Ever since Forsaken released for Destiny 2, Bungie has shifted its development cycle from major expansions to minor expansions. First introduced in the Annual Pass, this smaller type of seasonal expansions has been recently renamed into Seasons.
Four seasons are planned to release this year with “Season of Dawn” being the second offering out of the four planned. Some of the changes present here are a welcome change from the absolutely dreadful “Season of the Undying”, but it does carry over plenty of faults from that season as well. Here are 5 of “Season of Dawn’s” triumphs and 5 of its inexcusable failures.
10 Great: The Sundial
There are quite a few activities to do in Destiny, from Strikes to Raids to PvP. With new additions to playlists being constantly added, it’s hard to make each mod stand out from each other.
Luckily, Sundial is pretty amazing in terms of rewards and general fun factor. Players fight in 2 of 3 sections of the level that are randomly selected, then they proceed to fight a boss to claim their rewards. The number of rewards scales off of both the Season Pass and Obelisk progression, so the more time invested into the activity the more it pays out.
9 Flop: Lack of Interesting Perks
Most of the weapons added this season are interesting, but it is not because of a new suite of interesting perks. Certain perk combinations might interest players, but the vast majority of new guns have combinations we’ve seen before.
In terms of new perks, you have Vorpal Rounds, which make your weapons deal more damage versus Guardians in their super and Bosses, alongside Elemental Capacitor—granting utility bonuses based on your chosen subclass element. The only good perk added was Lead from Gold, which lets heavy ammo drops grant special ammo to your weapon. Even then, those new perks can not even come close to the strength of damage perks like Rampage or Dragonfly.
8 Great: Obelisks
Taking cues from the Chalice of Opulence, players earn a unique resource to upgrade Obelisks scattered throughout the various planets.
Upgrades range from providing planetary materials on precision kills to giving additional rewards when finishing The Sundial activity. It feels rewarding to fully upgrade one of these at your own pace, letting hardcore players finish all 4 Obelisks in a matter of days if they wanted to. Overall, this is one of the best additions seen this season that hopefully carries over in future seasons, at least in spirit.
7 Flop: Ritual Weapons
Starting with Shadowkeep and continuing into this season, Pinnacle weapons have been retired and replaced with Ritual weapons instead, offering powerful perk combinations instead of unique perks.
Out of the three new Ritual guns, however, only the Gambit shotgun, Python, is worth the grind. The Vanguard Sidearm has a gimmicky perk attached to it, while the Crucible Linear Fusion Rifle has a damage increasing perk on an archetype that can instantly kill anyway with headshots. It feels like a mistake backtracking on the amazing Pinnacle weapon designs of old like Loaded Question or 21% Delirium.
6 Great: Saint-14
One of the most notorious characters within Destiny’s lore is here for all players to talk to and admire. What is brilliant, however, is how Bungie handled this mythical Titan.
Saint-14 admires you! Your character, your actions, and your neverending will to fight. He raves about how amazing you are in various missions, and he interacts in the actual game in his dedicated story missions. Because of this, he seems like such a grounded character compared to the disconnected and blasé roster we have come to expect.
5 Flop: Déjà Vu
“Season of Opulence” was an obvious template for this season, with Obolisks and the overall progression following the Chalice and Menagerie game mode.
The issue is that “Season of Dawn” does little to improve on this formula. Fewer encounters exist in The Sundial compared to Menagerie, and the boss fights are mostly the same compared to the vastly different fights in The Menagerie. Those who played extensively during Opulence will find this season to be the same thing done again but with less replayability. No Raid or additional endgame activities were added this season either. Obelisks are the main reason this season has held any retention value among semi-casual players.
4 Great: Seasonal Mods
Many will ignore the insane grind to obtain armor that can properly use these new mods, but the “Season of Dawn” mods are fantastic and a great change to the rather stagnant gearing seen so far.
These mods provide either a way to earn or spend a buff called Charged With Light. This can range from gaining damage until you kill an enemy to gaining an insane amount of damage resistance when at critical health. Best of all, these mods are not going away when this season ends, giving a reason to farm good Sundial armor this season. While the artifact mods aren’t as powerful as last season, the “Season of Dawn” armor mods remedies this issue.
3 Flop: Planned Obsolescence
That, unfortunately, leads to my next point. Since Bungie has been focusing on making this content temporary, it means that most of the grind you will do will become obsolete in a matter of months. In other words, every season this year is planned to be obsolete every quarter.
The Sundial, Saint-14’s quests, and the weapons tied to these activities will all go away when this season is over. Because of this, Bungie has to create content that is fun to play but isn’t so engaging that players will want it to stay. Temporary content seems like a fantastic idea to create chatter with friends about “how you should have been there,” but the execution here makes it seem like this ambitious goal is hindering what content could be made.
2 Great: Solar Subclass Changes
Hunters can rejoice that Celestial Nighthawk is no longer mandatory for Gunslinger. Titans can finally enjoy creating sunspots easier. Warlocks have one of the best neutral-game subclasses in the game now.
All of these changes are thanks to the sweeping Solar subclass tweaks that occurred at the start of the season. Hunters can now use bottom tree Golden Gun without Celestial Nighthawk, potentially out damaging it if they land all 3 precision shots. Warlocks can glide nearly forever thanks to the new Dawnblade changes, and Titans have a buffed middle path that can kill nearly every boss in the game with a single throw when Roaring Flames is active.
1 Flop: Bright Dust Economy
If you have visited the Destiny subreddit at all the past few weeks, you might have noticed a lot of discussion revolving around the focus on Eververse—Destiny’s premium cosmetic store.
Most players complain that most of the work each expansion goes into the store. Because of the sheer quantity of items available, players have to farm for dozens of hours to earn enough bright dust to purchase the items without spending real money. After the removal of bright dust in duplicate engram items and the general shift to the cosmetic storefront since New Light released, the entire bright dust economy needs to be revalued before the next season releases. So much content is locked behind Eververse that only an infinitesimally small amount of players will ever get to fully experience, and they only got to experience it because they spent hundreds of dollars at the shop. Exclusive, premium storefronts have no place in a video game dedicated to collecting unique and interesting loot.
NEXT: Destiny 2 Shadowkeep: 10 Things To Do After You Beat The Game
