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This week at Bungie, we are but days away from the launch of The Witch Queen.
We’re finally here. The last TWAB before The Witch Queen. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been touching on new systems arriving on February 22, picking through some quality of life changes for the rituals you engage with, and even spending some time with the team in a full-length ViDoc to set the stage for what’s coming. We have a few topics left to cover, but only a few days stand between you and the next chapter of Destiny 2.
Season of the Lost is wrapping up this week. No better way than with a final mission to tee-up our next expansion. Have you played through it yet? No? Well, get in there! We know The Witch Queen is coming, but this is a fun close to the Season that you won’t want to miss. As a note, the team has been investigating a few issues with the activity since it went live. You may need to play it a few times for the quest to complete, and we ask that if you’re matchmaking in, please don’t skip the cutscene! Outside of that, we also have an Exotic ship to cap off the season that we’ll be distributing at a later date to players who own Season of the Lost. Stay tuned for updates.
If you’ve completed the mission and already reading this TWAB, I’d assume you’re gobbling up every bit of information you can before release. Have you seen the launch trailer yet? I hope so! If not, let’s take a moment to roll the tape and listen to some slick music. If you’d still like to go in completely spoiler-free, this is your final warning.
Truth be told, I’ve been replaying this trailer in my head for the last week or so. What does it all mean!? Well, we’ll all find out next week when the expansion goes live. If you’re looking for just a little more video content to watch, we also released a fun mini-ViDoc exploring the creation of Glaives, the new weapon type coming to Destiny 2 with The Witch Queen.
It’s always a pleasure to get the team out to talk about their beautiful creations. I’ve said it before, but they really do make magic out of math. Multiple teams collaborating through conversation, code, and ridiculous amounts of talent to create the weapons (and worlds) that you enjoy in Destiny 2. For our final TWAB before launch, we have a few goodies in store. The team will be running us through upcoming changes and tuning to Gambit, we’ll take a quick glance through patch notes for a final preview, an updated Twitch emblem coming next week, and a fun SteelSeries partnership to talk through.
Let’s get to it!
...I really need to find another way to transition from TWAB intros, don’t I?
A few months back, the development team walked through our first ritual update, focused on Trials of Osiris. When you look at it, there weren’t numerous changes, but targeted pieces of tuning and adjustments to push a healthier experience. Engram focusing and Trials Ranks were introduced to help players earn that sweet piece of loot they’ve always wanted, even if they weren’t winning many matches. Minor changes to passages and matchmaking were made to help get more players into Trials. Freelance and Labs weekends continue as we gather valuable data to inform the future of the mode. At the end of the day, Trials is still Elimination and Saint is still a badass. With Gambit, or any mode we may update in the future, you can expect a similar approach.
Today, Principal Designer Alan Blaine will be joining us to break down our goals for Gambit, and what changes the team is making to get us to where we want to be.
Here’s a quick roundup of patch notes for next Tuesday. Think of this as a kitchen sink of patch notes. A little bit of everything.
Ritual Rewards
Returning Crucible Maps
Eververse
Pictured: New Universal Armor Ornament sets, available through Eververse starting on February 22.
Season Pass Changes
Shattered Throne: "Thrallway”
Boss Stomps
Next week, we’ll have a full roundup of patch notes available for you to read through. Time is currently TBD, but our goal is to give you some light reading before launch.
Looking for more details? Head over to the Bungie Store or SteelSeries page for full rundowns on each product. You might even notice a few cosmetic incentives offered with these products!
Back when the 30th Anniversary pack went live, we introduced a new Twitch Subscription bounty emblem for players to earn. It’s been wonderful seeing so many Dreissigste emblems in post-game credit reports and Crucible lobbies. Don’t know what a Twitch bounty is? Head over here for all the details on our Destiny 2 Twitch Extension and how you can qualify for some fun rewards.
With the release of The Witch Queen, we felt it would be a fun time to introduce a new emblem. Starting at 9 AM Pacific on February 22, completing the Twitch Sub bounty will award players the Long Live the Queen emblem.
This can be collected from Amanda Holliday in the Tower once available! Make sure your Bungie.net account is linked up, and stay tuned for announcements of availability.
This is their report.
Known Issues List | Help Forums | Bungie Help Twitter
WITCH QUEEN RELEASE SCHEDULE
To prepare for the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, Destiny 2 will undergo scheduled downtime from 6:45 PM PST (0245 UTC) on February 21 to 9 AM PST (1700 UTC) on February 22. Below is the scheduled timeline for this release:
Players using the PS4 version of Destiny 2 will be required to download all associated Destiny 2 Required Content before playing The Witch Queen. These can be downloaded by launching Destiny 2 after the 4.0.0.1 patch is released. After the downloads have started, you can safely close the game and the Required Content downloads will continue in the background during our maintenance downtime.
The PS4 download of Destiny 2 and all Required Content will be large, but players will have a smaller installation size once the download is complete. This should help improve the download and install of future PS4 patches.
For more information, please visit our Destiny Server and Update Status help article.
EXORCISM
Earlier this week, the Exorcism final Seasonal mission of Season of the Lost was released. We are continuing to investigate issues with completions of the Exorcism mission, and encourage players who observe issues during the activity to report them to our #Help forum. Here are some updates from our investigation surrounding some of these issues:
WAYFINDER’S COMPASS ROTATION
We have updated the mod rotation of the Wayfinder’s Compass inventory from a weekly rotation to a two-day rotation until the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22. The inventory will now rotate on the following days at the daily reset:
LAST CHANCE BUNGIE REWARDS
As we are taking extended downtime prior to the launch of The Witch Queen, players looking to earn certain Bungie Rewards should complete the associated in-game achievement before 7 PM PST (0300) on February 21.
For a full list of affected rewards please see the Player Support Report from February 10.
TWITCH GIFT SUBS BOUNTY REWARDS
On February 22, 2022, the Twitch Gift Subs bounty rewards will be updated with The Witch Queen. Players who are looking to obtain the current Dreissigste emblem should complete the Twitch Gift Sub bounty and claim their reward in-game before scheduled downtime at 7 PM PST (0300 UTC) on February 21.
For more information regarding the Twitch extension, please visit our Twitch Extension help article.
WEAPON CYCLING/YEAR 4 CONTENT VAULTING
With the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, certain activities, quests, destinations, items, and weapons from past Season and expansions will become unavailable to access or earn.
For a full list of vaulted, deprecated, or unearnable content, please visit the Player Support Report from the February 3 TWAB.
KNOWN ISSUES
While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:
For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.
Sam: AHHHHHH! *deep breaths* How are we so close to The Witch Queen launching? It feels like yesterday I – wait a minute, you aren’t here for me, you are here for the Movie of the Week. Here you go!
Movie of the Week: Destiny 2: 30th Anniversary Weaponry Trailer
Movie of the Week: JoJo's Destiny Adventure Opening
Please don’t forget to tag us on Twitter and use the hashtags #MOTW and #Destiny2Art!
Hippy: Before Savathûn takes over our TWABs like she seems to have done over on the official Destiny 2 Twitter account, lemme just slide right in here and show off some cool art from the community. We’ve got some fire and death with a splash of pain, and then a cozy little piece of stitching art as a nice palette cleanser. Because those are important. Like eating your vegetables and so forth and so on.
Anyway, today – we art!
Art of the Week: The Witch Queen
Art of the Week: Cross Stitch Emblems
Oh wait, there’s more?! That’s right, Guardians, BONUS ROUND:
Art of the Week: The Stag
Feel those creative juices flowing? Then be sure to tag #AOTW and #Destiny2Art for your chance to shine in that glorious community spotlight.
The promise of new loot always drives some excitement, but it’s the wonder and mystery of it all that truly resonates. Moments of discovery are potent. Sometimes it’s easier to recite the first encounter with a crazy boss, or the moment a godroll dropped into your hands, than it is to remember a sibling's birthday. We’re excited to hear about your upcoming journeys through the campaign. We’re excited to watch as you craft your first weapon. We can’t wait to hear people scream in terror while attempting to revive a teammate during a Legendary mission. Just a few more days left, and it will all be in your hands.
Thank you for playing, and cheers for being one of the best communities on this planet.
Much love, and see you starside. - dmg04
We’re finally here. The last TWAB before The Witch Queen. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been touching on new systems arriving on February 22, picking through some quality of life changes for the rituals you engage with, and even spending some time with the team in a full-length ViDoc to set the stage for what’s coming. We have a few topics left to cover, but only a few days stand between you and the next chapter of Destiny 2.
Season of the Lost is wrapping up this week. No better way than with a final mission to tee-up our next expansion. Have you played through it yet? No? Well, get in there! We know The Witch Queen is coming, but this is a fun close to the Season that you won’t want to miss. As a note, the team has been investigating a few issues with the activity since it went live. You may need to play it a few times for the quest to complete, and we ask that if you’re matchmaking in, please don’t skip the cutscene! Outside of that, we also have an Exotic ship to cap off the season that we’ll be distributing at a later date to players who own Season of the Lost. Stay tuned for updates.
If you’ve completed the mission and already reading this TWAB, I’d assume you’re gobbling up every bit of information you can before release. Have you seen the launch trailer yet? I hope so! If not, let’s take a moment to roll the tape and listen to some slick music. If you’d still like to go in completely spoiler-free, this is your final warning.
Truth be told, I’ve been replaying this trailer in my head for the last week or so. What does it all mean!? Well, we’ll all find out next week when the expansion goes live. If you’re looking for just a little more video content to watch, we also released a fun mini-ViDoc exploring the creation of Glaives, the new weapon type coming to Destiny 2 with The Witch Queen.
It’s always a pleasure to get the team out to talk about their beautiful creations. I’ve said it before, but they really do make magic out of math. Multiple teams collaborating through conversation, code, and ridiculous amounts of talent to create the weapons (and worlds) that you enjoy in Destiny 2. For our final TWAB before launch, we have a few goodies in store. The team will be running us through upcoming changes and tuning to Gambit, we’ll take a quick glance through patch notes for a final preview, an updated Twitch emblem coming next week, and a fun SteelSeries partnership to talk through.
Let’s get to it!
...I really need to find another way to transition from TWAB intros, don’t I?
Alright, Alright, Alright. Time for Gambit.
Drifter’s hungry. No, not for Hive, but for the spotlight. Well, maybe some Hive too... but let’s focus on gameplay. As we continue to improve and iterate on the rituals of Destiny 2, Gambit is taking center stage. This isn’t a teardown and rebuilding of an existing mode, but a moment for our teams to realign on goals and how we’re serving up the goods to our players.A few months back, the development team walked through our first ritual update, focused on Trials of Osiris. When you look at it, there weren’t numerous changes, but targeted pieces of tuning and adjustments to push a healthier experience. Engram focusing and Trials Ranks were introduced to help players earn that sweet piece of loot they’ve always wanted, even if they weren’t winning many matches. Minor changes to passages and matchmaking were made to help get more players into Trials. Freelance and Labs weekends continue as we gather valuable data to inform the future of the mode. At the end of the day, Trials is still Elimination and Saint is still a badass. With Gambit, or any mode we may update in the future, you can expect a similar approach.
Today, Principal Designer Alan Blaine will be joining us to break down our goals for Gambit, and what changes the team is making to get us to where we want to be.
Alan: When we added Gambit back in Forsaken, in the Fall of 2018 (was it really three and a half years ago?), we were closing a gap in Destiny pursuits. We had lots of places in the game to shoot aliens in the face (or juicebox), and we had places where you could face off against other Guardians, but we had no place where you could face off against other Guardians BY shooting aliens in the face. Fundamentally, Gambit is a PvEHordeFirefight mode, culminating in a race to kill the boss first. Meanwhile, you can throw small and large roadblocks in front of the other team racing you, or BE the roadblock by invading opponents, powered up and loaded for bear.
Later that year, we added Gambit Prime — a souped-up Gambit with armor-based player roles — and then it really didn't change much for a couple of years. With Beyond Light, we streamlined both versions into what Gambit is today, combining some of the best parts of the original Gambit and Gambit Prime without attempting to transform the mode, or address much of the feedback Gambit had generated over the years. Over the last few months, we've taken a pass on Gambit to address said feedback and realign the mode with many of its original goals.
Ultimately, we believe it is important that in Gambit:
- You can showcase both your skill at fighting in Destiny, and the variety and focus of your arsenal. It should be just as inherently fun and rewarding to shoot aliens in the face in Gambit as it is elsewhere.
- A good invader should be able to turn the tide of a match, but a good invader should be no more important than any other equally-skilled team member. A good invader does not have to mean a PvP God loaded up with the best tracking/one-hit-kill weaponry.
- Players defending against invaders should have ample tools to fight invaders without worrying about using up ammunition dealing with tougher enemies. And players should have methods for recovering from a devastating invade.
- It should be rare that a match is out of your hands as a player, or that an outcome is pre-ordained early in the match.
- Working together with your team to overcome tough enemies — the Primeval, a high-value target, or an invader — should feel as gratifying as a hard Nightfall.
While we don't always hit those marks, Gambit has a healthy and stable population. Ultimately, we want to make Gambit more appealing to a wider audience by addressing points of player feedback and improving upon what exists, without changing the core nature of the mode. Our hope is that this leads to more players engaging, for longer. Upcoming changes fall into five categories:
- Core Activity
- Ammo Economy
- Primeval Tuning
- Invasions
- Rewards
Core Activity Changes
These changes are all about enhancing teamwork or making the mode easier to play and understand.
- Freelance node added.
- We think it's important that players feel like they always have a chance at winning, and we see over and over again that full stacks of friends or clanmates have a significant advantage over groups of solo matchmade opponents.
- The modes we have added Freelance nodes to (Iron Banner, Glory, and Trials of Osiris) all feel like they end up with more balanced matches more often, even as they increase and split the number of matchmaking pools.
- We are investigating ways to remove the need for Freelance nodes that split the population, and hope to have something for you later this year.
- In the meantime, the ability to queue for Gambit Freelance should be very useful.
- Rotating seasonal selection of curated encounters starting in Season 16.
- In Classic Gambit/Prime, you got a randomly selected encounter from a list of three for each enemy race, on each map. In Beyond Light, due to production issues, we were only able to bring one of the three variations forward into the new activity. Those issues have been fixed, and we are now bringing the missing variations forward.
- Playing with the single variation for race/map for a year led us to an interesting observation: it's FUN to know that 'Hive on Pacifica' means "Oh, god, those Shriekers" and to learn the spawns and master them over time.
- Maybe not interesting for an entire year, but we think it will be interesting to have a set rotation of spawns for a Season and over those three months, really master each encounter.
- So, no more Shriekers on Pacifica for now, but they will be back later in the year!
- Respawn points added to all Fronts (sections of maps where enemies could cycle in or out).
- It can be frustrating to always have to run all the way from the backfield after spawning before you are able to help teammates, fight the invader, collect dropped Motes, etc.
- It can also be very frustrating as an invader to always spawn at the same location on the same map multiple times in a row, or to have the invader camp the entrance to avoid confrontation.
- More respawn points spread throughout Fronts should help you get back into the action faster, and provide for less predictable spawn points during Invasions.
- Players always drop half the Motes they were carrying when they are defeated.
- These can be picked up by anyone, including invaders! Invaders can also drop more Motes now!
- This makes recovering from a ruthless invader (or bad luck fighting enemies) a little easier.
- Players can be revived by other players two seconds earlier, and auto-respawn is delayed two seconds.
- We want to emphasize and reward teamwork as much as possible — bringing your teammate back (and saving them a run) now is even easier.
- This change should also reduce the frustrating moments of teammates being forced to respawn as you’re halfway through the revive interact.
- When your teammate dies and you run to grab their dropped Motes, stop for a second and revive them, will ya?
- All shields have increasing resistance to non-matching damage types.
- While not as severe as Match Game resistance in Nightfalls, we wanted a way to promote buildcrafting and teamwork.
- "Rules of Gambit" node added to the launch screen, and numerous Gambit-specific hints have been added to the load screen.
- Gambit can be a bit opaque to newcomers — this should give them a leg up.
Blockers, Draining, and the Bank
While we didn't do any drastic adjustments here, we have a few tweaks we think will increase interesting decisions both when sending and battling Blockers, and hopefully remove the feeling of helplessness as you pour ammo into three Knights as all of your Motes drain away.
- 10 Mote Phalanx Blocker has its health boosted a bit.
- While they are a good positional challenge with their shield and knockback, we felt like they weren't quite tough enough for their Mote cost compared to the Knight, so we increased their health.
- 15 Mote Knight Blocker gains a Stasis attack.
- We originally planned to pull its health down some as we felt it was a little too beef for 15 Motes, but with the ammo changes below, we didn't find the current health onerous in playtesting.
- We did think they could be more tactically interesting with a Stasis attack without necessarily making them more deadly or harder to kill.
- Mote drain from multiple Blockers continues even if the opposing team is in Primeval phase.
- This will help the team that is behind get to the Primeval a little quicker – it's never felt great to send over four Blockers only to have the enemy team ignore them, all while still being severely behind.
- This also gives the team in the lead a bit more incentive to kill Blockers during their Primeval phase.
- Mote drain is paused if a player is near the bank and engaging Blockers.
- It never feels great to have your Motes draining away while you pour Primary ammo into three Taken Knights.
Ammo Economy
Our goal for these changes are to make a more predictable and equal baseline of Special and Heavy ammo among all players. We will be watching both feedback and analytics around ammo gain and usage rates, and we’ll continue to make tweaks if these aren't enough to make fair matches.
- When completing a Front, a chest containing a small amount of Special and Heavy ammo spawns in the middle of the Front and can be looted once by each player.
- It times out 20 seconds after the initial interact, so you still can't dilly-dally.
- Killing a high-value target spawns one normal Heavy brick for each player.
- During the Primeval phase, ammo chests spawn in one of the Fronts every 60 seconds.
- This replaces the regular Front ammo chests - but you still need to find the time to go grab it!
- Limited Special and Heavy ammo bricks to only spawn from enemies if you have finder mods equipped.
- Other ammo Exotics and perks, like Aeon Cult still work.
The Primeval Fight
The Primeval fight is the ultimate challenge of Gambit. It should feel like an epic boss fight and be long enough for the opposing team to get off some invades to counter strong DPS. It should have more to do than simply burning the boss as quickly as possible (and turn in place to kill Envoys every once in a while). Its mechanics shouldn't be complex but should require about as much tactical play as a high-end strike boss.
- Primeval health and Slayer stack bonus retuned.
- Burning the boss after three rounds of Envoys should be just as easy as it is now, but burning him after just one or two rounds should be significantly more work.
- Envoys now spawn with friends out in the Fronts, rather than in the bank area.
- They have reduced health, and are no longer affected by Slayer stacks, and have varied elemental shields.
- Killing the Envoys to get Slayer stacks will require movement, dealing with the Envoy’s protectors, and dealing with their elemental shield.
- Envoys put an invulnerability shield on Primeval.
- You must kill them both to remove it and damage the Primeval, forcing your team to go out and invade.
- Envoys respawn at 30% of the Primeval damage done.
- This increases by 10% every Envoy respawn, and Envoys stop spawning after the fifth spawn.
- The Primeval Servitor boss is removed, since its custom shielding mechanics conflicted with the new mechanics.
- The Malfeasance quest starts on the first Primeval kill.
With the tuning changes above, the Motes phase is significantly quicker, and the Primeval phase longer. You should expect matches to be just about as long as they are now, but we will be watching to make sure they aren't too short or too long.
Invasions
As we said above, a good invader should be able to turn the tide of a match, but a good invader should be no more important than any other equally-skilled team member. We don't want a single good invader to completely dominate match outcome — and they certainly can right now. However, we still want a good invader to be able to delay a strong PvE team from finishing off the Primeval.
- Level advantage is “now” disabled for Invader PvP.
- It has actually been like this since the start of Beyond Light. Surprise!
- One of the Mote phase invasions has been removed.
- Invasions now trigger at 40 and 80 Mote thresholds.
- Primeval phase invasions are unchanged.
- Invasions can no longer be saved up.
- Use it or lose it, pal.
- Invader no longer can see how many Motes enemy players are carrying, and player nameplates fade out when the Invader is aiming down their sights.
- You can still see players through walls, just not while you are engaging your rocket tracking, or using your sniper zoom.
- We found a bug with how the Primeval heal effect was being applied, which depending on the sequence and timing of kills, would heal the Primeval for somewhere between 5 and 35%.
- We fixed it, and now invader kills heal the Primeval for exactly 27% every time.
- This sounds like a LOT but is actually less than the optimal amount prior. We will be watching feedback and analytics very closely on this one and will retune as necessary.
Rewards
Gambit is the second of the core rituals (after Trials of Osiris) to get comprehensive engram focusing options.
- Focusing
- You can focus the Gambit engram into either 'Gambit Armor' or 'Gambit Weapons' for 10,000 Glimmer and 50 Legendary Shards.
- Gambit Weapons includes: Crowd Pleaser, Bottom Dollar, Trinary System, Borrowed Time, and Servant Leader.
- Brand new Gambit weapons are drop-only for a single Season, and are then available for focusing.
- We expect to expand Drifter's focusing options further during upcoming Seasons.
- Other Drifter Changes
- Bygones/Trust/Bad Omens have been removed from the vendor.
- End Match Drops
- There is a Gambit memento for weapon crafting that can drop after any match.
- Older Gambit shaders now have a small chance of dropping at the end of each match.
- Primeval Servitor cosmetic drops can now drop at the end of any match.
- The Furtive Shell ghost can now drop at the end of any match.
Yes, you can expect more rituals to get this treatment throughout the year, but we do not currently have any specific dates to share just yet. Stay tuned!
The Future and Gambit Labs
There are a few things eagle-eyed readers might notice are missing from the above. Don't fret, we do have a timeline for future changes!
- The daily Gambit bounty objectives are generally fine, but some of the repeatable bounties have some onerous completion requirements.
- We are taking a pass on these, though they won't all come at once.
- Sometime this Season, we will be adjusting the completion amounts of most Gambit repeatable bounties.
- (Weapon kills drop from 25 to 15, melee and grenade kills from 25 to 5, and Super kills from 15 to 10).
- In Season 17, we will be making additional tuning changes, as well as adding three new bounties.
- Throughout the year, we will also be adding bounties specific to Light 3.0 updates.
Gambit Labs: Invasion Edition
We also have a couple of Gambit Labs that play with some of the core invasion concepts. These will run for one week each and will take over the base Gambit nodes.
- Invasion Swap
- This Labs variation plays around with who gets to benefit from triggered invasions.
- During Motes phase, instead of opening your own invasion portal at 40 and 80 Motes, you instead open your opponent's invasion portal.
- We expect this to completely disrupt the accepted meta for how and when to deposit and invade. We're looking forward to seeing the clever strategies and counterstrategies you will develop.
- Mote Thief
- Fundamentally, the original concept of the invader was Guardian as Taken Terror, overpowered and dangerous — something new to have to fight. While that is very compelling, we don't believe it is the only compelling invader fantasy. We believe the sneaky Mote Thief is worth exploring, too. Maybe there are more?
- Normal Mote drain from having two blockers is disabled.
- Instead, every second the invader is invading, one Mote drains directly from your bank to the invader's bank.
What About Trials? And What's Next?
Fear not, Trials fans, while our main focus for Season 16 is Gambit, we still have some fun changes planned.
- As we discussed earlier this Season we are going to continue to liberally schedule Capture Zone and Freelance weekends, as well as a few reputation updates coming.
- For Season 16, we are moving to a schedule of seven maps for the Season — one of which you will get to decide! Expect a survey to come out in the next few weeks to vote on the final map.
- We also have some Adept reward changes coming for Season 17. We’ll preview those later in the Season.
"What's next?" you might ask. We are still ironing out the details, so we don't have anything to share today, not even a lore drop. However, we are planning to make the next four Seasons a banner year for rituals, and we hope our Season 17 plans will spark joy for everyone.
We hope all the Guardians that love (or fear!) Gambit give the mode another try once The Witch Queen launches. We've really enjoyed playtesting it, and we're going to be listening to your feedback and making adjustments.
Final Patch Note Preview
Here’s a quick roundup of patch notes for next Tuesday. Think of this as a kitchen sink of patch notes. A little bit of everything.
Ritual Rewards
- Starting with The Witch Queen, ritual playlist rewards will be updated to grant ritual specific gear (weapons, mods, armor) and no longer be granting rewards from the general world pool.
- Crucible will grant Crucible gear, Vanguard will grant Vanguard gear, and Gambit will grant Gambit gear.
- Engram focusing is currently only available on Saint-14 and the Drifter for their ritual specific engrams.
- World engrams will continue to be granted at major ranks on ritual vendors, just for a little variety.
- Gambit, Crucible, and Vanguard rituals are receiving updated armor rewards for a new expansion release.
- These share the same base appearance but have slight differences in decals and coloring to represent each ritual.
Returning Crucible Maps
- Eternity and Vostok return to the Crucible on February 22, 2022.
Eververse
- No changes.
- Wait, what? Seriously?
- Yeah, there are no systematic changes to the Eververse.
- There will be new cosmetic items available for Silver and Bright Dust, but no systematic changes to the experience.
- But what about Bright Dust? Any changes to how much players will be earning?
- There are no changes to Bright Dust acquisition or totals compared to that of Season 15.
- Players will continue to earn Bright Dust from Seasonal Challenges, repeatable bounties on specific vendors, and through the Season Pass.
- Please note: This week brings the final drop of 700 Bright Dust in celebration of our 30th Anniversary. Make sure to redeem this offer in the Eververse storefront before it’s gone!
Pictured: New Universal Armor Ornament sets, available through Eververse starting on February 22.
Season Pass Changes
- High-stat Seasonal armor has been reintroduced.
- Individual pieces are awarded between ranks 57 and 87.
- Legendary Engrams have been replaced with focused Umbral Engrams.
- Five in total. Each focused to a different armor piece (arms, legs, chest, class, and head).
- All Umbral Engrams are tier 2.
- The Season Pass emblem has been removed, but we have introduced a Season Pass Sparrow.
- The Season Pass scrounger bonuses (bonuses which increased Seasonal weapon/armor drop chances in ritual activities) have been overhauled.
- The weapon scrounger bonuses are no longer separated by weapon type or ritual activity. They now apply to both Season Pass Legendary weapons and all activities at once.
- Two weapon scrounger bonuses instead of six.
- The first bonus grants the player a small chance to receive the weapons from ritual activities. The second bonus gives an improved chance.
- Total drop chance is unchanged from previous Seasons.
- The armor scrounger bonuses are no longer separated by ritual activity. It now applies to all activities at once.
- One armor scrounger bonus instead of three.
- Like the weapon, the total drop chance for each armor piece is unchanged.
- Aside from the emblem, no items have been removed from the Season Pass, only added.
- A number of rewards such as Glimmer and Legendary Shards have been consolidated to make room for high-stat armor.
- A small amount of Upgrade Modules have been added.
- The order some rewards are acquired has been tuned to accommodate the above changes.
Shattered Throne: "Thrallway”
- Fixed an issue where Shadow Thrall in The Shattered Throne were unintentionally granting investment rewards, such as Glimmer, engrams, and XP.
- As players begin to craft weapons and level up their Season Pass on February 22, we want to ensure gameplay rewards are earned by playing and completing activities, bounties, or just hanging out with friends in patrols while defeating minions of the Darkness.
Boss Stomps
- Adjusted the physics knockback for boss stomps.
- This
willshould result in fewer deaths from being knocked into objects.
Next week, we’ll have a full roundup of patch notes available for you to read through. Time is currently TBD, but our goal is to give you some light reading before launch.
SteelSeries - Destiny Collection
Earlier this week, we announced a new collaboration with SteelSeries! If you’re looking for some new gaming peripherals, we’ve got just the thing(s) for you. Now, don’t worry, you don’t need to be a PvP legend to take advantage of these. Sometimes you just want a cool looking headset, mouse, or mousepad to use while jamming on homework or doing some work from home.Looking for more details? Head over to the Bungie Store or SteelSeries page for full rundowns on each product. You might even notice a few cosmetic incentives offered with these products!
Long Live the Queen - Twitch Subscription Bounty
Back when the 30th Anniversary pack went live, we introduced a new Twitch Subscription bounty emblem for players to earn. It’s been wonderful seeing so many Dreissigste emblems in post-game credit reports and Crucible lobbies. Don’t know what a Twitch bounty is? Head over here for all the details on our Destiny 2 Twitch Extension and how you can qualify for some fun rewards.
With the release of The Witch Queen, we felt it would be a fun time to introduce a new emblem. Starting at 9 AM Pacific on February 22, completing the Twitch Sub bounty will award players the Long Live the Queen emblem.
This can be collected from Amanda Holliday in the Tower once available! Make sure your Bungie.net account is linked up, and stay tuned for announcements of availability.
Get Out of My Swamp
Looking for pre-load timelines or general expansion launch support? Destiny Player Support is on tap to guide you through our final descent into madness. If you’re a PlayStation 4 player, we have some very important news for you as we approach launch day.This is their report.
Known Issues List | Help Forums | Bungie Help Twitter
WITCH QUEEN RELEASE SCHEDULE
To prepare for the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, Destiny 2 will undergo scheduled downtime from 6:45 PM PST (0245 UTC) on February 21 to 9 AM PST (1700 UTC) on February 22. Below is the scheduled timeline for this release:
- February 21, 6:45 PM PST (0245 UTC): Destiny 2 is brought offline.
- February 21, 7 PM (0300 UTC): Pre-load for Update 4.0.0.1 will be available on all platforms.
- February 22, 9 AM (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 will be brought back online. Update 4.0.0.1 will be playable on all platforms and regions.
- February 22, 10 AM (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is scheduled to complete.
Players using the PS4 version of Destiny 2 will be required to download all associated Destiny 2 Required Content before playing The Witch Queen. These can be downloaded by launching Destiny 2 after the 4.0.0.1 patch is released. After the downloads have started, you can safely close the game and the Required Content downloads will continue in the background during our maintenance downtime.
The PS4 download of Destiny 2 and all Required Content will be large, but players will have a smaller installation size once the download is complete. This should help improve the download and install of future PS4 patches.
For more information, please visit our Destiny Server and Update Status help article.
EXORCISM
Earlier this week, the Exorcism final Seasonal mission of Season of the Lost was released. We are continuing to investigate issues with completions of the Exorcism mission, and encourage players who observe issues during the activity to report them to our #Help forum. Here are some updates from our investigation surrounding some of these issues:
- Progression can be blocked if moving too quickly on the bridge encounter. Double back if blocked.
- Don’t skip the final cutscene.
- We have disabled the option to join this activity in progress via matchmaking.
WAYFINDER’S COMPASS ROTATION
We have updated the mod rotation of the Wayfinder’s Compass inventory from a weekly rotation to a two-day rotation until the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22. The inventory will now rotate on the following days at the daily reset:
- February 16
- February 18
- February 20
LAST CHANCE BUNGIE REWARDS
As we are taking extended downtime prior to the launch of The Witch Queen, players looking to earn certain Bungie Rewards should complete the associated in-game achievement before 7 PM PST (0300) on February 21.
For a full list of affected rewards please see the Player Support Report from February 10.
TWITCH GIFT SUBS BOUNTY REWARDS
On February 22, 2022, the Twitch Gift Subs bounty rewards will be updated with The Witch Queen. Players who are looking to obtain the current Dreissigste emblem should complete the Twitch Gift Sub bounty and claim their reward in-game before scheduled downtime at 7 PM PST (0300 UTC) on February 21.
For more information regarding the Twitch extension, please visit our Twitch Extension help article.
WEAPON CYCLING/YEAR 4 CONTENT VAULTING
With the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, certain activities, quests, destinations, items, and weapons from past Season and expansions will become unavailable to access or earn.
For a full list of vaulted, deprecated, or unearnable content, please visit the Player Support Report from the February 3 TWAB.
KNOWN ISSUES
While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:
- The Hunter Tempest Strike melee shockwaves can’t pass through doorways.
- The Hunter Virtuous Cloak appears rigid when worn.
For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.
Lights, Camera (almost) The Witch Queen!
Sam: AHHHHHH! *deep breaths* How are we so close to The Witch Queen launching? It feels like yesterday I – wait a minute, you aren’t here for me, you are here for the Movie of the Week. Here you go!
Movie of the Week: Destiny 2: 30th Anniversary Weaponry Trailer
Movie of the Week: JoJo's Destiny Adventure Opening
Please don’t forget to tag us on Twitter and use the hashtags #MOTW and #Destiny2Art!
To Art or Not to Art, Not Really a Question
Hippy: Before Savathûn takes over our TWABs like she seems to have done over on the official Destiny 2 Twitter account, lemme just slide right in here and show off some cool art from the community. We’ve got some fire and death with a splash of pain, and then a cozy little piece of stitching art as a nice palette cleanser. Because those are important. Like eating your vegetables and so forth and so on.
Anyway, today – we art!
Art of the Week: The Witch Queen
Just cant wait for Feb 22th 22, Hail to the Witch queen! #Destiny2Art #AOTW #Destiny2 pic.twitter.com/I8L8J5bVCf
— 赤木真明 (@Kzcjimmy) February 16, 2022
Art of the Week: Cross Stitch Emblems
Frame is done...time to start putting the emblems in!#destiny1cal #crossstitch pic.twitter.com/nEywCvuc4P
— Jay C [FFC] (@BlueCrew86) January 21, 2022
Oh wait, there’s more?! That’s right, Guardians, BONUS ROUND:
Art of the Week: The Stag
I’m going to take some pics with better lighting but I couldn’t wait to share my finished @DestinyTheGame helmet “The Stag”. A combination of 3D printing, and clay sculpting and yes, it’s full sized and wearable! @A_dmg04 @DirtyEffinHippy @Cozmo23 #gaming #Destiny2 #cosplay pic.twitter.com/Cp71Lwv6EZ
— Rob (@GROBert_Busey) February 5, 2022
Feel those creative juices flowing? Then be sure to tag #AOTW and #Destiny2Art for your chance to shine in that glorious community spotlight.
Soon...
I was just thinking the other day, many of us have been here for nearly 16 Seasons of Destiny 2 content, and even more of that space-magic-goodness if you turn back the clock to the launch of Destiny 1. Even after so much time, the feeling of a Destiny release is like no other.The promise of new loot always drives some excitement, but it’s the wonder and mystery of it all that truly resonates. Moments of discovery are potent. Sometimes it’s easier to recite the first encounter with a crazy boss, or the moment a godroll dropped into your hands, than it is to remember a sibling's birthday. We’re excited to hear about your upcoming journeys through the campaign. We’re excited to watch as you craft your first weapon. We can’t wait to hear people scream in terror while attempting to revive a teammate during a Legendary mission. Just a few more days left, and it will all be in your hands.
Thank you for playing, and cheers for being one of the best communities on this planet.
Much love, and see you starside. - dmg04