, and honestly at least a mention for Gambit. While none of my wishlist came true, I still can't help but recognize Destiny 2 is still headed down a steady, yet slow, path for a solid future.

What did you think of the state of the game address? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter @Suttledge