Destiny 2 has dramatically overhauled its content delivery system as of this year. Rather than one big expansion and 3-4 seasons or episodes, it’s now two smaller expansions and two “Major Updates” going where the seasonal break would have been, three months in.
Now, we’re getting details on the first one, Ash and Iron, courtesy of a new trailer and some additional details in a Bungie blog. Previously, they said it would be an update on par with something like Into the Light, which introduced a new activity, a new slate of gear and Pantheon.
I do think some expectations were mismanaged when it came to a subset of players, ignoring the size of that past release. It felt like people were expecting a sequel to Destiny 1’s Rise of Iron and this is…definitely not that. Though unlike Rise of Iron, this is all free, not requiring Edge of Fate.
Bungie laid out the new additions to the game in Ash and Iron, and while there’s more to see in next week’s reveal, we have the bulk of the information available already. So, what’s in it?
- What does not seem to be happening is the entire old Plaguelands being added as a literal patrol zone to the existing Cosmodrome (which never finished adding all its original sections in the first place). Rather, there is a new activity set there, revealed as “Reclaim the Plaguelands,” albeit I think that’s the goal, not the actual name. We’ve seen this before with past places like the Dreadnaught and the Leviathan coming and going. I would expect nothing different here.
- This Plaguelands activity is a new fireteam ops Portal activity, and I’m not clear yet on how players will be encouraged to play that specifically over other ones, as it does not appear to have its own unique loot pool, exclusive to that activity.
- Dungeon Lairs are being added to the Pinnacle Ops section, which are not actual dungeons, but individual encounters from past dungeons, these include singular encounters from Pit of Heresy, Duality and Warlord’s Ruin. It does not include updated, Tiered weapons from those dungeons, but rather you will just get gear from the overall Pinnacle Ops pool. You can “toggle” the loot to get old dungeon drops that will not be Tiered. Yeesh.
- There is a new exotic mission called Warsat Heist. We only glimpse it, but this plays into the idea that players are not seeing anything relating to SIVA, which was the entire crux of the Rise of Iron Plaguelands storyline, and a plotline players have been begging to return to for years. Now we’re seeing Cabal in the Plaguelands instead of the SIVA-infected Fallen that used to be there. I don’t think we can rule out that Bungie could be hiding some SIVA content in here, maybe that exotic mission, but one thing about these Major Updates is that there is not supposed to be significant story content dropping here in the first place. And Bungie has previously said outright a long time ago that they’re done with SIVA, albeit things can change. Desperate times, and all that.
- There has been much chatter about a Saladin-like axe featured at the end of the trailer and the key art for the update. We have had an axe like this used as a limited-time relic in the past, but at this point, I do believe that this is going to be a unique exotic. Bungie has hinted as much on social media, and you can see how its functionality is different than the actual relic one. So I want to believe.
- Weapons – Bungie is reprising or adding new weapons to the Shared Pool, Trials, Iron Banner and Pinnacle Ops, seven in total. They have redacted what is being added to Solo Ops/Fireteam Ops and Crucible Ops. It stands to reason that it won’t be more than 2-3 each there either. I’m not exactly clear if the entire past slate of weapons is being wiped from being earned entirely, I wouldn’t think so, but then the pool would be pretty diluted. Same for armor.
- Armor – There are four armor suits being added, though the one they’ve shown off appears to just be a reskinned version of the existing Solo/Fireteam Ops one, albeit with a different set bonus. The ones from Crucible, Iron Banner and the Raid are redacted. They’re adding a second raid set? Odd. There is no exotic armor being added, making just three new pieces in six months. In the last three months we saw about four Eververse armor sets added, and I would not be surprised if we had a similar number this time.
I am not going to go through the enormous sandbox update and Portal changes that are a few thousand words, but you can read them in the sandbox post here and the TWAB here.
A lot of players seem disappointed with all this, but I can’t say this isn’t approximately what I was expecting with the previous expectation setting by Bungie. It may not be what the game needs to boost player morale, and it’s sure not a new season, but we’ll see how it goes next Tuesday.
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