This week Bungie dropped a ton of details regarding what players can expect when Destiny 2: Forsaken launches in just a few weeks. The changes are wide-reaching and cover every aspect of the game, answering the questions and requests players have had for months now.
Power Acquisition
For most players, the biggest change will be how Power acquisition is changes. As we detailed during our month of Forsaken coverage, milestones (now renamed challenges) are changing significantly, both in quantity and quality. Bungie went a little deeper into these changes, detailing how different activities will offer different ranges of powerful rewards.
Raids, for example, will offer far more powerful rewards than just about anything else, and the weaker you are compared to that activity’s power level, the stronger the rewards will be. “If you manage to beat the raid while 40 Power under the recommended level, you should expect to receive more potent rewards,” the blog states. However, activities that are supposed to give powerful rewards will always give you something to power you up, so even if you’re high above that activity’s level, you’ll still get a little something for your trouble. “This means that players should still benefit when grouping with teammates who haven’t accomplished as much as they have,” the blog states. Exotic drops will also once again become powerful rewards.
Strikes are also being heavily reworked. Heroic strikes are gone, replaced with a more stratified difficulty system that offers 300, 400, and 500-power strikes for players to engage with, with options disappearing after you are 40 power above the threshold (save for the 500 strike playlist). These new strikes will have modifiers, integrating some of the feature set from Heroics.
Nightfalls are also getting some changes. Prestige difficulty is gone, but regular Nightfalls are now much harder. Players can now also choose one of three Nightfalls every week, letting them chance strike-specific rewards.
Meditations, which most players rarely engaged with in year one, are being replaced with a Heroic story playlist, with missions tiered depending on their time of release. Heroic adventures are also being added to locations marked as that week’s flashpoint challenge. Both of these revamped activities will also feature modifiers.
Multiplayer
Bungie showed off how it plans to make Crucible matches a bit more frantic by making players more powerful. As they announced last week, time-to-kill will be faster in the Crucible once Forsaken launches. A good illustration of how much quicker it will be are melee attacks, which will now kill in two hits instead of three. Powered-up melee moves, such as Titan charges, will now kill in one hit. Critical damage is now also increased, which means three headshots from a Better Devils now means death.
There are a few other changes coming to multiplayer as well. Starting in season four, Iron Banner will once again incorporate power levels into player damage and defense. Additionally, scoring a power play in these control matches will lock down all control points (which are now Iron Temple fire pits) for 20 seconds, giving the team who scores one free reign to score three points per kill and encouraging teams to prevent being on the wrong side of one.
Two other timely events, Faction Rallies and Trials of the Nine, are being sidelined for season four. Both are being removed so the teams behind them can retool and improve them for a later date.
Eververse
The Eververse, Destiny 2’s item economy with some ties to microtransactions, is also getting some changes.
Players can now get bounty notes form Bright Engrams (the rewards players get for “leveling up” after reaching the level cap), which offer Bright Dust used to purchase cosmetic items without real money. These bounties now tie into the Prismatic Matrix system from season three, and are now the only way to get your weekly allotted Matrix without paying real money.
There are also some new cosmetic bonuses to seek out, such as legendary ornaments for guns and Ghost Projection items for Ghosts, which display different holograms on the Ghost. Additionally, cosmetic armor sets will now drop with random perks, but have fixed perks when acquired from the eververse or Prismatic Matrix.
These are the major changes coming with Forsaken. To see all of what Bungie plans to change, make sure to check out their blog post on the topic.
Our Take
This is a lot to take in! In order to offer hot takes on all of these changes, I am going to use bullet points.
I am fan of:
- Shorter time-to-kill
- Raids being much more rewarding if you’re underleveled
- The strike and nightfall changes
- The addition of heroic story missions and adventures
- Reworking Faction Rallies and Trials, two events I rarely participated in due to how grindy they quickly became
I am not crazy about:
- No announced matchmaking for heroic story missions or adventures, which could mean playing through them as a solo player will be as frustrating as it was in the original Destiny
- Having to complete a bounty in order to get my one free Prismatic Matrix for the week
Overall, however, I’m pretty psyched about these changes, which should make Destiny 2 a more diverse game come September.
To see what else Bungie is adding to Destiny 2 with Forsaken, make sure to check out our entire month of exclusive coverage.
Source: Game Informer Bungie Outlines Major Destiny 2 Changes For Strikes, Crucible, And The Eververse