On Thursday morning, bad news that many were fearing unfortunately came to pass, with Destiny 2 and Marathon developer Bungie hit by major layoffs from PlayStation maker Sony, its publisher.

The cuts have affected "a significant number of employees, including most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members." Additionally, it's been confirmed that some Sony workers that assist Bungie have been impacted by the workforce reductions as well.

Though the layoffs were, sadly, somewhat expected — Bungie announced the end of Destiny 2's live-service development last month, and it was recently reported that the developer would soon be struck with "significant" cuts — they're no less devastating for the studio's staff, and represent a large cutback of its resources from Sony.

Notably, separate from Sony CEO Hermen Hulst's memo to his employees on the matter, Bungie itself has also publicly shared a letter about the news to its fans and staff members, both former and current. I've embedded the post below, and the text of the letter has been included below that:

With great sadness, we are announcing a reduction in force as we reorganize Bungie.

As the leaders of Bungie, past and present, we recognize Destiny 2 fell short of expectations these past several years. Following our final content update to Destiny 2, and with our future projects still in early incubation, we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size.

We know this decision has a profound impact on the people affected, their families, friends, and teammates. While these changes are necessary to best position the studio now and for the future, that does not lessen the difficulty of this moment or the impact it has on those affected.

Later, we will share more about that future with you all but today is not that day.

Today, we wish to extend our gratitude and compassion to every member of the Bungie team who has been impacted and to those who remain.

We hope you will do the same.

— Bungie

This is the third and largest wave of layoffs that Bungie has faced after being acquired by Sony in 2022, with the studio also hit in October 2023 as well as in July 2024. At the time, 155 employees were shifted from the developer's workforce to Sony's as well.

The letter directly references Destiny 2's gradual decline throughout the last several years, which is all but assured to be the primary reason for the cuts we've seen. It's worth noting that recently, former Bungie and Destiny 2 community manager Liana Ruppert asserted that "A lot of money didn't go into Destiny" due to leadership "greed," leading to a lack of valuable resources for the game's development.

She then reported the lack of adequate funding became so severe that the merger between Bungie and Sony was done as an "emergency acquisition," and that if the PlayStation publisher hadn't absorbed the studio, it would have been "very close to shutting its doors."

We may never know the exact truth of what's happened at Bungie, but one thing is clear: the studio's last few years have been quite tumultuous, and sadly, its employees have suffered as a consequence.

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Original article: Just over a week after it was reported that Bungie — the developer of the 2017 live-service shooter Destiny 2 and this year's extraction shooter Marathon — would soon face "significant" layoffs, major cuts at the studio have now come, having been announced by Sony CEO Hermen Hulst.

Hulst revealed the news in a letter to Sony employees that was also published publicly, writing that the layoffs have impacted "a significant number of employees, including most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members." Sony teams tasked with supporting Bungie have also been affected.

He went on to explain that "This decision was made only after extensive discussion and careful consideration," and that Sony worked with Bungie's leadership to evaluate its long-term plans, resource demands, and place within the PlayStation portfolio "before concluding that a reduction was necessary to align the studio’s resources with its current priorities and long-term goals."

"What Bungie has accomplished with Destiny over the past decade has been truly remarkable," Hulst wrote, of the space fantasy looter shooter's legacy. "The franchise has left a lasting mark on players and the industry, and everyone who contributed to its success should be proud of what they helped create."

He also made a point of mentioning that "Marathon remains an important part of our portfolio, and we will continue to support the team as they build on the strong foundation established in Season 1 and 2, and as they work on incubation efforts for future projects." Though the sci-fi extraction shooter reboot hasn't been a massive hit for Bungie and PlayStation, it does have a passionate and dedicated community of players.

"Our immediate priority is supporting affected employees through this transition. We are providing transition support and, where possible, working to identify opportunities across SIE and our global network of studios," Hulst continued.

"I want to sincerely thank every affected employee for their hard work, creativity, and contributions to Bungie, SIE, and the broader gaming community," he added. "I know today’s news is deeply difficult not only for those leaving, but for those colleagues and friends that remain. Please take the time you need to process this news and support one another."

These cuts come a month after Bungie announced the end of Destiny 2 development would come with its final Monument of Triumph content update on June 9, capping the title's nine-year lifespan. Though fans passionately rallied to try and save the game and get a Destiny 3 greenlit, there's been no sign that they've influenced Sony's plans.

In the weeks that followed, ex-Bungie community manager Liana Ruppert took to social media to claim that "A lot of money didn't go into Destiny" due to leadership "greed," leading to funding issues for the game. It also came to light that Sony's $3.6 billion merger with Bungie in 2022 was also reportedly an "emergency acquisition" that was necessary to keep the studio afloat.

Ultimately, after everything that's happened and come out in the last several weeks, I had a bad feeling that these steep layoffs were inevitable — and now that they've come down, I can't help but be very worried about Bungie's future as a developer. I also want to extend my best wishes to everyone affected at Sony and Bungie. I hope you're able to find new success in the industry or elsewhere as soon as you can.

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It's been a difficult few weeks for fans of Bungie's long-running live-service looter shooter Destiny 2 like myself, with the studio announcing last month that development on the nearly decade-old title would end with its final content update, Monument of Triumph, that released on June 9.

Since then, Bungie has continued to patch the game while it prepares to eventually go largely hands off and focus solely on server maintenance so that Destiny 2 remains playable. Sadly, however, I'd say it sounds like any live-service support for the space fantasy FPS beyond that will soon come to an end.

Addressing the community on social media, Destiny 2 comms manager Dylan "dmg04" Gafner explained that Bungie is getting "into our last string of hotfixes," and that the studio is "nearing the final delivery of patch notes" as it works on final adjustments and bug fixes for the game.

"As we get into our last string of hotfixes, the team is trying to squash as many bugs as possible," he wrote. "You’ll see some ability bug fixes next week, and a slew of other things touched in a later update, but we are nearing the final delivery of patch notes."

Gafner then went on to note that "some issues may not be addressed due to 'risk'" or because of "triage" priorities before Bungie steps away from Destiny 2. For example, fixes for issues that may cause further problems, low-priority balance changes, fixes for visual glitches with gear, or PvP playlist adjustments are the kinds of things the studio plans to forego as its support winds down.

Much bigger problems, though — such as a tech with the new portable Titan Ward of Dawn that lets you push raid bosses off the map and other broken strategies across PvE and PvP — are things that Bungie is focusing on taking care of.

He added that after the game's final update (the timing of which is to be determined), any further patches "will be restricted to severe issues like widespread crashes." Should major issues arise after that, Gafner says "we’ll likely lean on disabling items, abilities, or whatever the culprit is for the problem at hand."

"The finality of all this is a bit rough to get into, but wanted to set expectations appropriately. We aren’t going to turn a blind eye to your reports. May be limited with what we can do, but we’ll still try," he continued. "Appreciate you, always. See you out there."

While I'm glad that Bungie will still, in some capacity, tackle large issues that crop up after its full support for Destiny 2 ends, hearing that it will have to be incredibly selective with what it works on is quite sobering.

It hammers home that this is truly the end of a game so many of us have played and loved for years and years now — and based on recent reports about potential layoffs, I fear that it will be the end of Destiny and Bungie as we know it, as well.

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After nearly 10 years of standing tall as one of the industry's biggest and most popular live-service multiplayer games, Bungie's space fantasy looter shooter Destiny 2 is coming to an end. The studio announced development for the title was ending last month, with its final content update Monument of Triumph releasing last week.

Fans have rallied to push Bungie and Sony — which acquired the developer in 2022 — to greenlight the creation of a Destiny 3, with a Change.org petition for a sequel reaching nearly 400,000 signatures and player numbers skyrocketing for Monument of Triumph. Ultimately, though, I can't help but feel that the future for Destiny as a series looks bleak.

For many (myself included), that feeling has only been worsened by recent reports that Bungie will soon face a large wave of layoffs in the wake of Destiny 2's end. The first of these came from journalist Sylvain Trinel on Tuesday, who wrote that "at least 50% of the workforce" — potentially including roughly 400 in-house developers and contractors — will likely be cut this summer.

Paul Tassi, Forbes' Bungie and Destiny expert in contact with sources at the studio, then went on to partially corroborate Trinel's report. Though he doesn't "want to commit to a percent," Tassi says layoffs at Bungie are coming, and that they'll be "significant."

"I don’t want to commit to a percent, but it’s going to be significant. They don’t have a greenlit new project, and they can hardly throw 400 more devs on Marathon," Tassi wrote.

He also noted that he expects some veteran talent and devs in leadership positions to depart next month as they collect cash payouts from Sony: "You will also see some leadership/OGs leave in I believe July, which is when Sony deal cash vests for many of them."

These reports come soon after former Destiny 2 community manager Liana Ruppert provided insight into the game's steady decline in recent years that ultimately led to the conclusion of its development.

Specifically, she asserted that "a lot of money didn't go into Destiny" and that leadership pocketed many of the game's potential funds, stating that Bungie's new extraction shooter Marathon had much less of an impact than many fans assume.

Ruppert also claimed that Sony's merger with Bungie was an "emergency acquisition" agreed to for financial reasons, and that the studio would have been "very close to shutting its doors" if it didn't sell to the PlayStation publisher.

Assuming these reports are accurate — and do keep in mind that Tassi in particular has a track record of reporting on events at Bungie very accurately — the studio and its Destiny IP has some very dark days ahead. Even more game industry layoffs on top of the countless cuts suffered at Bungie and other studios would be devastating, and they'd also dash many hopes for an eventual Destiny 3 made by the talent responsible for so many years of Destiny 2's success.

How do you feel about Bungie, Destiny 2, and the possibility of a massive layoff wave at the studio? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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The moment that Destiny 2 developer Bungie announced that the game's live service development was ending with the release of its final content update, there was immediate backlash from the looter shooter's community against the studio's new game Marathon.

Many Destiny fans angrily blamed Marathon for Destiny 2's end, claiming that the latter was abandoned by Bungie developers in favor of the new extraction shooter. This led to some nasty arguments between players of both games I was very frustrated to see, and ultimately detracted from the community coming together to celebrate Destiny's legacy (and push for a potential Destiny 3) somewhat.

However, former Bungie community manager Liana Ruppert took to social media to address player assumptions and speculations, asserting that "A lot of money didn't go into Destiny" because of leadership "greed," and not because of Marathon.

"We’re [former developers] saying it went into leadership pockets," she explained. "You should be pissed, but keep the blame where it was. Marathon has way less impact than yall think."

Now, Ruppert has spoken on the relationship between Marathon, Destiny, and Bungie's business once again — this time stating that "the only way to keep Bungie alive right now" in the wake of Destiny 2's end "is to support Marathon."

"Half the community is going to hate me for saying this, but the only way to keep Bungie alive right now is to support Marathon," she wrote in a social media post.

"People keep comparing Marathon numbers to Destiny and frankly, that's ignorant. Marathon was never designed to do [Destiny] numbers," Ruppert continued. "The conversations about that were very upfront early. It's more aligned with Tarkov than Destiny. Completely different target markets that just so happen to have a wide intersection with Destiny target markets since it uniquely has so many."

Essentially, what she's saying here is that Sony — which acquired Bungie for PlayStation in 2022 — doesn't have Destiny-sized expectations for Marathon, and so even if the game doesn't grow to become as big as Destiny is, the publisher may consider it successful and continue to invest in Bungie projects as long as Marathon performs decently well.

"Their value isn't SOLELY in Marathon but if Marathon is considered a failed project — which it [is] not at this time — then that puts them up for grabs for turning the Bungie name from a production studio [into] a service of expertise that would benefit the whole Sony network," Ruppert added in a follow-up comment.

I'm not sure if we'll ever get a Destiny 3 or not, but if you want to see Bungie make it at some point, I agree with Ruppert that you should want Marathon to perform well, even if it's not really your type of game. Thus far, it hasn't been a colossal hit or anything, but it has a passionate community of players across Xbox, PC, and PS5 even so.

I tried it and had some good fun, and while I probably won't come back to it much, I do hope it — and Bungie as a studio — has good days ahead.

Would you like to see Sony and Bungie eventually move forward with a Destiny 3? I'm curious, so leave a comment and vote in our poll to let me know.

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To say that the last few weeks have been a rollercoaster if you're a fan of Bungie and its long-running space fantasy looter shooter Destiny 2 would be an understatement. In late May, the developer suddenly announced that development of the game would end on June 9, with one final massive Monument of Triumph content update sending the title out with a bang.

Destiny 2 has experienced a steady and severe player count decline over time due to slow and disappointing updates, though fans rallied to demand a Destiny 3 and vowed to flood the servers for the final patch — something they've followed through on while also gathering upwards of 400,000 signatures for a Destiny 3 Change.org petition.

The push for Sony and Bungie to greenlight a third Destiny and not end the series on such an abrupt note has also driven lots of conversation about what went wrong behind the scenes. That led former Bungie community manager Liana Ruppert to speak out, claiming that "A lot of money didn't go into Destiny" due to leadership "greed."

Now, she's commented on the health of Bungie's business once again — this time alleging that the studio "was below the red line" before Sony initiated its plan to acquire it for $3.6 billion in 2022. The merger with the PlayStation maker, she says, was an "emergency acquisition."

"Bungie was below the red line before the Sony acquisition. If it wasn’t acquired right then, the studio was very close to shutting its doors at the very least on Destiny," she wrote in a social media post. "It was an emergency acquisition."

Notably, this news lines up with previous comments from Ruppert and other ex-Bungie developers who fiercely criticized the studio's leadership for long-standing issues when major layoffs came to Bungie in 2024, after it had already gone through cuts in late 2023.

All signs point to grave resource mismanagement at the developer that put it in dire straits and drove it to strike a deal with Sony. At first, Bungie was given wide creative freedom under the PlayStation publisher, but its independence has been "getting tighter" since last year, and it's "becoming more part of PlayStation Studios."

Just last month, Sony reported a $565 million impairment loss attached to Bungie. That's further called the studio's autonomy into question, and has left many wondering how much control Sony now has over its future plans.

With Destiny 2 content development now over, the performance of Bungie's new PvPvE extraction shooter Marathon will undoubtedly play a large role in determining what the studio does next. The game hasn't exactly been a massive hit since it arrived in March, though it does have a passionate community of dedicated players.

Ultimately, if Bungie's financial troubles have been as severe as Ruppert describes them for several years now, it's likely going to take a long time for its workers and Sony to right the ship and stabilize the situation at the studio. I just hope that effort is actually invested, and that Destiny — and Bungie itself — has a place in the future.

How do you feel about Bungie and the end of Destiny 2? Share your thoughts in the comments, and also let me know if you want Destiny 3 or not in our poll.

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It’s hard to come up with words to describe what Destiny fans are, or rather have been, over the past few weeks, but relentless certainly comes to mind. After Bungie announced it would close the book on Destiny's live-service development, I've seen nothing short of an onslaught of pleas from fans begging Bungie and Sony to revive the franchise and give them Destiny 3, a sequel to Bungie's FPS, RPG, MMO-like looter shooter.

Players have gone so far as to flood Sony’s recent State of Play broadcast, creating petitions, and rallying behind a community-wide push to log in yesterday, on June 9, 2026, in an effort to send a message to Bungie and Sony. Well, they showed up in force, and then some.

For those unaware, SteamDB is a popular free-to-access database that tracks all things Steam, including player counts, game updates, and sales data. Thanks to an influx of more than 167,000 players jumping into Destiny 2, the site struggled to keep up and briefly crashed under the load.

It wasn’t just SteamDB that struggled under the pressure, either. Destiny 2 itself had trouble handling the massive influx of players, with many across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC reporting login errors as they attempted to get online.

The surge in activity also propelled Destiny 2 to the No. 1 spot on Steam's Global Top Sellers chart, and even I managed to finish getting the remainder of the DLC I needed due to a massive sale. This just further highlights how many players turned up for the game's final major update.

Now, while I’m certainly not one for pointing fingers, many were quick to point out that during this same period, Bungie’s other live-service game, Marathon, had just 5,000 players on Steam. Even as I write this, Destiny 2 is sitting at around 60,000 players, while Marathon is at roughly 7,000, so make of that what you will.

It’s also worth mentioning that Destiny 2 blasted past Marathon’s 88,000-player peak on Steam within minutes, which, for lack of a better phrase, feels like a bit of a middle finger to Bungie. More than anything, though, it’s also a testament to just how much people still care about Destiny, and I’m genuinely impressed.

I never really got into Destiny myself, but I do now own all the DLC, having recently started playing it with a friend, and I must say I can definitely see the appeal. So, I say fight on, Guardians, and I hope Bungie takes notice of this massive outcry from fans.

But enough about me. Did you take part in the Destiny 2 mass login, or have you already moved on? Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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This year's annual Summer Game Fest was officially kicked off by Sony on Tuesday afternoon, with the PlayStation maker hosting a new State of Play event that gave players a closer look at several new and upcoming titles headed to PS5 and other platforms. Games like Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis and Onimusha: Way of the Sword left a big impact on many, with Marvel's Wolverine ultimately stealing the show.

And yet, much of the community's focus on the presentation had nothing to do with its contents, and was instead directed to the chat of the livestream — a result of players barraging it with a clear, unified message: "We want Destiny 3," either fully written out, in hashtag form, or conveyed with emotes. The spam continued for nearly the entire show.

For those who've been keeping up with the news surrounding Bungie's live-service space fantasy FPS series, I doubt the rallying cry will come as a surprise; since the studio announced Destiny 2 development is ending on June 9 when its final Monument of Triumph update comes out, players have passionately pushed for Sony to greenlight a sequel, surging a Change.org petition that now has nearly 350,000 signatures.

Fans were further spurred on by a comment from Destiny 2 community lead and principal communications manager Dylan "dmg04" Gafner, who wrote that "Guardians make their own fate" in a post on Sunday. He then reposted a call for Destiny 2 players to log in on June 9 and flood its servers for its final update, giving many hope that doing so might sway Sony to invest in future Destiny projects.

I'd also like to draw attention to the fact players have been driven to get loud by recent revelations about what's been going on at Bungie behind the scenes. Former Destiny developers have publicly claimed that "greed" from leadership led to a shortage of resources for the live-service shooter, with new comments aligning with what's been said about the studio's management after the devastating 2024 layoffs at the developer.

Reportedly, that lack of adequate support played a large role in Destiny 2's steady decline and imminent downfall — and fans feel strongly that the franchise deserves far more than such an abrupt and dissatisfying conclusion. After all, Destiny has been around since 2014 and has touched the lives of millions, and has left a monumental mark on gaming history.

As a veteran of Destiny 2 that played it frequently during its nine-year lifespan, I'm in full agreement with that sentiment, and have high hopes that the ongoing rally to demand a future for the series will bear fruit. I don't expect we'll hear anything about a potential Destiny 3 soon, but eventually, I'd be really happy to see it announced by Sony and Bungie.

My main concern is that Bungie as we know it may be a completely different entity by then; with Sony forced to endure a massive $565 million impairment loss attached to the developer and Marathon not exactly raking in massive success, one can't help but wonder if the publisher will put the studio through some significant restructuring. In the end, though, only time will tell what Bungie's future holds.

Do you want to see Sony and Bungie eventually make a Destiny 3? Share your thoughts down below.

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One of the longest-running live-service titles in the gaming industry has been Destiny 2, Bungie's 2017 sequel to the original space fantasy looter shooter that's received expansions and content updates across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation for nearly a decade. Now, though, Destiny 2 is coming to an end after a series of disappointing releases, delays, and decisions about its overall direction.

One final content update, Monument of Triumph, is scheduled to release on June 9; when it does, active Destiny 2 development will cease, with Bungie and publisher PlayStation (Sony) keeping the servers on but ultimately moving on from the project. Players fear this could be the end of Destiny as a franchise, and have rallied to surge a Destiny 2 petition while vowing to flood the servers next week.

Naturally, something fans all over desperately want to know is: what happened? What led to Destiny 2's rapid decline, and this sudden and abrupt end? Some believe that the game was largely abandoned for the development of Bungie's new PvP extraction shooter Marathon, and feel bitter about that project as a result.

However, several former Bungie developers have publicly focused their own criticisms on management and leadership at the studio, and have asserted that Marathon shouldn't be the target of the community's ire. One such developer is former Bungie community manager Liana Ruppert, and I think what she's had to say recently is important for fans to read.

"Oh I dunno, maybe listen to when the devs are calling out leadership for their greed? A lot of money didn’t go into Destiny," she replied to one commenter who asked how a large company like Bungie was having trouble putting together the resources to support Destiny 2. "We wouldn’t tank our careers for nothing."

"You’re not understanding me. Or what the devs are saying. We’re saying it went into leadership pockets," she added. "You should be pissed, but keep the blame where it was. Marathon has way less impact than yall think."

She went on to say that she's "been screaming about it for three years and all I got was blacklisted by [former Bungie CEO Pete Parsons]," and that players should "Vote with your wallet and make sure if you’re loud with your frustrations you’re just as loud about what you love."

Parsons is no longer at the developer and has been succeeded by Justin Truman as studio head; Ruppert noted "that influence is still there and takes a long time to root out unfortunately, the cancer was deep."

It's worth noting that comments from Ruppert and other ex-Bungie developers line up with similar criticisms made in 2024 when the studio was beset by significant layoffs after already experiencing cuts in late 2023. Several former workers spoke out against mismanagement and called on Parsons, still CEO at the time, to resign.

While much of the truth will likely always be obscured, statements from former Bungie workers make it pretty clear to me that the greed of the studio's leadership is to blame for the fate of Destiny 2, and potentially Destiny as a series. I'm hopeful for a light at the end of the tunnel for the developer, but with Sony recording a $565 million impairment loss attached to the studio, I can't help but be worried for its future.

How do you feel about the road ahead for Bungie? Will you play Destiny 2 one last time when the Monument of Triumph update comes out? Share your thoughts below.

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Some incredibly sad news regarding Bungie's long-running space fantasy looter shooter Destiny 2 came about a week and a half ago, with the studio announcing that the game's live-service development is coming to an end on June 9 following an extended period of underwhelming and delayed updates and expansions. At that time, its final Monument of Triumph content update is dropping across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation — one last hurrah before the end as the servers go into a static state.

It's good that the game will, at the very least, remain playable. But it's still a sad and sudden end for an experience that's been held dear in the hearts of millions (mine included) since its arrival in 2017, and one that players have rallied against with a petition for the development of Destiny 3.

Indeed, while Destiny 2's fate is sealed, there are hopes that enough of a push from the game's community will drive Sony and PlayStation (the company that acquired Bungie in 2022) to greenlight a sequel. Thus far, over 325,000 people have signed the aforementioned petition on Change.org — and there's encouragement from Bungie devs for players to flood the servers come June 9, with some thinking one in particular is hinting we could see a Destiny 3 eventually come if enough of a commotion is made.

Sunday, Destiny 2 community lead and principal communications manager Dylan "dmg04" Gafner posted a statement that caught the eyes of many: "Guardians make their own fate."

Longtime Destiny players will recognize the phrase as text that appears to signal the start of a damage phase against Atheon in the Vault of Glass raid. In this context, though, fans believe Gafner is alluding to the fact that players may be able to sway Sony towards supporting the creation of a Destiny 3 instead of moving on from the series.

Notably, Gafner went on to repost a rallying cry of "LOG ON JUNE 9TH" from community figure Zavalr, then followed that up with another post: "Do not go gentle into that good night."

He was referencing the use of the famous Dylan Thomas poem in the beloved film Interstellar, but hey, it sure is a pretty interesting time to Tweet out the iconic line. It precedes another very noteworthy one at the end of the first stanza: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

In the end, it's totally hopium to believe that the community will manifest the creation of Destiny 3 through a petition and a strong return of players for one last big Destiny 2 update. It's hopium I'll huff without hesitation, though, because Destiny means a great many things to a great many people, and it deserves better than to end in the disappointing place it's been steered to by poor executive leadership at Bungie and Sony.

Besides, Monument of Triumph looks like it's going to be an incredible update, so logging in will be worth it anyway. The colossal patch is adding and reworking a ton of weapons and armor sets, with revamped activities, new "Pantheon" raid gauntlet challenges, and more set to drop as well. It's no exaggeration to say that Destiny 2 is going out with a bang.

Do you plan on playing Destiny 2 one last time when the Monument of Triumph update releases on June 9? Let me know in the comments, and in our poll.

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The collective grief over the impending end of Destiny 2 has been loud, with calls to action from the community for everyone to log on and support the game on June 9, and an outcry for work to get cracking on Destiny 3.

Some fans have been more vocal than others, and prominent creator Aztecross is raising eyebrows with his scorched-earth approach of waging war against Marathon. Many believe Destiny is being abandoned by the corporate overlords in pursuit of chasing gains with Marathon.

But is this true? And is boycotting Marathon even the answer here?

A rant squared directly at Sony and Bungie leadership

Reacting to the news over the weekend, including reports that the vast majority of Bungie's developers tragically learned their game was being shelved at the exact same time the public did, the streamer delivered a fierce monologue.

"When I picked up Marathon in February/March, you know, I had a good time playing Marathon, and I believe that, you know, playing Marathon and some indirect way would contribute to Destiny 3. With that being said, Marathon community, you guys have been seeing some of the comments out there, and the reality is this. You're kind of the target right now.

But really, the target is Bungie leadership and Sony, but you're going to be one of the targets by proxy. Okay? I know a lot of people right now who, since last week's announcement, have essentially completely walked away from Marathon. I don't want to play Marathon. I'll play it maybe seasonally. I may jump in a few weeks, but I want Destiny. I want Destiny 3. I want this universe expanded.

And Marathon, if I have to f**king bury you myself to send that message, I shall. I will do everything I can to destroy you."

Aztecross openly acknowledged that taking this stand means staring down a corporate firing squad regarding his own revenue streams, stating he is entirely willing to lose his existing Sony partnerships and sponsorships to "stand on" his principles.

For a major influencer to essentially say goodbye to all their sponsorships is absolutely wild, and a massive rift is forming in the community over this. While statements like this are clearly spawned from a passion and love for the game, is this scorched-earth rage actually self-defeating in the long run?

The Bungie devs are in the crossfire

The immediate pushback to the anti-Marathon sentiment comes from a place of empathy for the creators behind both Destiny and Marathon. The developers working on these games are not the ones who decided to wind down Destiny 2, and unfortunately, as reported by Paul Tassi over at Forbes, many were completely unaware of this decision until it was made public.

The worry here is that by petitioning for Marathon to fail, by extension, that means Bungie will cease to exist, which effectively puts the nail in the coffin of the Destiny franchise anyway.

In the modern gaming industry, parent companies do not reward a studio's failure by giving them hundreds of millions of dollars to resurrect an old franchise. If Marathon tanks, Sony won't suddenly greenlight Destiny 3 out of panic; they will likely shutter Bungie entirely.

Instead of burning the studio "to the ground", some groups are urging players to channel their energy into the show of force on June 9. The Monument of Triumph update, while being the last for the game, does promise a massive influx of weapons and armor, which may keep existing players satiated for some time.

It’s just dawned on me exactly how much loot will be added in this update from r/DestinyTheGame

By flooding the Destiny 2 servers and keeping player engagement high, fans present a much safer corporate argument: there is less financial risk in making Destiny 3 for an active, thriving player base than there is in abandoning it completely after the June 9 protest.

Nuance in a highly emotional situation

Aztecross's response to the situation is extreme, but I can see why. I can't say I wouldn't be just as angry if this were happening to my favorite game. I've not been an active player in Destiny 2 for some time now, but I've had a great time with friends in the past and met new Guardians on the way. Like any online community, it has bred real-life relationships and deep commitments for people, making it incredibly hard to watch the doors be forced shut.

The Destiny community is hurting right now. They are entirely justified in their fury at corporate lack of transparency and the casualness with which layoffs are handled all around. But weaponizing that anger against Marathon is a dangerous game of chicken, which could seal the fate of Destiny for good.

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I always know when gaming news has truly broken containment when I see the BBC UK website reporting on it, and the pending closure of Destiny 2 has been deemed high enough on the public interest barometer to get a whirlwind of coverage.

Bungie's announcement that active live-service development is ending with the June 9 Monument of Triumph update has sent shockwaves through the gaming industry. While they aren't pulling the plug entirely (servers will remain online in a static state) the community refuses to let a decade of memories get put on life support.

While fans mourn Bungie's tough decision, resistance is also forming, with a coordinated effort on two fronts. An online petition for Destiny 3 development to start immediately, as well as a call to action for all past and present Guardians to log in on June 9 in solidarity and support.

A community feeling abandoned

A Change.org petition for Sony to begin development on Destiny 3 already has over 45,000 signatures. I've added myself to that number as I feel Destiny 3 would be incredibly marketable for Bungie.

The petition serves as a formal plea to Sony and Bungie leadership to reconsider walking away from the IP. For many who signed, the decision to stop working on the Destiny franchise represents a community abandoned, and there's some really heartfelt comments on the page so far about how many bonds have been made via the game over the years.

"I have played destiny since the alpha in 2014, I have been here for every expansion, usually buying the most expensive version so I could get all the content once it came out. This franchise has helped me make friends that I never would have met, and got me through really tough times in my life. I dont want this world to end with Destiny 2 there's so many more stories and memories to be made if Bungie is given the time, resources, and right leadership to make a Destiny 3" — Scott

Destiny and halo were the greatest games of our time! I played Destiny since the beginning. I’ve had the best video game experiences with Destiny and the people I’ve met through it. To just abruptly end it isn’t fair to anyone. — Brandon

Guardians Assemble on June 9th

Simultaneously, a massive call to action has been posted on the Destiny subreddit. It is urging every player, that's past, present, lapsed, or hardcore, to log into the game simultaneously on June 9. The goal is simply to flood the servers to break concurrent player records.

By creating an unprecedented spike in traffic on the day the final update drops, the community wants to hand Sony executives an undeniable, visual metric of the franchise's value.

"We need to at least smash Marathon’s all time high to show them they made the wrong decision. Heresy was amazing, the edge of fate story was interesting. They let this happen by doubling down on bad system changes and ignoring player feedback.

It’s our last chance to send a message the franchise is still valuable."

Many fans are bitter that it appears that rather than invest in making Destiny better, Sony has decided to abandon the franchise in favor of going all in on Marathon.

Whether or not Destiny is a casualty of Marathon I do not know, but as someone who had some great times with friends in Destiny 2 in it's infancy, I'll be joining the picket line on June 9th too. While it's unlikely to result in a corporate pivot, it will represent a huge swathe of players who have been touched by Destiny at some point. If it's going to ride into the sunset, it's community will make sure it goes out with a bang.

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I stopped checking Marathon’s Steam charts within a week of it coming out, not because I wanted to see the game fail or anything, but because I got caught up in all the internet drama surrounding it. Having played the game myself and, quite frankly, disliking it, I was curious to see how it would hold up long term. Well, we now have some numbers thanks to Sony’s earnings report from last night.

For those unaware, PlayStation purchased Bungie for over $3.6 billion back in 2022 as part of Sony’s infamous, and now largely failed, live service gaming push. That strategy gave us games like Concord, alongside numerous canceled projects after the initiative failed to deliver the results Sony likely hoped for.

Successful as Bungie may once have been, Sony has now recorded another impairment loss tied to the studio totaling roughly $565 million. That comes on top of the $204 million impairment Sony reported last year, meaning the company has now written down well over half a billion dollars tied to Bungie in just two years.

As Xbox fans likely know all too well, Bungie was once heavily associated with Xbox thanks to Halo, a franchise many, myself included, still consider one of the greatest trilogies of all time. At the time, Sony's acquisition of Bungie probably made perfect sense. The studio had already moved on from Halo and found massive success with Destiny, proving it could build and maintain a huge live service audience.

I will say, just to keep things clear, an impairment loss does not mean Bungie itself lost $565 million directly. Rather, it means Sony believes Bungie is now worth less than it was when the company was originally purchased.

With that in mind, though, it still naturally raises questions about Bungie’s future, especially regarding Destiny and Marathon. Bungie recently stated it has years of plans mapped out for Marathon, but with numbers like this, it becomes increasingly difficult to imagine the studio, and potentially even its current games, remaining in a healthy position just a few years from now.

It’s a sad day for Bungie, and a worrying time for the studio’s future. With that in mind, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you have any specific opinions on this situation, or did you expect it?

Let me know in the comments, and be sure to take part in our poll below:

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Halo Studios' free-to-play Xbox and PC live-service shooter Halo Infinite is officially no longer getting major updates as the developer moves on to Halo: Campaign Evolved and whatever's next for Xbox's flagship FPS, but that doesn't mean the game's passionate Forge community isn't hard at work creating amazing fan-made experiences for players to enjoy.

We've seen everything from remakes of campaign missions from past games and hilarious Pokémon battle arenas to incredible Baldur's Gate 3-style RPG combat encounters and even a Helldivers 2-inspired mode come to Halo Infinite thanks to Forge and its forgers. One very special new creation, though, might just be the wildest thing somebody's made with the mapmaking tool yet.

That creation is Shard of Ascension, a Destiny-style raid co-op mission built for 4-6 communicating players built entirely with Forge and its tools. It was designed by one person: MadmanEpic, a solo game developer that's currently working on the upcoming boomer shooter AVENGE MYSELF, but pivoted away from that project to work on this one for half of 2025.

For the unaware, raids in Bungie's looter shooter FPS games Destiny and Destiny 2 are difficult and long six-man co-op levels with a set of encounters (typically four) with mechanics that require significant teamwork, communication, and coordination. After playing through the series and its raids early last year, MadmanEpic was struck with the idea — and the desire, thanks to "brain worms" — to make one in Halo.

Both the map and mode required to play the raid are available to bookmark on Halo Waypoint and Halo Infinite's in-game Content Browser, and since the game is free, you can play Shard of Ascension without spending a penny. You can watch the trailer for it with this link or through the embed below, and I highly recommend watching the devlog in which MadmanEpic goes over the raid in detail, too (provided you don't mind having its mechanics spoiled).

In said devlog, MadmanEpic explains that at the heart of the design document they created for Shard of Ascension, there were a few main goals to target to make the raid feel like a good fit for Halo: physical mechanics like throwing an object or interacting with buttons, with Destiny's "magic buffs" avoided; good use of Halo's sandbox, including various weapons and vehicles; and an approachable design that players can reasonably work out after a few tries.

I won't spoil the specifics of the raid here, but after watching the full video, seeing Shard of Ascension in full — three action-heavy puzzle encounters and a final boss fight — and speaking as a longtime Destiny 2 player and raider until recently, I can say that the raid is, without a doubt, an incredible achievement.

It has everything players love about Destiny raids — plenty of combat, baseline mechanics that get utilized in creative new ways as the raid progresses, and even a platforming section to balance the pacing — adapted perfectly to Halo and the design goals MadmanEpic outlined.

It's not a stretch whatsoever to call it a masterpiece, especially since MadmanEpic built it all themselves in just six months, finding remarkably creative solutions to deal with Forge's limitations.

It even has a cool plot and setting, with the raid taking place on the Alpha Shard (a shard of the destroyed Halo ring from Halo: Combat Evolved), and a fireteam of Spartans tasked with stopping Iratus — the antagonistic Banished AI from Halo Infinite's multiplayer story — from hooking into and taking over a powerful Forerunner network.

Shard of Ascension is so good that players are clamoring for Bungie to hire MadmanEpic to its Raid and Dungeon (RAD) team, and in the comments of the devlog, two individuals claiming to be developers (one of which says they work on Destiny) have praised their creation and their talent highly, with one saying the "right eyes are indeed watching."

Of course, there's no way to know for sure if these are actually developers. Regardless, I really hope someone picks up MadmanEpic, both because they've said they're looking for a job and because they've clearly got some amazing level design talent. Fingers crossed.

What do you think of the Shard of Ascension raid? Will you download or come back to Halo Infinite to check it out? Would you like to see Halo experiment with Destiny-style raids in future games? Let me know in the comments.

In the most recent financial report to investors for Q2 FY2025, Sony gave a surprisingly transparent look at the state of its gaming business. Xbox was even mentioned by name, which is still a rarity in these updates. Sony’s full-year guidance remains steady despite several headwinds. Sales are now forecast to rise 3% to around $29.8 billion, driven “primarily due to the impact of foreign exchange rates”.

Operating income also stays at roughly $3.3 billion even after Sony absorbed a $200 million tariff hit this quarter. Sony highlighted the continued health of the PlayStation ecosystem. Monthly active users climbed 3% year-on-year to 119 million, and total playtime increased 1% across the quarter.

Live-service titles continue to play a major role in this, with “more than 40 percent of our first-party software revenue” now coming from recurring live-service games. Against that backdrop, Sony contrasted two of its biggest ongoing live-service bets. Helldivers 2 has surged after launching on Xbox, while Destiny 2 continues to fall short of expectations and contributed to a major impairment at Bungie.

Helldivers 2 released on Xbox on August 26, 2025, and early estimates showed just how strong that launch was. A report suggested it sold more than 900,000 units in its first six days on the platform. For comparison, its original PlayStation launch was estimated at around 633,000 units in the same six-day window.

The momentum continued well beyond week one. Helldivers 2 charted in the Xbox most-played charts throughout September and October, which showed that interest did not slow down after the initial burst. It became clear that the game had found a large new audience on Xbox and that the cross-platform move was paying off.

Sony confirmed this in its Q2 FY2025 report. It said:

The wording suggests Sony may not have expected such strong performance on competing hardware. It also raises questions about how Sony might approach future releases. With Microsoft preparing an Xbox-PC hybrid console, PlayStation games will already be available on the device through Steam. Releasing more of its older titles directly on Xbox Series X|S could be a logical way for Sony to capture extra revenue without risking its own platform strategy.

Bungie hasn’t been the success Sony wanted

In 2022, Sony made an all-in bet on Bungie. It acquired the studio for $3.6 billion and allowed it to remain operationally independent. However, in May 2025, Bungie came under fire.

Marathon, its upcoming extraction shooter that already faced a mixed reception, was found to contain unauthorized use of an independent artist’s work. This led the studio to apologize and commit to a full audit of its assets. Not long after, in August this year, Sony said that Bungie’s autonomy was becoming “lighter” as integration increased.

Now, during Sony’s Q2 FY2025 briefing, it directly addressed the decline of Destiny 2’s performance. Sony said:

Sony’s Q2 FY2025 materials confirmed the size and source of the financial hit. The report lists an impairment of around $204 million USD specifically “in connection with Destiny 2,” along with a further $118 million USD in development cost corrections inside the Game and Network Services segment. Sony said it recorded the impairment after Destiny 2 failed to meet the expectations it had when it acquired Bungie.

FAQ

Humble Bundle is a monthly subscription that gets you access to games each month. Since the subscription costs $14.99 per month, it is a great way to expand your PC gaming library at an affordable price.

This month, the bundle is especially worth it, since it gets you $242.94 worth of games for just $14.99 total.

September's bundle comes with WWE 2K25, Destiny 2: Legacy Collection, The Plucky Squire, SpellForce: Conquest of Eo, Return to Monkey Island, Eastern Exorcist, Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks, and Grapple Dog.

WWE 2K25

As the latest installment in the WWE 2K franchise, WWE 2K25 lets you relive iconic moments from wrestling history. You can also "right the historical wrongs" by playing historic match and changing the outcome.

The game features a roster of over 300 stars. The documentary-style retelling of wrestling history is hosted by Paul “The Wiseman” Heyman.

One thing it does not have is "The Island," which is a game mode available exclusively to console players. That means PC players can't enjoy the Bray Wyatt storyline either. WWE 2K25 is still a fun game on PC, it's just important to note its limits.

Destiny 2: Legacy Collection

This bundle includes several expansions to the popular Destiny 2. In total, the content adds dozens of hours of gameplay to the FPS title. Destiny 2: Legacy Collection is a good bundle that expands the game, but it is not a definitive edition. There are several types of content that are not included in it.

Here is what you will get as part of Destiny 2: Legacy Collection:

• The Final Shape Standard Edition
• Lightfall Standard Edition
• The Witch Queen Standard Edition
• Beyond Light Pack
• Shadowkeep Pack
• Forsaken Pack
• 30th Anniversary Pack
• Pit of Heresy Dungeon
• Shattered Throne Dungeon
• Grasp of Avarice Dungeon

Note that Dungeon Keys for The Final Shape, Lightfall, and The Witch Queen are sold separately. Also, The Beyond Light and Shadowkeep campaigns are accessible to all Destiny 2 players, so they aren't in this pack.

The Plucky Squire

This action-adventure platformer has a twist. The antagonist of the game and The Plucky Squire's main character can both break the fourth wall and know they're in a story! In the game, you'll jump between the 2D world and 3D world, solve puzzles, and face off against Humpgrump.

In our review of The Plucky Squire, the game earned a rare perfect score.

"Overall, The Plucky Squire is a charming, surprisingly family-friendly win from Devolver Digital that is both accessible and approachable for most ages," said our Cole Martin. She added that she "wouldn't be surprised to see the title being heralded as one of 2024's best games for kids and adults alike."

SpellForce: Conquest of Eo

In this magical game you command armies, recruit heroes, and gather artifacts and treasure. You can choose between three styles of gameplay: the Necromancer, the Alchemist, or the Artificer.

While this strategy game has turn-based mechanics, it also promises fast-paced combat. SpellForce: Conquest of Eo has over 600 procedurally generated campaigns.

Return to Monkey Island

As the latest entry in its franchise, Return to Monkey Island combines its familiar point-and-click gameplay with a modern inventory system and context-sensitive actions.

You can "monkey around" in the fun world presented by series creator Ron Gilbert. In the game, you move through the narrative by solving puzzles and interacting with non-playable characters.

Eastern Exorcist

With visuals inspired by Chinese ink painting, this game has you battle demons in a 2-D side scrolling adventure. Two intertwining stories see Xiahao Xue fight to cure her brother and Lu Yunchuan aim to avenge fallen allies.

Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks

Cars, guns, fire, and explosions. Need I say more? Ok, I'll say a bit more. This racing game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe features both arena-style battles and structured races.

I love racing games, spent countless hours playing Twisted Metal as a kid, and live a few miles from Warhammer World, so it should be no surprise that Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks is the most intriguing game to me that's included in September Humble Bundle.

Grapple Dog

This family-friendly title is a platformer starring an adorable little dog. You navigate levels using a grappling hook to solve puzzles and collect items. You can also bounce off walls, swim, and swing your way around enemies. Grapple Dog has six worlds and includes secret areas to explore.

Expand your game library at a fraction of the cost

If you love to try new games or have a catalogue of titles you can fall back on and enjoy, Humble Bundle is an excellent way to expand your collection.

For just under $15 per month, you'll gain access to hundreds of dollars worth of games. In many cases, one or two games included in a monthly Humble Bundle would cost more than $15 on their own.

This month's collection includes a wide range of titles, spanning from the well-known Destiny 2: Legacy Collection to indie games such as The Plucky Squire.

I'd recommend trying the Plucky Squire right away. The game earned a perfect 5/5 in our review for its charming worlds and challenges. Our Cole Martin said the game serves as "a family-friendly love letter to the art and literature that creatively inspires us."

We've got another big shake-up in the gaming industry, as longtime Bungie CEO Pete Parsons is stepping down.

Parsons announced the news in a blog post on Thursday, confirming that after 23 years (and serving as CEO since 2015), he is departing the company, which has developed some of the most iconic games in the history of first-person shooters, including the original Halo titles and Destiny.

"After more than two decades of helping build this incredible studio, establishing the Bungie Foundation, and growing inspiring communities around our work, I have decided to pass the torch," Parsons says.

"This journey has been the honor of a lifetime. I am deeply proud of the worlds we’ve built together and the millions of players who call them home – and most of all, I am privileged by the opportunity to work alongside the incredible minds at Bungie."

Stepping into the role of studio head is Justin Truman, another longtime veteran at Bungie who has worked as a designer, engineer, and, most recently, as general manager of Destiny 2.

"I am committed to supporting and working alongside every member of the team here as we continue pouring our hearts and souls into these worlds. Worlds that we love, and that we hope have been worth your time and your passion. Because ultimately those worlds only exist, and thrive, with you in them," says Truman.

"We are hard at work right now doing that – both with Marathon and Destiny. We’re currently heads down, but we’ll have more to show you in both of these worlds later this year."

Bungie still has a long, long road ahead

Under Parsons' leadership, Bungie grew into a massive company, with Destiny 2 reaching new heights as a live-service game before Sony acquired the studio for $3.6 billion in 2022.

For this acquisition, Sony aimed to draw on Bungie's live-service experience, allowing the company to operate separately as a multiplatform studio sitting next to PlayStation Studios, not underneath it.

Since then, Bungie has taken a mostly downward turn, with the company laying off hundreds of employees in an effort to maintain its independence under the terms of its acquisition.

The company also canceled a spin-off of Destiny, codenamed Payback, while other Bungie employees working on a new IP were spun out into a small new studio under PlayStation called TeamLFG.

Bungie's leadership has been widely criticized by former Bungie staff who either left the company or were cut across waves of layoffs.

Destiny 2, while still popular, is also on a noticeable decline, with the game's main story of Light and Darkness having wrapped up in the 2024 expansion, The Final Shape. Since then, the company has released new content, with the most recent addition, The Edge of Fate, receiving mixed impressions.

Bungie was aiming to launch Marathon — its first-person extraction shooter quasi-reboot of its original Marathon series — in September this year. Following mixed-to-negative feedback from a series of closed tests, as well as a huge scandal involving stolen artwork found in the game, Marathon has been delayed.

The game does not currently have a new release date, but is currently planned to launch at some point before the end of Sony's financial year, or before March 31, 2026.

In a recent earnings call, Sony openly noted that Bungie's independence was "getting tighter," with the parent company more involved in the studio's operations.

Time will tell just what is next for the storied video game developer, but whatever happens next, it will be with some new leadership at the very top.

Marathon is slated to launch across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5.

It’s a far cry from when Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022, with the promise that the studio would remain independent under the PlayStation umbrella. At the time, Bungie was expected to operate on its own terms, despite technically becoming a Sony-owned company.

Since then, however, things have become more uncertain. Destiny 2 has seen mixed responses to recent updates, with player engagement fluctuating, granted the game is getting on in years now. Meanwhile, Bungie’s upcoming shooter Marathon faced heavy backlash over stolen artwork and was delayed as a result.

Sony says Bungie’s independence is “getting tighter” says Sony

Sony CFO Lin Tao has confirmed that Bungie is now becoming more integrated into PlayStation Studios. Describing it as a gradual shift, Tao stated that the studio’s independence is “getting tighter,” a notable change from Bungie’s original status as an “independent subsidiary” following its $3.6 billion acquisition.

At the time of the deal, Bungie was promised creative freedom and operational autonomy. But in the years since, the studio has faced mounting challenges. In 2024, Bungie laid off around 220 employees amid declining player engagement. Reports also surfaced that CEO Pete Parsons had spent $2.4 million on classic cars since the Sony buyout, drawing criticism from fans and former staff.

Bungie’s involvement within Sony already felt significant, as it was tasked with consulting on other live-service projects in development across PlayStation Studios. One of the most notable examples was The Last of Us: Factions. According to multiple reports, Bungie raised concerns about the game’s long-term viability, which ultimately led to the project being paused and later cancelled.

Meanwhile, Bungie’s next big project, Marathon, has struggled publicly. The game received backlash for its visual direction and was further delayed after fans uncovered stolen artwork used in-game. Bungie has since removed the assets and scaled back its marketing while addressing community concerns.

Bungie’s PlayStation shift likely won’t impact Xbox

Bungie’s growing integration into PlayStation may cause concern for some Xbox players, but there’s more to it than meets the eye. Sony appears to be shifting its strategy, becoming more open to supporting platforms it once overlooked.

In the case of Destiny, there’s no indication of a pullback. Seasonal content is still rolling out as planned, with Ashes and Iron launching in September across all available platforms.

For Xbox players, nothing is expected to change; Bungie’s titles will likely always remain available on Xbox hardware, even as the studio becomes more closely aligned with PlayStation. It’s a strange moment where Sony is tightening control over its studios while also opening up their games to more players than ever before.

Marathon and Helldivers 2 signal Sony’s growing interest in Xbox releases

Despite criticisms of the game, Marathon — Bungie's upcoming sci-fi extraction shooter — is still confirmed to be released on Xbox and PC, alongside PlayStation. Initially, this seemed possible only because Bungie retained a level of independence following its acquisition by Sony.

However, recent developments suggest that Sony itself is leading the change when it comes to bringing live-service titles to Xbox. Helldivers 2, published by Sony, is now officially coming to Xbox in August 2025.

Arrowhead CEO Shams Jorjani clarified on Discord that “it was all PlayStation,” confirming that Sony pushed for the release. The move marks a noticeable shift in strategy, showing that Sony is increasingly open to expanding its reach beyond its own console and PC platforms – especially for games designed to thrive with larger, cross-platform audiences.

The next era of Bungie's long-running live-service looter shooter Destiny 2 kicked off on Tuesday with its The Edge of Fate expansion — the first of two this year, and one that introduces a radically different type of location and campaign for players to journey through and experience. So far, however, the DLC hasn't exactly gotten off to the best start.

At the time of writing, user reviews for Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate and recent reviews for Destiny 2 on the leading PC gaming platform Steam are "Mixed," with 382 of the former and 3,138 of the latter posted (many players left reviews for the expansion on the main Destiny 2 page). Ratings on Xbox and PlayStation are more difficult to measure, though most recent Destiny 2 Xbox reviews are negative and the expansion as a 3.79/5 star score on the PlayStation Store.

Additionally, according to SteamDB, the game's peak Steam player count on The Edge of Fate launch day was 99,193 — just short of 100K, and under a third of the 314,634 players The Final Shape had at release last year.

Those numbers weren't just because The Final Shape was the final DLC in the Light and Darkness Saga, either; every expansion since Beyond Light has achieved well over 200K day one players (Forsaken and Shadowkeep are too far back to track), with 2023's Lightfall holding the record of 316,750.

So, what's going on here, exactly? Well, from what I've been able to gather combing through user reviews and impressions across various social media sites, it seems like the general consensus is that while the story — a non-linear narrative centered around the mysterious forces of The Nine, their rebelling emissary Orin, and a new destination in the Reef "shrouded by dark matter" called Kepler — is excellent, there are significant problems with the expansion's gameplay and presentation.

More specifically, players have reacted quite negatively to Kepler overall, with many finding its Metroidvania-inspired design to be annoying to navigate and levying significant scorn towards one new mechanic on it in particular: Matterspark.

This power transforms your Guardian into an Arc-emitting ball that can roll around Sonic-style, squeezing through tight spaces and delivering powerful zaps to enemies and certain objectives.

However, it's been said that this mechanic is used way too frequently, and is paired with puzzles and encounters that don't leverage it in enough engaging ways to ensure it's not repetitive.

It's also reportedly quite clunky and difficult to control, and a number of players have even commented that rolling around in Matterspark form has caused them major motion sickness. Not great.

Kepler's art direction and visual style have also had quite a mixed reception. It's been criticized for being one of the least visually distinct and interesting locations in Destiny, and as a retired longtime player, I have to agree — at least based on what I've seen.

It's largely characterized by a rocky surface with scientific outposts and underground caverns filled with bulbous, fleshy growths; not very different from what we've seen from destinations like the Moon or Titan, ultimately.

The jury's still out in regard to The Edge of Fate's broader game-wide changes to loot and armor, as well as its new Portal feature that allows Guardians to curate which activities they'd like to play in and activate difficulty modifiers for better rewards.

There's also still The Desert Perpetual raid on the way, set to launch on July 19 and give players a new pinnacle six-man activity to overcome for desirable endgame gear.

Overall, though, it doesn't seem like the expansion will be the big win Bungie was surely hoping it would be — especially in the wake of its struggles with its upcoming extraction shooter Marathon, which got delayed after an art theft controversy and negative gameplay feedback from Closed Alpha testing. And that's not good news for Destiny's new dawn.

Of course, a bounce-back can't be ruled out, but Destiny 2's player numbers have been steadily declining over time — and not even a new expansion has brought them back to where they were just a single year ago. There's no getting around it: that's a big problem for the game and its future. Hopefully it's one Bungie can fix.

Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate is available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One systems, Windows PC (via Steam, Epic Games Store), PS5, and PS4 for $39.99, though you can get it for just $33.49 at CDKeys. The $79.99 Year of Prophecy bundle that includes Rewards Passes and the upcoming December DLC Renegades is also $66.99 at CDKeys, and the $99.99 Ultimate Edition of it with instant access to some Exotics and bonus cosmetics is $83.89 at CDKeys.

Lately, Destiny 2 developer Bungie has been in the news because of the recently concluded alpha playtest of its upcoming 2025 extraction shooter Marathon and the flood of various community opinions about and issues with the title. Recently, though, it also came under the spotlight for a very different reason.

On Friday, a federal judge rejected a motion from Bungie to dismiss an ongoing Destiny 2 lawsuit in which the plaintiff — Matthew Kelsey Martineau, a writer also known by his pseudonym Caspar Cole — alleges that the studio plagiarized several major concepts from his unpublished sci-fi story that was viewable on his Wordpress blog during the creation of Destiny 2's Red War campaign and its Curse of Osiris expansion. The case was filed in October last year, and Bungie's request for a dismissal came just a few months later. Five months after that, it's now been denied.

You can read Judge Susie Morgan's 16-page ruling in its entirety here, but the long and short of it is that Bungie's proposal was refused because the developer no longer has playable builds of the Red War and Curse of Osiris releases. These were removed from Destiny 2 years ago as part of Bungie's "Destiny Content Vault" initiative, which sees the company periodically remove and "vault" pieces of legacy content as the eight-year-old game grows in size and technical complexity.

Bungie opted to submit YouTube playthroughs and community-maintained Destinypedia wiki pages as evidence instead, but third-party materials like these have been deemed insufficient for its case.

Despite the argument from Bungie that these YouTube videos and wiki pages "are true and accurate representations of Destiny 2 gameplay and information," the judge ultimately ruled that they're not sufficient for the type of side-by-side comparison that needs to be conducted here, and also that their third-party nature makes them unacceptable as evidence.

"The Court will not consider the exhibits attached to Defendant’s motion to dismiss and will not convert the Defendant’s motion to dismiss to a motion for summary judgment," reads judge Morgan's decision. “There has not been sufficient time for discovery, and the attachments are admittedly of third-party origination. Their authenticity has not been established."

Though one might assume Bungie could add Red War and Curse of Osiris back to a private build of Destiny 2 in order to effectively dispute Martineau's case, the developer has actually admitted this isn't possible due to the old content not being compatible with the game as it is now. "As Defendant admits in its reply, '[t]here is now no feasible way for [Defendant] to provide the Court with a reviewable form of the [Red War or Osiris] campaigns or to produce them should this matter proceed to discovery,'" reads part of the latest ruling.

As a result of all of this — along with the complexities of this lawsuit, given that concepts from a game are being compared to those of a written work — Martineau's case can now move forward, as the court found that "plaintiff has sufficiently alleged the elements of an action for copyright infringement."

Bungie faces a unique problem in this Destiny 2 case

When I first caught wind of this lawsuit last year, I didn't expect things to go very far; in my view, while there is perhaps some merit to Martineau's claims about Destiny 2's Red Legion faction specifically — in the new document, there's a detailed overview of numerous alleged ways the Red Legion group in his work is strikingly similar to the Destiny enemy — most of the other things he points to are far more vague and disputable.

One example of this is a comparison between Destiny's floating Traveler entity that gives Guardian player characters their powers and the Tononob Station in Earth's orbit in Martineau's story; both are "a massive celestial entity hovering above Earth," but such entities are hardly a rarity in science fiction stories.

As a result, I thought this case would be thrown out rather quickly, but it looks like it's about to become an even bigger issue for Bungie now that it's actually moving forward — and comically, the biggest reason why it is is because of Bungie's own decision to remove older forms of Destiny 2 content. Whether or not the Destiny Content Vault was a good decision for the health of the game or not is something that will be debated until the end of time, but one thing that's undeniable is that it's created a very unique problem for the developer in this lawsuit.

I still believe that Bungie will ultimately walk away from this case with a victory, but the fact Martineau actually seems to have a decent chance at winning this lawsuit is certainly quite the plot thickener. It will be interesting to see where things go from here, to say the least.

The universe of Destiny 2 is heating up once more with the recent reveal of a Star Wars themed crossover. Crafted by Bungie alongside Lucasfilm Games, this new crossover event is bringing Imperial-themed skins for players to use, letting them dress their Hunters, Titans, and Warlocks as Death Troopers, Stormtroopers, and the Emperor's Royal Guards, respectively.

Alongside the new raiments for Guardians, there's also new ship and Ghost gear. If you've ever wanted your Ghost to look like the unfinished second Death Star from Return of the Jedi, or have your ship look like a TIE Fighter, this is your chance.

This crossover is rolling out as a part of Destiny 2: Heresy, the third chapter of the story epilogue that's been ongoing ever since Destiny 2: The Final Shape brought the finale of the Light and Darkness saga.

Back to the ship

Destiny 2: Heresy is taking players back to the Dreadnaught when they embark on a new activity called The Nether. It's been a while since the fall of Oryx in The Taken King, and with The Nether, Taken forces are pushing back against Guardians that attempt to explore the ship.

The team at Bungie is also shaking up the formula in this activity, introducing new Boons that alter the gameplay experience in radical ways. The Dreadnaught has changed since players last saw it, which means challenging opponents and boss fights await as Guardians attempt to take down the ship's weaponry and reverse the Taken corruption.

“We’ve also experimented with player modifiers, with increased health pools, no regenerating of health, low ammo drops and revive tokens, and a modification on healing in the sandbox over the course of play,” said Destiny 2 senior designer Ryan Harris, speaking with PlayStation Blog. “Players should look to build their loadouts geared for survivability as the game mode modifiers increase health pools of players significantly while also stopping all health regen.”

If you're eager to start exploring the Dreadnaught while decked out as one of the Galactic Empire's best, you won't be waiting long. Destiny 2: Heresy is slated to begin on Feb. 4, 2025 across all platforms.

Looking ahead, Destiny 2 is set to continue changing with more frequent (but smaller scale) DLC packs in the future, with major updates planned for later in 2025. Bungie is also continuing work on its upcoming extraction shooter Marathon.

Destiny 2 is currently available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4.

What you need to know

• Compiling data en masse, Destiny 2 players may have discovered a significant bug that's potentially been influencing perk rolls on weapons for years.
• Using data collected from the API of Bungie's looter shooter, players have put forth the "perk proximity theory" that suggests perks closer together in each weapon's API listing have a higher chance of rolling together in a combo, while perks that are far away from one another are less likely to drop together.
• The catalyst for this potential discovery was a new heavy grenade launcher called VS Chill Inhibitor, with players having an exceptionally difficult time getting the desired meta combo of Envious Arsenal and Bait and Switch. Those two perks are three spaces away from one another in the weapon's API listing, while much more common combos like Envious Arsenal and Explosive Light have perks that are right next to each other.
• Bungie has announced that it's been made aware of the issue, and is using player data as well as internal investigations to try and find "a potential issue within our code for how RNG perks are generated."

Original article: At the heart of the gear chase in Bungie's space fantasy looter shooter Destiny 2 are random rolls for perks, which are the traits on weapons that influence how they operate and what they're capable of. Over the years, some players have subscribed to the belief that less desirable perks are intentionally weighted so that they'll drop more frequently than better ones, which the developers have routinely denied. Now, though, fans may have discovered a very real bug that's interfering with perk drop rates — and it might have gone under Bungie's nose for years.

The catalyst for the potential find was the VS Chill Inhibitor, an exceptional heavy grenade launcher from the new Vesper’s Host dungeon added in the Episode: Revenant update recently. It can roll with the fantastic perk combo of Envious Arsenal and Bait and Switch, with the former completely refilling its magazine and the latter giving it a massive 35% damage bonus whenever you do damage with your other two weapons first. As you'd expect, this specific roll skyrocketed to the top of the boss damage meta immediately, but it's proven to be an exceedingly rare drop that's gotten statistics wizards in the Destiny community investigating.

First suggested on social media by streamer T1Vendetta as "copium," Destiny scientists like Newo and MossyMax have collected and compiled extensive amounts of data that suggest something called the "perk proximity theory" may actually be affecting drop rates. I won't get into the weeds of the drop rate numbers themselves here — Newo wrote a 10-page analysis paper you can read if you're curious — but essentially, the theory is that perks have a lower chance to drop together if they're far away from each other in Destiny 2's application programming interface (API). The below image from MossyMax shows what this looks like:

In this example, perks that are directly next to one another in their respective columns (yellow line) have dropped together the most, followed by perks that are one space away (green line), two (blue line), and three (purple line). You're supposed to have an even 1/36 chance to get any possible perk combination on a weapon with six traits in each column, but assuming this bug is real, it's affecting the drop rates so that perks in close proximity have a high 1/24 chance to roll, with ones far away from each other having woefully pitiful odds of 1/454.

I'll admit that at first, I found this theory incredibly hard to believe. After seeing the consistent pattern in all the data, though, it's clear that something really is going on — and it explains why people are having such a hard time getting their desired VS Chill Inhibitor god roll. Envious Arsenal and Bait and Switch are three spaces away from each other in the weapon's API listing (visible on Light.gg) and that combo has proven to be almost impossible to land, while Envious Arsenal and Explosive Light (the "runner-up" combo) are right next to each other and seem to drop together frequently.

What's truly wild is that by comparing information from a dataset published by Light.gg that shows perk combo distribution in every weapon since 2018's Forsaken expansion to perk columns on the site's individual weapon pages, one can see that this issue has potentially affected Destiny 2 for years, possibly making bad rolls more common, great rolls rarer than they should be, and vice-versa. The good news, though, is that thanks to player reports, Bungie has been made aware of the problem and is investigating.

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"While we have confirmed that there is no intentional perk weighting on weapons within our content setup, we are now investigating a potential issue within our code for how RNG perks are generated," wrote the developer through its official Destiny 2 Team social media account. "Many thanks to all players who have been contributing to data collection across the community. This data has been monumentally helpful with our investigation, and we are currently working on internal simulations to confirm your findings. We will provide more information as soon as it is available."

Previously, Bungie responded to player concerns by noting that there's no perk weighting active in the game, but I suspect the studio missed the "perk proximity" issue because it was looking for individual perks rolling more frequently than others rather than combinations of perks being unusually common or rare. Now that data collected by players gives a clearer idea of what the issue might be, the developer will hopefully be able to figure out what's causing the problem and take care of it.

All in all, this is shaping up to be one of the craziest scandals in the history of Destiny, though I definitely don't think any part of it was intentional on Bungie's part. Ultimately, with weapon crafting — a mechanic that allows players to give weapons the specific perk combos they want after earning enough "red border" versions of them — taking a backseat and traditional loot farming becoming more prevalent in the post-The Final Shape era, I'm just glad this was brought to the developer's attention when it was.

What you need to know

• Roughly three months after announcing Destiny 2: Frontiers, Bungie has revealed precisely what's next for that upcoming chapter of the space fantasy looter shooter and beyond.
• Specifically, the studio announced "Apollo" and "Behemoth" expansions for Frontiers and 2025, along with four "Major Updates" that will be released throughout the year at three-month intervals.
• Destiny 2 will have two "medium-sized" expansions and four of these season-style Major Updates in future years, with Bungie aiming to focus on making expansions more creative and experimental and Major Updates more substantial.
• Additionally, the developers plan to overhaul the core of Destiny 2 to streamline its UI, implement more adjustable difficulty options, and add new high-tier Legendary rewards to a range of endgame activities.

It's been just about three months since Destiny 2 developer Bungie first announced "Frontiers" — a major project for the space fantasy looter shooter that will take the game beyond 2024's The Final Shape and its three Episode releases. At the time, next to nothing was known about Frontiers other than that it's scheduled to come in 2025. Now, though, a new blog post has revealed exactly what Frontiers is and how it will shape the future of Destiny.

The post — published by Bungie on September 9, which is the 10th Anniversary of the franchise — explains that Destiny 2: Frontiers is a roadmap for the game's 2025 expansions and content additions. That roadmap includes codenamed major expansions "Apollo" and "Behemoth" in the summer and winter seasons, respectively, along with four "Major Updates" (two during each expansion) that will "refresh the Core Game with new and reprised content" that's completely free-to-play like everything in Into the Light was.

Notably, Bungie's structuring of Frontiers has been chosen for Destiny 2's annual model moving forward, meaning that players can now expect two expansions and four free Major Updates every year starting in 2025. This replaces the shooter's current schedule of one annual expansion and three longform Episodes, which itself took the place of the series' "one DLC + four paid seasonal releases" model that was used from 2019's Shadowkeep until this year's The Final Shape.

The biggest change here is the shift from one new expansion every year to two, which is being accompanied by a plan to make each of these major DLCs smaller, but more creative and experimental. "Starting next year, instead of one big Expansion, we are going to deliver two medium-sized Expansions, one every six months," writes Destiny 2 game director Tyson Green. "Each of these will depart from the one-shot campaign structure we’ve been using essentially unchanged since Shadowkeep, and each will be an opportunity to explore exciting new formats instead."

"We believe it’s time for Destiny to change and evolve, and that our community wants this game to grow and innovate too," Green continued. "And to do that, we need to start breaking some of the molds."

This fresh approach begins with the Apollo expansion coming in Summer 2025, which will kick off Destiny 2's next narrative saga and feature a "nonlinear character-driven adventure." In it, you'll be able to progress through the DLC's various different locations and story threads in an order of your choosing — a first for the franchise. Narrative director Alison Lührs didn't reveal much about it beyond that, but did tease that "Apollo ends with the narrative gasoline that will propel us into the next few years with a clear theme, goal, and a destination that won’t come at you as a straight line but will be well-worth the trip. It’ll reward you, it’ll surprise you, and it’ll take us places Destiny has never seen before."

The move back to four Season-style updates per year is also noteworthy, though it sounds like Bungie is aiming to make them much less formulaic than they were in the past. Green says "each update will be a substantial refresh of the core game, bringing new activities and reward content," and their free-to-play nature means they'll be more accessible than Seasons (the presence of a "Rewards Pass" on the Frontiers roadmap suggests they'll still have a paid battle pass attached to them, though).

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Speaking of the core game, it's something that Bungie is planning to refine and refresh as it moves Destiny 2 in its new direction. Specifically, the studio will address the looter shooter's complexity and raise its approachability for newer players, while simultaneously offering a wider array of challenge options and meaningful rewards for Guardians to earn.

Supplementary blogs about core activities, rewards, and a new activity browser codenamed "The Portal" explore these aspects of Destiny 2 and how Bungie is looking to improve them, but the TL;DR is that the developer hopes to streamline the game's user interface, make it easier for players to know what they should be playing to get certain types of loot, give them more adjustable difficulty settings with things like gameplay modifiers, and add exciting high-tier Legendary gear rewards to a variety of endgame activities.

Given that Destiny 2 is currently experiencing some of its lowest-ever player count numbers, it's clear that the game was in need of a big shakeup like this in the post-Final Shape era. Whether what's coming in Frontiers and the future actually pulls players back into Destiny long-term or not remains to be seen — I expect its success will hinge on how much it actually overhauls the experience — but what's been announced here sounds fairly substantial.

What you need to know

• Nearly a week after Destiny 2 developer Bungie announced it cut 220 workers from the studio and is moving 155 staff to other roles within Sony, it has posted an official statement on social media to reassure fans about the future of Destiny.
• Bungie says it remains "committed to Destiny," and to "supporting our community with transparency, and to delivering regular updates about the game." It also notes it will discuss "the future of Destiny and plans for our next multi-year journey soon."
• The developer's statements also come days after a recent Bloomberg report suggested Bungie recently cancelled a Destiny spinoff called "Payback," and also that it's moving away from paid annual expansions and towards smaller and free content updates similar to April's Into the Light release.
• The report also notes that Bungie has not been working on a "Destiny 3" sequel to Destiny 2, and is instead focusing on making the live service looter shooter more approachable for new players.

Just over a week since Destiny 2 developer Bungie announced it laid off 220 employees and transitioned 155 workers to Sony Interactive Entertainment, the studio has posted an official update intended to reassure players it still has a plan for Destiny and its future. Concerns for the series have been growing since the cuts were made public, especially since there were already roughly 100 layoffs at Bungie last October.

"We know that recent changes at Bungie have created uncertainty surrounding the future of Destiny. Rest assured we remain committed to Destiny, to supporting our community with transparency, and to delivering regular updates about the game," wrote the developer on X (Twitter). "We'll be talking with you all about the future of Destiny and plans for our next multi-year journey soon. Once we plant a flag for the date, we'll let you all know. Thank you for your patience, and we'll see you again soon."

Notably, Bungie's statement comes several days after a report suggested Bungie cancelled a Destiny spinoff called "Payback," which was said to be a third-person title in which you would "explore a large world while cooperating to battle monsters and solve puzzles." The report also suggested the studio will no longer develop annual paid expansions, citing declining sales year-over-year — including with this year's critically acclaimed The Final Shape DLC.

What exactly is next for Destiny 2 isn't currently clear, though the aforementioned report does note that Bungie plans to make smaller and free content drops like the popular Into the Light update released two months before The Final Shape's launch. There are also "vague plans" for a fresh storyline with new characters and worlds, which is likely what the "Frontiers" Destiny 2 project revealed in June is.

It's also been said that Bungie is looking to improve the onboarding process for Destiny 2, which is notorious for being insufficient, lackluster, and confusing for players new to the live service science fantasy shooter. This is something the game's community has been vocal about for many, many years now, so many will be pleased to hear that Bungie is looking to address it seriously.

For a long time, many believed Bungie is also working on a Destiny 3, but a sequel of some sort has reportedly not been in development. Instead, the developer plans to focus its efforts on Destiny 2 and Marathon — a PvP extraction shooter set in the sci-fi universe of the studio's classic FPS franchise that debuted 30 years ago in 1994. Details about Marathon are extremely scarce at the moment, though we do know it's expected to release in 2025.

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Analysis: After recent events, it's hard to be hopeful

While it's good to see that Bungie is planning to open up about its plans for the future of Destiny and its "next multi-year journey" soon, to say that it's hard to be hopeful or feel reassured after what's happened recently is an understatement. Personally, I don't have any faith at all, especially since there have seemingly been no significant leadership changes despite former Bungie staff placing the blame squarely on executives on social media in the wake of the cuts. In particular, CEO Pete Parsons has come under intense scrutiny by affected workers and the wider community after it came to light that the chief executive officer spent millions on cars after Sony acquired Bungie in 2022.

Ultimately, only time will tell what the future holds for both Destiny and Bungie. At the moment, however, it's been devastating to see more layoffs disrupt the studio and its workers at a time when the number of layoffs in the gaming industry in 2024 have now exceeded 11,000. My heart — and the hearts of everyone at Windows Central — go out to everyone who has been affected.

What you need to know

• Destiny and Marathon developer Bungie is laying off 220 employees, with almost another 200 moving into new roles across PlayStation. 
• According to a report from Bloomberg, this comes weeks after Bungie canceled a Destiny spinoff game codenamed Payback.
• Payback was reportedly a third-person game with inspiration taken from games like Genshin Impact. 
• Bungie is also reportedly scaling back future Destiny 2 support, with smaller updates planned instead of big paid expansions.

Bungie stopped work on a big Destiny spinoff weeks ago. 

That's according to a report from Bloomberg, detailing some of the conditions at Sony-owned Bungie that led to the layoff of 220 employees, with an additional 200 or so moving into new roles across PlayStation. Per the report, while Bungie was continuing development on Destiny 2 expansions and its upcoming extraction shooter Marathon, the studio was working on a number of smaller projects, including remakes of older games and a mobile version of Destiny. 

The biggest of these side projects was codenamed Payback. Designed as a third-person Destiny spinoff, Payback was inspired by other games such as MiHoYo's Genshin Impact. Payback was reportedly canceled two months ago, with the majority of the development staff now on Marathon, which is currently slated to launch in 2025 across Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5.

Looking ahead, Bungie is reportedly moving away from crafting big expansions for Destiny 2, as sales have been declining each year, even with 2024's critically acclaimed Destiny 2: The Final Shape. The report indicates that Bungie is not looking to begin work on Destiny 3, but instead improve the process by which newer players can easily jump into Destiny 2. 

Analysis: What a mess

With projects canceled and Bungie essentially down by a third of its staff following two rounds of layoffs — another 100 employees were let go back in October 2023 — it's clear that the company needs a big win. With a huge amount of its resources now on Marathon, I truly hope that game can deliver. 

Even if it does though, for things to get back on track will require a leadership change. It's possible we'll see Sony eventually assume full control of Bungie, but if this happens, I'm not sure how the company can be expected to run, considering one of the big ideas behind the $3.6 billion acquisition was for Bungie to provide live-service expertise on Sony's upcoming swath of games-as-a-service titles.

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What you need to know

• Sony's Destiny 2 and Marathon developer Bungie is seeing another wave of job cuts, with 220 employees being let go. 
• An additional 155 employees are being moved into different jobs across Sony Interactive Entertainment, with another handful forming a new team under PlayStation Studios. 
• This comes months after Bungie let 100 employees ago shortly before the delay of multiple projects.
• Bungie launched its widely-anticipated expansion, Destiny 2: The Final Shape, to critical acclaim just weeks ago. 

After a brief recess for summer announcements, the nonsense is continuing. 

Sony-owned Destiny 2 developer Bungie announced on Wednesday that the company is making even more cuts, with 220 roles being eliminated, which makes up around 17% of the current staff. This comes not even a year after Bungie already laid off around 100 employees, which was 8% of the company's 1,200 employees at the time.

Further cuts at Bungie are planned beyond these layoffs, but these cut employees won't be losing their jobs. Instead, they'll be transitioned over to new roles at Sony, with 155 workers (an additional 12% of the existing workforce) taking new jobs across Sony Interactive Entertainment. Finally, another handful of Bungie employees are being spun out as a new team under PlayStation Studios, where they will be working on a science-fantasy action game. 

"We were overly ambitious, our financial safety margins were subsequently exceeded, and we began running in the red," says Bungie CEO Pete Parsons. "After this new trajectory became clear, we knew we had to change our course and speed, and we did everything we could to avoid today’s outcome. Even with exhaustive efforts undertaken across our leadership and product teams to resolve our financial challenges, these steps were simply not enough. "

Bungie has not detailed if any members of leadership took pay cuts or were also affected by the layoffs. 

Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion back in 2022, with the intent for Bungie to become a become a "global multi-media entertainment company" assisting PlayStation.

Bungie employees blame leadership

Current and former Bungie staff are outspoken regarding this decision, with former Destiny 2 community manager Liana Ruppert calling on Parsons to step down.

These words were echoed by another former staffer, Griffin Bennet. 

Destiny 2 global community lead Dylan Gafner, often known to players as "DMG," called the cuts "inexcusable."

Analysis: Unbelievable

Bungie's prior round of cuts was certainly disappointing to see, but not out of line with the rest of the gaming industry. Microsoft's Xbox division, Sony's PlayStation, Riot Games, Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, and many, many others all grew near-exponentially during the years of the pandemic, and all of them have cut roles and studios in the reset that began in 2023. 

Now, it appears Bungie is cutting even further right on the heels of great success, with Destiny 2: The Final Shape being acclaimed for its storytelling that wove together disparate narrative threads across the last 10 years into one of the best games available across Xbox, PlayStation, and Windows PC. It's clear that Bungie will be full steam ahead on Marathon, but the future of Destiny is certainly more unclear following this round of layoffs.

Otherwise, my remaining thoughts right now are with the employees and their families. 

The first week of The Final Shape expansion for Destiny 2 may be over, but there’s still plenty of content for players of Bungie’s space fantasy looter shooter to engage with. The start of Week 2 brought the arrival of the game’s first seasonal Episode “Echoes,” and it’s also added special Exotic class items designed specifically for use with The Final Shape’s “multiclassing” Prismatic subclass.

With two randomly rolled Exotic armor perks on each class item that drops, these will undoubtedly become some of the most sought-after gear pieces from The Final Shape for anyone looking to put together the best Prismatic builds. However, actually getting them will require you to unlock and then complete a hidden Exotic mission called “Dual Destiny.” Be warned that this mission can only be done with a two-person fireteam, which means it can’t be completed solo or with three or more players.

I’ve put together a quick guide below that goes over everything you need to know about unlocking the Dual Destiny mission, so read on to learn how and start farming Exotic class items.

How to get Exotic class items in Destiny 2

The process of unlocking the Dual Destiny mission that will give you Exotic class items is pretty obscure and is easy to miss without a guide, but it’s easy once you know what to do and have a teammate with you. First, you’ll need to go to The Final Shape’s The Pale Heart destination and fully complete the Public Event-style Overthrow activity in its The Landing, The Blooming, and The Impasse regions. Overthrow will escalate to Tier 3 as you kill enemies, open chests, and complete small objective-based events (these are marked with Public Event icons); once Tier 3 is done, a boss will spawn that you have to kill.

In each area, killing the final Overthrow boss will cause the text “A Secret-Keeper of the Witch Queen is near…” to appear, indicating that you have five minutes to find and kill this enemy while Overthrow is on cooldown. These are Lucent Hive Wizards, and spawn in the same location within their respective regions each time. Here’s a list of where you can find each one:

• The Landing: In a cave in the southeastern part of the area, near the Lost Sector.
• The Blooming: Near the eastern side of the region, in a purple cave.
• The Impasse: Towards the southwest portion of the zone, close to where Taken forces set up a bubble shield during Overthrow.

Once you’ve killed all three of these Wizards, you’ll see a beam of green light in the sky coming from The Refraction area between The Landing and The Blooming. Head to where its origin point and fight the Dread enemies there until two Subjugators spawn, then damage them until they drop a Light or Darkness orb (each Subjugator will drop one of these).

Pick up one of the orbs and have your ally take the other, then head into the nearby cave that objective markers direct you towards. Inside, you’ll find pools of Light and Darkness energy; dunk the Light and Darkness orbs into their respective pools and a flag you can interact with to start Dual Destiny will spawn (you’ll also get some dialogue from Savathûn). Note that interacting with it will create a Dual Destiny node on the Pale Heart’s Director screen so you can launch the mission in the future without having to complete this process again (this is account-wide, not per character).

I won’t spoil Dual Destiny in this guide (it’s fantastic), but something important to know about it is that one player will need to be using a Light subclass (Arc, Solar, or Void) while the other needs to be on a Darkness one (Stasis or Strand). One or both players can also use Prismatic, provided one Light and one Darkness Super is equipped between the two of you. On top of that, each of the mission’s segments are timed; if you fail to progress before a timer runs out, you’ll be sent back to Orbit.

The mission itself is similar to The Whisper or Zero Hour, though it’s more complicated since it features some raid-like mechanics to figure out (they're not too complicated, though). Again, no spoilers here, but be prepared to communicate with your teammate and do something other than simply slay out. Once you finish the mission, you’ll get a guaranteed drop of Exotic class item armor with random Exotic perk rolls.

Given that they were marketed as a major draw for The Final Shape expansion, solo players will no doubt be very disappointed that unlocking Exotic class items requires playing through a mission in a duo. The good news, though, is that you only have to complete Dual Destiny once; while follow-up runs will guarantee an Exotic class item reward, there’s also a chance they can drop from opened Pale Heart chests after you finish the mission.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — is finally here and available to play now.

What you need to know

• Destiny 2 developer Bungie has given fans a closer look at what they can expect from the rest of The Final Shape's expansion year, Year 7.
• Specifically, the game will feature three large seasonal Episodes. Echoes will focus on a growing Vex-related threat on Nessus, Revenant will be centered around Fikrul, the Fallen, and the Scorn, and Heresy will take players back to Oryx's Dreadnought amidst a shakeup of Hive leadership.
• Bungie also revealed Destiny 2's next big project, which is codenamed "Frontiers." It's slated for a 2025 release.
• Very little is known about Frontiers yet; it's unclear if it's an expansion, the name for a batch of new Episodes, or something else entirely. What we do know, though, is that it's for Destiny 2, which means that it isn't a potential "Destiny 3" sequel.

The decade-long Light and Darkness Saga may have come to a close with Destiny 2: The Final Shape, but Destiny — and more specifically, Destiny 2 — is far from over. In fact, even though The Final Shape has ended one journey, it's kicking off another with the dawn of Year 7's three seasonal Episodes that will build up to Bungie's next big release: a project codenamed "Frontiers" that's slated to come in 2025.

Frontiers was announced during Bungie's "The Journey Ahead" video documentary (you can watch it via the embed below) that also showed off what players can look forward to in Destiny 2's upcoming Episodes, all of which are $15 experiences centered around Echoes — fragments of the Witness' memories turned into powerful artifacts by a fusion of Light and Darkness. The first Episode is titled Echoes, and will see players investigate Nessus as an Echo that landed on it transforms it, alters the behavior of the Vex there in strange ways, and surfaces a new threat. That one goes live on June 11 (tomorrow) with Breach Executable, an offensive three-player activity.

The second Episode is Revenant, a Fallen and Scorn-themed release with Fikrul, the surviving leader of the Scorn, emerging as its antagonist with an Echo under his control. The vibe with this one is very "vampire hunter," with players becoming Slayer-Barons — essentially the Fallen version of a Witcher monster hunter — by literally brewing special potions and likely working with Mithrax and the House of Light. Finally, there's Heresy, which will take Guardians back to Oryx's Dreadnought and shake up the remaining Hive leadership in some way.

And Frontiers? Well, right now, nobody actually knows what it is yet, as the video didn't specify if it's actually a full-on expansion or if it's simply a codename for another batch of Episode releases. I suspect Bungie will eventually reveal more information as we approach 2025, but for now, all we can do is speculate.

The "Frontiers" title makes me wonder if we'll be leaving the Sol System for the first time since the first Destiny released in 2014, though this is only one way you could interpret the codename. Of course, given that it's a codename, this title may not have any relevance to its content at all. Again, only time will tell.

What is clear, though, is that Bungie clearly doesn't intend to end Destiny 2 any time soon. Many wondered if the studio would move on from the space fantasy looter shooter after The Final Shape's Episodes and begin working on a Destiny 3, but Frontiers' reveal strongly suggests that that won't happen until at least 2026 — assuming a third installment even comes at all.

Analysis: Bungie is COOKING right now

Destiny 2: The Final Shape will definitely go down in the series' history as one of its best (if not the best) expansions, and based on everything seen in Bungie's new video, it looks like players have plenty of additional great content to look forward to. Everything shown looked fantastic, from each Episode's theme and story direction to the design of their weapons and armor sets, and I'm excited to eventually dive into Echoes after FromSoftware finishes blowing my mind with Elden Ring's Shadow of the Erdtree DLC.

As I wrote above, there's far less to say about whatever the Frontiers project ends up being. My guess is that it will kick off Destiny's next major narrative arc with Year 7's Episodes "cleaning up" the loose threads from the Light and Darkness Saga, though ultimately, this is just speculation. Hopefully we'll learn more soon.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — is finally here and available to play now.

What you need to know

• Destiny 2: The Final Shape's Salvation's Edge raid was finally beaten for the first time after 19 hours on Saturday morning.
• This led to Bungie immediately dropping a new finale mission for The Final Shape and the decade-long Light and Darkness Saga called Excision.
• Excision is Destiny's first 12-player activity, and features an incredible final battle between the Guardians and all of their allies and the Witness.
• I detail the mission in the text below, but go in blind and play it yourself. Provided you've finished The Final Shape's campaign, you can do so; there are no Power Level requirements.

After a grueling 19-hour World's First raid race, Destiny 2's Final Shape Salvation's End raid was finally beaten by Team Parabellum — and immediately following this crippling blow dealt to the Witness came Excision, a new climactic finale mission everyone in the community can participate in. With matchmaking for a fireteam of up to 12 players (making this the first 12-player activity in Destiny 2 history), multiple narrative cinematics, and an incredible final boss battle, Excision is everything you could hope for from an ending to Destiny's decade-long Light and Darkness saga.

I'll go over the mission in detail below, but honestly, you should go in blind and experience it yourself once you finish The Final Shape's campaign. You'll find the node for it to the right of Salvation's Edge's on the Pale Heart Director menu, and don't worry about Power Level requirements or difficulty — as far as I can tell, the former aren't in place for this finale, and with 11 other Guardians at your side, the latter is hardly an issue. Spoilers for Excision and The Final Shape campaign below.

The mission begins in the calm before the storm, as the Vanguard and its allies prepare for the final assault against the Witness and its remaining forces. Guardians, the Awoken, the Eliksni of Mithrax's House of Light, Empress Caiatl's Cabal, and even Savathûn and her Lucent Brood Hive all rally to the Stasis-wielding Commander Zavala as he gives a rousing speech, followed by a heroic charge into battle reminiscent of scenes in Avenger's Endgame or Return of the King.

You're thrust into war, then, with Sol's defenders and the Witness' armies clashing on one of the largest battlefields I've ever seen in a single Destiny instance while some of the franchise's best-ever music swells. With direct support from the Vanguard's coalition and many major story NPCs, you and your massive fireteam act as the tip of the spear that pierces the outer defenses of the citadel the Witness is taking refuge in.

Making your way inside kicks off the mission's second phase, and the fight against the Witness itself. Legions of enemies continuously arrive in an effort to stop you, but by absorbing reservoirs of the Traveler's Light found throughout the arena and dunking them in a rift, you can give yourself near-instant ability cooldowns to help vanquish them while simultaneously weakening the protective barrier around the Witness. Additional NPCs also come to help; Saint-14 might drop in to create an unbreakable Ward of Dawn bubble you can use for cover and a Weapons of Light buff, or you might see Mithrax and Savathûn arrive and give you special heavy weapons like Scorch Cannons and Synaptic Spears.

Eventually, you'll reach a simplified version of a Witness damage phase from the raid, during which everyone has to hop on a central platform, break the glyphs on the Witness' chest, and then hit the weak spot they reveal with everything they've got while avoiding powerful Darkness blasts. The fray can end in as few as two phases with perfectly executed DPS, though I think it's more fun if it lasts longer since I get more time to go crazy with my Prismatic builds and even more allies come to reinforce you.

Once you get the Witness down to its last chunk of health, the battle caps off with everyone's Ghost acting as a conduit for the might of the Traveler, and all 12 players blast it with beams of Light until it disintegrates in a massive shower of particles. This is where Excision's gameplay ends and its final cinematics begin, with our Ghost — now completely drained — falls lifelessly into our Guardian's hands.

Within an ocean of bright white, Cayde-6 approaches, and makes the ultimate sacrifice to save our Ghost by giving it the Light he was brought back to life with. Emotions were already running high, so when I got to this part of the finale, I was full-on crying; I can't think of a better send-off for one of the most memorable characters from Destiny's 10-year saga as we move on to a new era.

Everything comes to a close with a special epilogue in which we see the Vanguard and its allies releasing thousands of paper lanterns into the night sky to celebrate their hard-fought victory. At the center of it all is our Guardian, sitting side-by-side with Zavala, Ikora, and Crow — now the Hunter Vanguard, with Cayde's blessing — as the four ruminate on what the future holds. It then cuts to one final, beautiful shot of our Guardian silently watching the Traveler from afar, with our ever-faithful Ghost hovering at their side.

The story of Destiny doesn't end here — Crow reminds us that we still have Fikrul's remnants of the Scorn and Xivu Arath's Hive to deal with, as well as reports of unusual activity at Nessus (teasing the start of Destiny 2's first seasonal "Episode" next week) and a strange aurora of Light and Darkness the Traveler is "bleeding" out into Earth's atmosphere — but our decade-long fight against the Witness and its Final Shape is over. And honestly? I can't think of a more perfect ending.

Guardians make their own fate.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — is finally here and available to play now.

New Destiny 2 expansions mean new raids for Guardian fireteams to conquer, and The Final Shape DLC has brought players their biggest challenge yet with a final showdown with the Witness. The new raid represents the bombastic conclusion to a decade-long battle against the Light and Darkness Saga's antagonist, and its release is undoubtedly one of the most exciting moments in Destiny history.

The raid — officially titled Salvation's Edge — is finally upon us, and in the guide below, I've gone over everything you need to know about it. This includes its release date and time, Power Level requirements and other prerequisites, and the list of items that are disabled during the "Contest Mode" active for its first 48 hours. Additionally, I've added details about where and how to start the raid once it's available, as well as a list of the unique rewards available to those who complete it (or watch Twitch streams of the World's First race).

Destiny 2: The Final Shape raid release date and time

Destiny 2's The Final Shape Salvation's Edge raid went live June 7 at 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET, with Contest Mode — a special modifier that caps each player's Power Level at -20 below each of the raid's encounters — enabled for the first 48 hours it's available. 

Contest Mode is integral to the World's First raid race and the "day one" experience, as it makes everything from general combat to boss DPS significantly harder than it would be without the Power Level cap. Once it's disabled, completing Salvation's Edge will be much easier.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape raid Power requirement

In order to make sure that they're not nerfed more than they need to be, players hoping to conquer Salvation's Edge on Contest Mode will need to reach Power Level 1965 while also having completed The Final Shape's campaign and the post-campaign Exotic quest, Wild Card. At this Power Level, you'll be able to stay at Contest Mode's -20 cap even as you progress and Salvation's Edge's encounters rise in Power Level.

Most of this Power Level climb is taken care of by completing The Final Shape's campaign on Legendary difficulty, which gives you a full set of 1960 weapons and armor you can use to instantly level up your Guardian's gear. From there, you can get the remaining 5 Power Levels you need by completing activities that drop Powerful gear (look for a yellow circle icon on your Director) and progressing through the Rituals and Pale Heart Pathfinder, a tree of simple connect-the-dots objectives that reward you with loot when you reach the end of it.

Destiny 2: Disabled items for The Final Shape raid

While the vast majority of Destiny 2's different weapons, Exotics, perks, and subclass options are allowed to be used while going for a Contest Mode Salvation's Edge clear, Bungie has disabled a few that could cause unintended consequences during the raid race due to "various issues." Items disabled in Salvation's Edge until June 11, 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET are as follows:

• The Cascade Point weapon perk
• The Lucky Pants exotic Hunter pants
• The Magnificent Howl weapon perk

And here are the items disabled in Salvation's Edge until June 9, 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET:

• The Facet of Command Prismatic Hunter fragment
• The Relentless Strikes weapon perk
• The Hunter Ascension aspect

Bungie also says that to help assuage strain on its servers, no bounty or weapon crafting progress for kills below boss tier within the raid will be recorded while Contest Mode is active.

Destiny 2: How to start the Salvation's Edge raid

Now that it's out, I can confirm that you start the Salvation's Edge raid by launching it from the Pale Heart Director screen. That is where the raid takes place, after all. Specifically, the node for the raid is found all the way to the right of the screen.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape raid jacket, emblems, and other rewards

By completing Salvation's Edge themselves or by watching the World's First raid race on Twitch, players can earn a wide variety of exclusive rewards. All of these are listed below.

Players can earn the ability to purchase a Salvation's Edge raid jacket and Chrome Industries sling bag by completing the raid by June 25 at 9:59 a.m. PT / 12:59 p.m. ET.

Players can earn the ability to purchase a Salvation's Edge raid pin by completing the raid by October 8 at 9:59 a.m. PT / 12:59 p.m. ET. They can also earn the ability to purchase an Iconoclast Title pin by completing the raid's Iconoclast Title by December 31 at 9:59 a.m. PT / 12:59 p.m. ET.

The first fireteam of six Guardians to complete Salvation's Edge on Contest Mode and loot its final chest will win the title of World's First and receive a Salvation's Edge raid belt.

By completing Salvation's Edge on Contest Mode, players can earn the "Hunker Down" emblem. Players who complete any version of Salvation's Edge will unlock the "Edification" emblem.

Some additional emblems are also available to players watching streams of Salvation's Edge on Twitch, including the following:

• Stand in Salvation: Watch two hours of any Destiny 2 Twitch streamer between June 7, 9:30 a.m. PT / 12:30 p.m. ET and June 9, 9:30 a.m. PT / 12:30 p.m. ET.
• Roots Remain: Watch two hours of the Destiny 2 Twitch Rivals stream or any participating Twitch Rivals creator between June 7, 9:30 a.m. PT / 12:30 p.m. ET and June 9, 9:30 a.m. PT / 12:30 p.m. ET.
• Wrest the Heart: Subscribe to your favorite Destiny 2 streamer (existing subscribers can gift a subscription to earn the emblem).

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — is finally here and available to play now.

The new Destiny 2 expansion The Final Shape has plenty of awesome gear to chase, ranging from new drops in the world loot pool to refreshed Season of Dawn weapons and powerful Exotic armor pieces that play nicely with some of the best Prismatic builds as well as other popular setups. The weapons that interest me the most, though, are the special new destination weapons obtainable while in the Traveler's Pale Heart.

There are eight of these in total, and each one can drop from The Final Shape campaign, various activities completed in the Pale Heart, and finished Pale Heart Pathfinder objectives (these have replaced many of Destiny 2's bounties). They're also craftable, which means once you get five Deepsight "red border" versions of a weapon to drop, you can level and craft one with the exact perks you want at the Enclave that was introduced in The Witch Queen DLC.

Nearly every Pale Heart weapon is incredibly strong, with multiple S-tier perk combinations and "god rolls" worth chasing or crafting as you prepare to battle the Witness and its allies. Below, you'll find a list of all the god rolls I plan to hunt for, including both PvE and PvP rolls as well as a brief overview of why I want them and why I believe they'll be meta.

Axial Lucana god rolls

• PvE God Roll: Arrowhead Brake / Liquid Coils / Reconstruction OR Demolitionist / Controlled Burst OR Incandescent / Charge Time Masterwork
• PvP God Roll: Arrowhead Brake / Accelerated Coils / Threat Detector / Kickstart OR Vorpal Weapon

We're starting things off very strong with Axial Lucana, which is undoubtedly one of if not the best Legendary Solar Fusion Rifle in the game for PvE thanks to the combo of Reconstruction and Controlled Burst. With that roll, you'll be dishing out tons of buffed boss DPS with a massively overflowed magazine. Alternatively, there's also Demolitionist in column three for grenade-focused builds, and Incandescent in column four if you want a roll for add clear. Go with Liquid Coils to improve your damage-per-shot and a Charge Time masterwork for faster shooting.

I suspect Axial Lucana will also see lots of play in PvP, as Precision Frame Fusion Rifles are popular in the Crucible and a good Threat Detector / Kickstart roll will let you map people from surprisingly far away after you slide. You could also go with Vorpal Weapon in column four if you need a specialized anti-Super special weapon.

Bold Endings god rolls

• PvE God Roll: Arrowhead Brake / Flared Magwell OR Tactical Mag / Headstone OR Rapid Hit / Dragonfly OR Demolitionist / Reload Speed Masterwork
• PvP God Roll: Smallbore / Accurized Rounds / To the Pain OR Rapid Hit / Eye of the Storm / Range OR Stability Masterwork

Bold Endings is one of Destiny 2: The Final Shape's two new Heavy Burst Hand Cannons (the other being a Void world drop), and it's a dream come true for fans of Stasis builds. The unique combo of Headstone / Dragonfly will spawn a Stasis crystal and then immediately shatter it with an explosion whenever you get a precision kill, instantly proccing the Whisper of Shards Stasis Fragment if you're using it and heavily damaging other nearby enemies. There's also Headstone / Demolitionist, which is a very rare pairing that's perfect for Renewal Grasps Hunters, Bleak Watcher Warlocks, and Cryoclasm Titans. If you'd prefer something subclass-neutral, you could opt for Rapid Hit instead of Headstone for speedy reloads and extra stability.

In PvP, the new To the Pain perk that buffs handling and aim assist as you take damage synergizes very strongly with the accuracy-boosting Eye of the Storm in column four, so that's the perk combo I recommend for the Crucible. Rapid Hit / Eye of the Storm is also a popular pairing on other weapons, and will perform well on this one too.

Embraced Identity god rolls

• PvE God Roll: Arrowhead Brake / Appended Mag / Reconstruction OR Rewind Rounds OR Destabilizing Rounds / Fourth Time's the Charm OR Precision Instrument OR Redirection / Stability Masterwork
• PvP God Roll: Fluted Barrel / Steady Rounds OR Accurized Rounds / Opening Shot / Moving Target / Handling Masterwork

Snipers aren't in the best place right now, but good rolls of Embraced Identity are nevertheless worth hunting down so that you have them ready for scenarios where having a sniper would be helpful. Reconstruction or Rewind Rounds / Fourth Times the Charm will give you what feels like an endless magazine as long as you consistently hit precision shots, though you could also opt for Precision Instrument in column four for a sizable damage buff against Major and Boss-tier enemies. Another weird roll I definitely want to try out is Destabilizing Rounds / Redirection, with the area-of-effect explosions from the former killing basic mobs that will then contribute to buffed shots against yellow bars and bosses.

PvP-wise, the only good option here is Opening Shot / Moving Target, but that roll is a dime a dozen on Sniper Rifles these days. It's worth getting if you don't have a good PvP sniper yet, though, especially since it's craftable and allows you to enhance the perks.

False Idols god rolls

• PvE God Roll: Jagged Edge OR Honed Edge OR Tempered Edge / Swordmaster's Guard / Relentless Strikes OR Unrelenting OR Incandescent / Surrounded OR Bait and Switch OR Chain Reaction OR One for All
• PvP God Roll: Jagged Edge / Burst Guard / Wellspring OR Unrelenting / Chain Reaction OR Vorpal Weapon

To me, this is the least interesting of the Pale Heart weapons, as since it's a Vortex Frame Sword, it deals less damage than other archetypes. However, it may still see some play in The Final Shape and the Echoes Episode, as it's got some good perks and the current seasonal artifact has a lot of perks for Sword DPS. 

Relentless Strikes returns ammo to you as you light attack, with Surrounded and Bait and Switch both giving you massive (albeit situational, in Surrounded's case) damage buffs. There's also Unrelenting or Incandescent / Chain Reaction or One for All for fun add clear, though most players don't use Power Ammo-using Swords for taking care of red bars (that's what Machine Guns are for).

Swords have never been particularly strong in PvP, but if you manage to get Power Ammo in a Crucible match, Wellspring or Unrelenting / Chain Reaction could be fun for slicing through players you catch off-guard. There's also Vorpal for taking out Supers.

No Hesitation god rolls

• PvE God Roll: Arrowhead Brake / Appended Mag OR Tactical Mag OR Flared Magwell / Physic OR Demolitionist / Circle of Life OR Incandescent / Stability Masterwork
• PvP God Roll: Arrowhead Brake OR Smallbore OR Hammer-Forged Rifling / Accurized Rounds / Physic OR Demolitionist OR Strategist / Circle of Life OR Incandescent / Range Masterwork

In stark contrast to False Idols is the No Hesitation Auto Rifle, which is undoubtedly the most interesting Pale Heart weapon. It's the first of a new Support Frame that can heal allies you shoot with it after you deal enough damage to build up a charge.

The roll to chase is Physic / Circle of Life, with the former perk granting you and your teammates the Restoration Solar health regen buff when you use the weapon to heal them and the latter rewarding you with a damage buff for that healing. Another great PvE roll is Demolitionist / Incandescent, which will greatly synergize with any Solar setup built around grenades or Scorch damage-over-time (and the explosive ignitions it can lead to). The same rolls will also serve you well in PvP, though there's also Strategist in column three to boost your stability after you use your class ability.

Pro Memoria god rolls

• PvE God Roll: Arrowhead Brake / Appended Mag OR Flared Magwell / Reconstruction OR Demolitionist OR Hatchling / Dragonfly OR Bait and Switch OR Target Lock / Reload Speed Masterwork
• PvP God Roll: Arrowhead Brake / Accurized Rounds / To the Pain OR Strategist / Tap the Trigger OR Dragonfly / Stability OR Handling Masterwork

Another weapon with a new archetype is the Pro Memoria Strand Machine Gun, featuring an Aggressive Frame with high damage and recoil per shot. Reconstruction / Dragonfly or Bait and Switch are the best rolls for general add clear, while both Bait and Switch and Target Lock in column four will work well for sustained single-target DPS. There's also Demolitionist and Hatchling in column three for players using grenade or Threadling-focused builds.

For PvP, To the Pain or Strategist / Tap the Trigger will help manage the weapon's recoil and make it a laser. Alternatively, you could go with Dragonfly for some multikill potential on grouped up players.

Someday god rolls

• PvE God Roll: Smallbore OR Barrel Shroud / Assault Mag / Threat Detector OR Dual Loader / Recombination OR Vorpal Weapon OR Cascade Point OR Swashbuckler / Handling Masterwork
• PvP God Roll: Smallbore OR Smoothbore / Accurized Rounds / Threat Detector / Opening Shot / Range OR Handling Masterwork

Most of the Pale Heart weapons are at their best with PvE-focused rolls, but Someday is a shotgun that's perfect for Crucible PvP. Precision Frame Shotguns are arguably the best for close-range one-hit kills, and the extremely rare combo of Threat Detector / Opening Shot gives it an exceptional effective range. Essentially, it's a god-rolled Matador 64 in the Kinetic slot, and a must-have if you're a "shotgun ape."

There's a few decent perk pairings for PvE, too; I'd go with Assault Mag for faster shooting, along with either Threat Detector or Dual Loader and Recombination for extremely high damage against a tanky target after clearing some red bars with a primary. In column four, there's also Vorpal for a Champion and boss-specific damage buff, Cascade Point for rapidly mag-dumping a yellow bar after hits with a different weapon, and Swashbuckler for synergy with melee builds.

The Call god rolls

• PvE God Roll: Volatile Launch / Tactical Mag OR High-Velocity Rounds OR Appended Mag / Subsistence OR Lead from Gold OR Slice OR Demolitionist / One for All OR Adrenaline Junkie OR Golden Tricorn OR Hatchling
• PvP God Roll: Quick Launch / High-Velocity Rounds / Beacon Rounds / Desperate Measures OR Vorpal Weapon

Last but absolutely not least is The Call, a Strand "pocket rocket" Sidearm that everyone wants their hands on after experiencing the incredible power of the Arc one, Indebted Kindness, that drops from the Warlord's Ruin dungeon. There's a ridiculous number of great perks on offer here, to the point where it'll be very difficult to get (or craft) a bad roll.

In column three, there's:

• Subsistence, for ammo returned to the mag after kills
• Lead from Gold, for extra ammo when you pick up a Power Ammo brick
• Slice, for Severing a target (reducing its damage by ~30%) after using your class ability
• Demolitionist, for grenade energy on kill and a full reload when throwing grenades
• Beacon Rounds, for easily landing shots in PvP with tracking

Then, in column four:

• One for All, for a 35% damage buff after hitting three enemies
• Adrenaline Junkie, for stacking damage buffs on kill that cap at 33% with five stacks (grenade kills give you max stacks instantly)
• Golden Tricorn, for a 15% damage buff after kills that refreshes and skyrockets to 50% if you get a Strand ability kill before it runs out
• Hatchling, for spawning a Threadling after precision or rapid kills
• Desperate Measures, for Golden Tricorn-like effects with smaller buffs, but the ability to activate while stowed and you're getting kills with other weapons
• Vorpal Weapon, for dealing 15% extra damage to bosses, vehicles, and Guardians using their Super

As you can see, there's an absolute treasure trove of traits to pick from for PvE with The Call. For PvP, I'd stick with Beacon Rounds / Desperate Measures, though you could roll with Vorpal too if you want something to deal with Supers.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — is finally here and available to play now.

There's plenty of content to engage with in The Final Shape expansion for Destiny 2, but one of the first things you'll want to do — especially if you're planning to jump into the DLC's Salvation's Edge raid on June 7 and go for a day one clear — is fully unlock every Prismatic Fragment, Aspect, and ability. You'll get a handful of these from reward chests as you progress through The Final Shape's campaign, but most of these subclass elements will come from hidden chests off the beaten path, quests, or and explorations of the Traveler's Pale Heart after you complete it.

Getting the rest of your Light and Darkness Aspects and abilities is easy, as it just requires completing the straightforward Found in the Dark and Lost in the Light quests your Ghost gives to you post-campaign. Prismatic Fragments, though, are significantly more complicated. Some of them are obtained from secret chests within the campaign, a few are unlocked from Prismatic chests in the Pale Heart that won't open unless you complete a small puzzle, and you'll need Memory Vestiges of Light and Darkness — earned during Micah-10's Alone in the Dark cyst missions and from Darkness-corrupted chests in the open world, respectively — in order to combine them into full memories and make the final Fragment chests spawn in the patrol space.

In total, there are 13 Fragments to find, and I wouldn't blame you for feeling lost without a guide since the game doesn't give you a clear indication of what to do to hunt them down. Luckily, several Destiny content creators have put together some great video guides that go over acquiring all of Prismatic, including this excellent one from Datto I'm using as I write this.

The most time consuming of these Fragments to get seem to be the ones that require Light Memory Vestiges, as it sounds like there's an issue causing these to sometimes not spawn during cyst missions. If you don't end up running into these glitches, though, you'll probably spend most of your time getting the Fragments that come from hidden puzzles around the Pale Heart. There are five of these, and while none of them are particularly difficult, they're spread out across the patrol space evenly and a few of them require quite a bit of running around.

Overall, the process of fully unlocking Prismatic involves significantly more effort than getting Stasis or Strand did, and I like that doing so gives me a reason to explore the Pale Heart and appreciate The Final Shape's incredible environment design. Along the way, you'll also be getting plenty of drops of the new Pale Heart weapons, potentially including the new Support Frame Auto Rifle, No Hesitation, that heals teammates when you shoot it at them.

While you don't have to get all of Prismatic before moving on to the Pale Heart's other activities, doing so is definitely a good idea. With every Fragment, Aspect, and ability, you'll have everything you need to use some of the best Prismatic builds or experiment with the subclass to create some of your own.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — is finally here and available to play now.

Past Destiny 2 expansions have introduced new subclasses such as Beyond Light's Stasis and Lightfall's Strand, but for The Final Shape DLC, developer Bungie has done something entirely different. Instead of giving Guardians a fresh set of powers to play around with, the studio has created Prismatic — a subclass featuring a wide variety of different abilities and Aspects from all five of Destiny 2's other subclasses. Under Prismatic, all of these options have been tweaked so they synergize in powerful ways that Bungie wants to feel a little "broken," with a suite of new Fragments allowing for plenty of creative buildcrafting. You'll even be able to enter a new state called Transcendence by filling Light and Darkness meters with those damage types, giving you temporary access to a unique grenade, extra damage resistance, and very fast ability regeneration.

With so many different subclass ability combinations available, Prismatic's buildcrafting potential feels limitless — and we don't even have access to The Final Shape's new Exotic class items yet, which will feature two randomly rolled perks inspired by pieces of previously released Exotic armor. And as you unlock the subclass and its various options throughout the DLC's campaign and post-campaign content, you'll no doubt be wondering what some of the best Prismatic builds are.

While there's no way to know for sure what the best setups are until the community spends at least a few weeks experimenting with Prismatic, I've put together some combinations that are all-but-guaranteed to be strong. You'll find one of these builds for each Destiny 2 class below, including each one's abilities, Aspects, Fragments, Exotics, weapons, and armor mods. Note that some of these Aspects and abilities won't be available to use until you make progress in the campaign, so keep that in mind.

Destiny 2: Best Prismatic Hunter build

• Abilities: Golden Gun: Marksman, Gambler's Dodge, Combination Blow, Grapple Grenade
• Aspects: Winter's Shroud, Stylish Executioner OR Threaded Specter
• Fragments: Facet of Dawn, Facet of Protection, Facet of Purpose, Facet of Ruin
• Exotic: Liar's Handshake OR Assassin's Cowl
• Exotic class item: Spirit of Caliban OR Spirit of the Assassin / Spirit of Synthoceps OR Spirit of the Liar
• Armor mods: Weapon-matching Siphon, Hands-On, Heavy Handed, Stacks on Stacks, Recuperation, Innervation, Reaper, Explosive Finisher
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Recovery OR Mobility
• Weapons: Shotgun w/ One-Two Punch, Swashbuckler weapons

The pairing of Combination Blow and Gambler’s Dodge is a fan-favorite Hunter ability combo, and with Prismatic, you can take it to an entirely new level. By pairing Winter’s Shroud with Stylish Executioner, you can dodge near enemies to Slow (and eventually Freeze) them, then proc Invisibility by killing those enemies with a Combination Blow melee. Then, while invisible, use a Gambler’s Dodge to apply more Slow and get your Combination Blow back before punching and killing another foe, starting the cycle again. Whenever enemies are far away, use Grapple Grenade to quickly close the distance.

If whatever you’re hitting doesn’t die to your first melee, it’s very likely another will finish it off thanks to the fact your first melee while invisible will debuff your target with Weaken and your follow-up will get a huge damage buff from Liar’s Handshake. You can also boost the damage of your punches even higher with a One-Two Punch shotgun; don’t forget Combination Blow has a damage buff of its own that will stack up to three times as you perform your core combo, too.

The build is rounded out nicely by the chosen Fragments that allow melee kills to give you the Radiant weapon damage boost, give you damage resistance when surrounded by enemies, give you Restoration healing when you pick up Orbs of Power (since Golden Gun is your Super), and buff the damage caused when your melees shatter mobs frozen by your Winter’s Shroud dodges. With these armor mods, you’ll also be generating plenty of Orbs of Power with melee kills, getting additional healing from Recuperation, and gaining lots of Armor Charge you can convert into Grapple Grenade charges with Explosive Finisher (Gambler’s Dodge handles your melee).

For a safer, but lower damage alternative to the build, you could use Assassin’s Cowl and Threaded Specter instead of Liar’s Handshake and Stylish Executioner; Assassin’s Cowl will give you healing and Void Invisibility on each melee kill, while Threaded Specter makes a decoy each time you dodge that draws enemy aggro and explodes into Strand Threadlings when destroyed. The original build would also be very strong with an Exotic class item with a Caliban / Synthoceps or Liars roll, while this one would perform better with Spirit of the Assassin instead of Caliban.

Destiny 2: Best Prismatic Warlock build

• Abilities: Needlestorm OR Song of Flame, Healing Rift OR Empowering Rift, Arcane Needle, Coldsnap Grenade
• Aspects: Bleak Watcher, Feed the Void
• Fragments: Facet of Ruin, Facet of Balance, Facet of Dawn, Facet of Purpose
• Exotic: Osmiomancy Gloves
• Exotic class item: Spirit of Inmost Light OR Spirit of Osmiomancy / Spirit of Starfire
• Armor mods: Stasis Siphon, Dynamo, Heavy Handed, Grenade Kickstart, Charged Up, Stacks on Stacks, Recuperation, Innervation, Reaper, Bomber
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Recovery OR Strength
• Weapons: Stasis primary w/ Headstone, Light (Arc, Solar, or Void) special and heavy weapon

Since they were added in Beyond Light, Shadebinder Warlock’s Stasis Bleak Watcher turrets have been a mainstay in endgame PvE — especially when paired with the Osmiomancy Gloves Exotic that gives you two grenade charges to use. With Prismatic, you can use them (and Osmiomancy) alongside the Feed the Void Aspect that gives you Devour, a special Void buff that gives you chunks of health and grenade energy every time you get a kill while it’s up.

Devour refreshes itself on all kills once it’s active, but to first proc it, you’ll need an ability kill; this is what you’ll use ranged Arcane Needle melees for, as they deal fairly high damage and have three charges. Then, once you have Devour, you can easily keep it up as you take out all the foes frozen by your Bleak Watcher turrets, and all of the grenade energy it gives will help you spam more turrets.

The Fragments I’ve chosen augment the build by making enemies take more damage when they shatter or are hit by shattered Stasis crystals and giving you additional grenade energy from Darkness kills, which is why I recommend a Stasis primary with Headstone. You’ll also get Radiant when you use your Arcane Needles and Woven Mail damage resistance from Orbs of Power. Speaking of Orbs, you’ll be making a ton with Arcane Needle and Stasis weapon multikills thanks to your armor mods, and the subsequent Armor Charge will fuel Grenade Kickstart procs to boost your grenade (turret) regen further.

While you could use an Exotic class item with Spirit of Osmiomancy, it doesn’t give you a second grenade charge for your turrets. On top of that, the only second column perk that synergizes with this build is Spirit of Starfire, which would require using Empowering Rift (Healing Rift is much better in PvE). For those reasons, I recommend sticking with Osmiomancy Gloves.

Destiny 2: Best Prismatic Titan build

• Abilities: Hammer of Sol OR Bladefury, Thruster, Frenzied Blade, Shackle Grenade
• Aspects: Consecration, Knockout
• Fragments: Facet of Balance, Facet of Dawn, Facet of Purpose, Facet of Ruin
• Exotic: Heart of Inmost Light
• Exotic class item: Spirit of Inmost Light / Spirit of Synthoceps
• Armor mods: Hands-On, Heavy Handed, Invigoration, Recuperation, Reaper, Bomber, Explosive Finisher
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Recovery OR Strength
• Weapons: Balance of Light (Arc, Solar, or Void) and Darkness (Stasis, Strand) weaponry

Between the Consecration and Knockout Aspects and the use of Frenzied Blade and Glacier Grenade, this build combines some of the best elements of Solar, Arc, and Strand into one cohesive ranged melee setup. At its core, it takes advantage of using Consecration to Ignite enemies and proccing Knockout health regen and Amplified off of those kills, with Frenzied Blade giving you three melee charges to use Consecration with.

Though the build is simple, it’s also incredibly powerful, especially with these Fragments that give you melee energy from Light kills (AKA, Consecration is feeding into itself), Radiant from your Consecration blasts, Restoration (Hammer of Sol Super) or Woven Mail (Bladefury Super) from Orbs of Power, and bigger Solar ignitions.

The use of Heart of Inmost Light will help you get your melees and other abilities back faster as you cycle through them, as will a suite of armor mods that generate Orbs of Power from melee kills and give you both melee and grenade energy. Once Exotic class items can drop, try and get one with Inmost Light / Synthoceps to work a sizable melee damage buff into the setup.

Get buildcrafting, Guardians

All three of these Prismatic builds are very powerful and show off just how strong the subclass can be when using different Aspects and abilities together in synergistic ways, but I'm certain that Destiny 2's community will figure out even stronger combinations in the days and weeks to come. As it does, I'll be sure to update this guide with the best builds I see so you can bring the full power of both the Light and the Darkness to bear on the Witness and its forces. 

Of course, you should also endeavor to experiment yourself, as you may come across some unique and effective combos that other players haven't thought about yet. This will be especially true in Week 2 (starting June 11), as this is when the activity that drops Exotic class items will unlock.

The Final Shape itself is officially available to play, so as long as you've purchased a copy, you can journey into the Pale Heart of the Traveler and challenge the Witness now. Just be aware you might have to deal with a queue whenever you log in during the first few days of the DLC, as hundreds of thousands of players are doing the same.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — is finally here and available to play now.

Original article: Nearly 10 entire years after the original Destiny game launched back in 2014, Destiny 2: The Final Shape — the climactic capstone expansion for the series' decade-long Light and Darkness Saga — has finally gone live. The Destiny 2 update has officially released and is available to play, with the patch now rolling out on Xbox, PC, and PlayStation.

The Final Shape represents a bombastic conclusion to a grand story that's been building ever since the first Destiny came out, with the space fantasy looter shooter's narrative introducing players to dozens of nuanced characters and exploring a wide variety of different themes. Now, at the end of its arc, Guardians are tasked with following the Witness — Destiny's main antagonist that wishes to coalesce the Light and Darkness to bring about a lifeless universe — into the Pale Heart of the Light-granting Traveler itself and thwarting its machinations.

At the core of that effort is Prismatic, The Final Shape's premier subclass that allows players to combine different abilities and Aspects from different Light and Darkness subclasses into one powerful jack-of-all-trades-style kit (check out some of the best Prismatic builds). Of course, the expansion also features a myriad of new weapons and Exotic gear pieces to chase, along with special new Prismatic-exclusive Exotic class items with a pair of randomly rolled Exotic armor perks. Prismatic, its components, and the new Pale Heart weapons are unlocked during the campaign and its aftermath, while the Exotic class items will become obtainable once Week 2 begins on June 11, after the DLC's new raid launches on June 7 and is beaten.

Destiny 2 started going through a resurgence in the weeks leading up to The Final Shape thanks to the excellent midseason Into the Light update as well as the announcement of some hugely positive changes the expansion brings (for example, the Power Level grind has been significantly shortened and made considerably less important). Because of that, it's not surprising to see SteamDB report over 300,000 players jumping into The Final Shape at launch on Steam alone. It's also not surprising that the DLC's release has been rocky so far with fans frequently reporting "Destiny 2 servers are not available" errors; thankfully, it looks like a good number of players (myself included) are getting into the game now, though some may still need to wait in a queue.

The Final Shape retails for $49.99, though right now, you can get it for nearly $10 off at CDKeys. Oh, and while you're waiting for the servers to improve, consider reading through the expansion's patch notes, which are ridiculously long. You'll find the full list in the section below.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — is arguably the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten.

Destiny 2 Update 8.0.0.1: Patch notes

Here are the official patch notes for Destiny 2's The Final Shape launch, taken directly from Bungie's own website.

Activities

• CRUCIBLE
  • Competitive will now use the Blended “1-1-1" Special Ammo system in place of the Crates system. We will begin rolling this system out to other playlists soon.
  • Adjusted spawns on Altar of Flame and Dead Cliffs for Countdown Rush to improve match balance.
  • Updated Private Match screens to support expanded options and to improve usability.
  • Updated sound effects for rank promotion and defense toasts in Competitive to better convey success or failure.
  • Fixed an issue where Relic meter was not correctly progressing in Relic.
  • Fixed an issue where Private Match activity modifiers would display inaccurately.
• SHADOWKEEP
  • Fixed an issue in the mission Beyond where players would sometimes get stuck without the activity progressing them correctly.
• WARLORD’S RUIN
  • Fixed an issue in Warlord's Ruin where the sound effect that occurs after a player is frozen by the tempest storm did not play correctly.
• CROTA’S END
  • Fixed an issue preventing completion of the All for One challenge and associated Triumph.
• THE PANTHEON
  • Fixed an issue where The Pantheon emblems appeared in the General category rather than the Raids category in Collections.

UI/UX

• GENERAL
  • Added a gameplay subtitles option that displays the speaker's name before their dialog.
    • This option is off by default. To activate it, navigate to the Options menu and toggle it to on.
    • This feature does not affect cinematic subtitles.
  • Added Reputation Boost information for ritual activities to the Director.
    • Hovering over the Rituals nodes at the top of the Director (Vanguard Ops, Crucible, Gambit) will display when reputation boosts are active.
  • Fixed an issue where dungeon tracking stats were not displayed on emblems.
• FIRETEAM FINDER
  • Improved placement and visuals of the Reselecting Activity button so players have better access to it.
  • Fixed an issue where Fireteam Finder lobbies for Crucible Labs weren't allowing the correct max number of players for the activity.
  • Fixed an issue where in some Fireteam Finder applications, player status was not displayed properly.
• GUARDIAN RANKS/JOURNEY SCREEN
  • Made visual and functional improvements to the Journey screen and Guardian Ranks icons.
  • Fixed an issue where the Cherished Guardian Rank objective displayed the incorrect Commendation score requirement.
• QUESTS
  • Added Milestones to the quest log.
    • Milestones will not count against a player's maximum quest/bounty capacity.
  • Tracked quests will be sorted to the top of their categories when the quest log is reloaded next.
  • Added an option to set a specific Quest tab as the default.
    • The default Quest tab will be the first tab opened when the quest log is loaded.
  • Added text to the Quest tooltip to communicate when a Quest is directly launchable from its Quest Details screen.

Gameplay and Investment

• ABILITIES
  • All Subclasses
    • All Super abilities now use the same damage-based recharge parameters.
      • Previously, energy gained through damage dealt and received was scaled based on the passive recharge rate of the Super, resulting in a broader delta between long-recharge Supers and short-recharge Supers than intended.
      • This will, for example, bring the real-world uptime of Ward of Dawn and Well of Radiance closer to the uptime of a Super like Arc Staff or Fists of Havoc.
  • Arc Subclasses
    • Arcstrider
      • Arc Staff:
        • Heavy palm strike attacks and heavy air slam blind enemies.
    • Disorienting Blow:
      • Decreased base cooldown time from 100 seconds to 90 seconds.
    • Tempest Strike:
      • Added additional damage resistance vs. PvE combatants when activated, lingering for a short duration after the attack.
    • Striker
      • Knockout
        • Increased bonus damage granted to powered melee attacks vs. PvE combatants from 25% to 50%.
      • Reworked healing behavior:
        • No longer unstuns health regeneration on melee defeats. Now instantly grants a chunk of healing that scales with the type of target defeated.
        • Player: 30 health points.
        • Minor combatant: 50 health points.
        • Major combatant: 75 health points.
        • Champion+ combatant: 100 health points.
      • Touch of Thunder
      • Lightning Grenade:
        • Now applies Jolt after the first damage event, rather than prior.
        • This means that the Jolt won't instantly pop on application, and attackers will need to either wait for the second lightning burst from the grenade or deal additional damage via other means to trigger the Jolt's chain lightning.
      • Storm Grenade:
        • Increased tracking travel speed when targeting PvE combatants by between 0.5 and 1 meters per second, increasing with the storm’s lifetime.
      • Thunderclap
        • Added additional damage resistance vs. PvE combatants when activated, lingering for a short duration after the attack.
        • Increased minimum damage vs. PvE combatants by 20%.
        • Increased maximum damage vs. PvE combatants by 33%.
        • Increased maximum damage vs. enemy players by 14%.
    • Stormcaller
      • Lightning Surge
        • Added additional damage resistance vs. PvE combatants when activated, lingering for a short duration after the attack.This is intended to help players survive during the final lightning strike performance until the player returns to first person and can maneuver out of danger
    • Ball Lightning
      • Increased the final arming shape size by 30%.
      • Fixed an issue where the arming shape was offset upward, higher than the maximum damage range of the projectile’s detonation.
    • Chain Lightning
      • Increased secondary chain projectile’s base damage from 27 to 54.
    • Arc Grenades
      • Storm Grenade:
        • Increased damage vs. PvE combatants by 20%.
        • Touch of Thunder variant’s damage is unchanged.
    • Skip Grenade:
      • Increased damage vs. PvE combatants by 15%.
    • Arcbolt Grenade:
      • Increased damage vs. PvE combatants by 15%.
    • Arc Fragments
      • Spark of Recharge:
        • Ability regeneration bonus now persists until the player returns to full shields, rather than deactivating as soon as shields begin to recharge.
      • Spark of Beacons:
        • Now also triggers on defeating targets with Arc Power ammo weapons while amplified.
      • Spark of Frequency:
        • Now also grants 15 weapon stability on powered melee hit, in addition to its reload benefit.
  • Solar Subclasses
    • Solar General
      • Restoration
        • Restoration’s full-body visual effects now reduce their intensity while the player's Super is active.
      • Cure
        • Cure's healing now takes place over 0.1 seconds rather than instantly.
        • This change is unlikely to affect Cure's efficacy in a meaningful way but is primarily intended to improve the readability of Cure's heal in the middle of combat in the UI.
    • Gunslinger
      • Lightweight Knife
        • Now has 2 melee charges by default.
        • Increased throw animation speed by 33%.
        • Reduced suppression time between throws, so both knives can be thrown very quickly back-to-back.
        • The additional melee charge does not stack with Ophidia Spathe, due to the Exotic’s unique energy recharge behavior. We’ll be monitoring this and evaluating how things are playing once things go live.
    • Knock 'Em Down
      • Reduced internal cooldown on throwing knife refund from 1 second to 0.2 seconds.
    • Gunpowder Gamble
      • Fixed an issue where Gunpowder Gamble was unable to damage Strand Tangles.
    • Golden Gun - Marksman
      • Reduced strength of Orbs of Power created on precision hit as follows:
        • When hitting non-boss enemies, reduced strength from 0.75x to 0.5x of a normal Super Orb of Power.
        • When hitting boss enemies, reduced strength from 0.75x to about 0.4x of a normal Super Orb of Power.
        • When hitting boss enemies while Star-Eater Scales is equipped, reduced strength from 0.75x to about 0.35x of a normal Super Orb of Power.
    • Sunbreaker
      • Consecration
        • Consecration’s slam attack can now shatter Stasis crystals.
        • Ignitions generated by Consecration now deal 20% additional damage to PvE combatants.
        • Fixed an issue where Consecration’s slam attack was sometimes unable to damage floating combatants while they were grounded.
        • Fixed an issue where Consecration’s intended PvE damage resistance was not being applied.
    • Hammer of Sol
      • Increased projectile submunition count when Sol Invictus is not equipped as follows:
        • If the projectile detonates within the first 0.7 seconds of its lifetime, it now creates 4 shrapnel submunitions, up from 3.
        • If the projectile detonates after the first 0.7 seconds of its lifetime, it now creates 6 shrapnel, up from 5.
        • When Sol Invictus is equipped, only 3 shrapnel submunitions are created, regardless of flight time.
      • Shrapnel submunitions now deal additional damage when Sol Invictus is not equipped, with the damage increasing after the first 0.7 seconds of the projectile's lifetime.
    • Dawnblade
      • Heat Rises
        • Fixed an issue where throwing some grenades while Heat Rises was equipped would produce Void visual effects on the player's hands during the throw.
    • Well of Radiance
      • Now grants radiant for 8 seconds when players exit the Well of Radiance area.
      • Reduced player survivability while standing in the Well of Radiance aura.
        • Reduced healing per second from 100 to 50 health points, matching restoration x2.
      • Increased heal on cast from 40 to 300 health points.
      • Reduced damage resistance vs. non-boss combatants from 40% to 20%.
      • Reduced damage resistance vs. boss combatants from 40% to 10%.
      • Damage resistance vs. enemy players is unchanged.
      • Increased maximum Orbs of Power from defeating targets while in the player's Well of Radiance aura from 4 to 5.
    • Solar Grenades
      • Swarm Grenade
        • Increased tracking shape size from 4 meters to 6 meters.
        • Increased linger duration from 7-8 seconds to 10-11 seconds.
        • Increased damage vs. PvE combatants by 20%.
  • Void Subclasses
    • Void General
      • Fixed an issue where Volatile could fail to auto-detonate if the target was defeated by the damage event that applied the Volatile effect.
    • Nightstalker
      • Snare Bomb
        • Increased linger duration of smoke after detonation from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
        • Now applies small damage over time to enemies in the smoke, which increases in strength the longer they remain in the smoke.
    • Trapper's Ambush
      • Increased linger duration of the smoke after detonation from 4.5 seconds to 6 seconds.
      • Now applies Snare Bomb’s damage over time to enemies caught in its smoke.
      • Fixed an issue where Trapper’s Ambush’s smoke effects could be obstructed by ground geometry.
    • Stylish Executioner
      • Stylish Executioner’s weaken effect can now be applied by Glaive melee attacks.
    • Sentinel
      • Shield Throw:
        • Increased maximum bounce count from 4 to 5.
        • Increased maximum lifetime from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
        • Now increases its tracking shape size and strength after each bounce, increasing its ability to consistently find a new target.
        • Slightly increased gravity and decreased thrust speed with each bounce.
        • Increased damage vs. PvE targets by 20%.
    • Ward of Dawn:
      • Armor of Light:
        • Removed Armor of Light overshield. Ward of Dawn now immediately applies a full Void Overshield to the caster and allies that enter its dome.
        • Armor of Light now instead grants additional damage resistance to players inside the Ward of Dawn:30% vs. enemy players and 60% vs. enemy combatants.
        • Effective health of players inside the Ward of Dawn dome remains roughly the same as it was before vs. PvE combatants.
        • Effective health of players inside the Ward of Dawn is significantly lower than it was before vs.other players in PvP, and cannot be further increased by stacking Bastion Barricades inside the Ward to gain additional Overshield layers.
      • No longer provides Weapons of Light by default. This behavior has been moved to the benefits of Helm of Saint-14.
      • Allies near the Ward of Dawn dome now have Void Overshield trickled on over time, similar to the volume behind a Bastion barricade.
        • This trickle rate is reduced in PvP activities.
      • The Ward of Dawn caster can now generate additional Orbs of Power by defeating enemies with melee attacks in or near their Ward of Dawn dome. Up to a maximum of 5.
    • Offensive Bulwark
      • Can now only extend Void Overshield’s timer to its normal maximum duration, to prevent an issue where players could get into a bad timer state.
      • Now regenerates a small portion of the player's active Void Overshield with each melee defeat.
    • Voidwalker
      • Chaos Accelerant
        • Magnetic Grenade
        • Increased maximum intensity of physics knockback impulse by 10%.
        • Increased damage vs. PvE combatants by 20%.
        • Now passively decreases the player's Magnetic Grenade’s cooldown by 10% while Chaos Accelerant is equipped.
      • Pocket Singularity
        • Increased detonation damage vs. PvE combatants by about 50%.
      • Nova Bomb
        • Cataclysm variant:
        • Increased seeker count from 4 to 6.
        • Fixed an issue where seekers could impact the environment on creation.
        • Vortex variant:
        • Increased Vortex linger duration from 7 seconds to 10 seconds.
        • Fixed an issue where the linger visual effects were shutting off early.
    • Void Grenades
      • Suppressor Grenade
        • Damage radius now matches Suppression radius.
        • This does not meaningfully change the damage profile of the grenade but is intended to provide additional feedback to the player when they have successfully Suppressed a target.
      • Voidwall Grenade
        • Fixed an issue where the central damage volume was offset significantly lower than the left and right volumes.
    • Void Fragments
      • Echo of Instability
        • Can now be activated by defeating targets with Forerunner's The Rock grenade.
        • No longer displays its HUD buff text unless a Void weapon is readied.
  • Stasis Subclasses
    • Stasis General
      • New Frost Armor keyword:
        • You are fortified by layers of durable Stasis matter, reducing incoming damage. Frost Armor damage resistance grows stronger as the player gains additional stacks.
        • Reduces damage from PvE combatants by 4.5% per stack and from enemy players by 2% per stack.
    • Stasis Shatter
      • Increased base PvE shatter damage from 200 to 400.
      • Fixed an issue where bosses auto-shattering were being hit by two instances of shatter damage.
      • Fixed an issue where players in an active Super would show immune damage flyouts when automatically breaking out of Stasis freeze.
    • Revenant
      • Grim Harvest
        • Added new behavior:
        • While Grim Harvest is equipped, Stasis Shards grant a small amount of health and a stack of Frost Armor.
        • Large Stasis Shards from Grim Harvest grant more health and Frost Armor stacks.
      • Now has a standardized cooldown when a large number of Shards are created very quickly.
      • Winter's Shroud
        • Added new behavior:
        • Slowing targets briefly increases the player's class ability regeneration rate.
        • Bonus is reduced in PvP game modes.
        • Now grants PvE damage reduction when activated.
      • Touch of Winter
        • Coldsnap Grenade:
        • No longer chains an additional time while Touch of Winter is equipped.
        • Instead, seekers now duplicate when they freeze a target.
        • Second and third seeker chains now create a medium and large Stasis crystal respectively, rather than every chain creating a small crystal.
      • Glacier Grenade:
        • Added an additional Stasis crystal to the ring formation, increasing total count from 6 to 7.
        • Glacier Grenade ring now forms over 0.27 seconds, rather than instantly.
      • Silence & Squall
        • Increased Squall maximum travel speed by 10%.
        • Squall storm now slows down when any target is within its area of effect to reduce instances where it could overshoot its target.
        • Increased damage and slow tick rate vs. PvE combatants by about 40%, bringing its freeze time from approximately 0.8 seconds to ~0.5 seconds.
    • Behemoth
      • Tectonic Harvest
        • Added new behavior:
        • While Tectonic Harvest is equipped, Stasis Shards grant a small amount of health and a stack of Frost Armor.
        • Now creates a Stasis Shard when shattering a frozen target in addition to shattering Stasis crystals.
        • Now has a standardized cooldown when a large number of Shards are created very quickly.
      • Glacial Quake
        • Now automatically begins sprinting when the player throttles forward.
        • This change should make Shattering the player's Stasis Crystals significantly more intuitive in the heat of combat.
        • Increased on-cast Freeze impulse radius vs. PvE combatants from 6 meters to 8 meters.
      • Shiver Strike
        • Increased damage vs. PvE combatants by 10%.
        • Increased size of melee target search area cone by about 50%.
        • Increased maximum lunge tracking angular speed from 7 degrees per second to 21 degrees per second.
        • The end result of these changes is that Shiver Strike misses significantly less and is able to bend its lunge trajectory more to find a target within its search area.
      • Diamond Lance
        • Increased thrown Diamond Lance detonation radius from 3.5 meters to 5 meters.
        • Increased Diamond Lance slam detonation radius from 6.75 meters to 8 meters vs. PvE combatants.
        • Diamond Lance now shatters Stasis crystals on direct impact.
        • Reduced Diamond Lance pickup interaction time from 0.2 seconds to 0.1 seconds, matching Strand Tangles.
        • Increased Diamond Lance pickup interaction radius from 0.7 meters to 3 meters, matching Strand Tangles.
      • Cryoclasm
        • Removed sprint time requirement. Cryoclasm now goes on cooldown for 4 seconds after one extended slide.
    • Shadebinder
      • Glacial Harvest
        • Added new behavior:
        • While Glacial Harvest is equipped, Stasis Shards grant a small amount of health and a stack of Frost Armor.
        • Now has a standardized cooldown when a large number of Shards are created very quickly.
    • Iceflare Bolts
      • Increased maximum seekers created before going on cooldown from 5 to 7.
    • Stasis Fragments
      • Whisper of Rime reworked:
        • No longer grants a Stasis Shard Overshield when collecting a Stasis Shard.
        • Now increases the maximum duration and stack count of the player's Frost Armor.
      • Whisper of Chains reworked:
        • No longer grants passive damage resistance when near a Stasis crystal or frozen target.
        • Now grants a chance to create a Stasis Shard when defeating a target while the player have one or more stacks of Frost Armor.
      • Whisper of Fractures reworked:
        • No longer increases melee energy regeneration while surrounded by enemies.
        • Now grants a stack of Frost Armor when the player shatters any frozen target with a melee attack.
      • Whisper of Torment
        • Grenade energy gains are no longer dependent on the player's current health value. Base grenade energy regeneration amount per incoming damage event increased from 5% to 7%.
        • While the player has Frost Armor, energy per damage event increases from 7% to 12%.
      • Whisper of Chill - New Fragment:
        • Stasis weapon final blows have a chance to create a Stasis Shard.
      • Whisper of Reversal - New Fragment:
        • While the player has Frost Armor, dealing or receiving physical melee (i.e., not projectile melee) damage slows the player's victim or attacker.
  • Strand Subclasses
    • Strand General
      • Grapple Tangles
        • No longer fully refresh their duration when Grappled to.
        • Now increase their duration by a maximum of 5 seconds per Grapple, reducing to a maximum of 1 second added after 5 consecutive Grapples to the same Grapple Tangle.
      • Grapple Melee
        • Can no longer be activated after firing a weapon, similar to sprint-or-slide-activated melee abilities.
      • Tangles
        • Tangles will now be paired with the text "Pick Up Tangle" instead of only "Pick Up".
    • Threadrunner
      • Ensnaring Slam
        • Detonation volume vs. enemy players is now a cylinder with a 6.5-meter radius, rather than a sphere with an 8-meter radius.
        • This results in fewer instances of victims correctly attempting to counterplay by jumping but being caught by the Ensnaring Slam detonation high up in the air.
      • Threaded Specter
        • Arming shape vs. PvE combatants now grows more quickly, resulting in more responsive detonations when used in close quarters.
      • Threaded Spike
        • Reduced damage vs. enemy players from 79 to 70.
        • Catching a Threaded Spike no longer breaks invisibility.
    • Berserker
      • Into the Fray
        • Reduced melee energy regeneration scalar from 4x to 3x in PvE activities.
        • Unchanged in PvP activities.
      • Banner of War
        • Reduced maximum timer from 30 seconds to 24 seconds.
        • Melee, Glaive melee, and Super damage bonus now have diminishing returns with Synthoceps as follows:
        • Melee bonuses decreased from 1.4x to 1.15x.
        • Glaive melee bonuses decreased from 1.25x to 1.125x.
        • Super bonuses decreased from 1.4x to 1.2x.
        • Melee and Glaive melee damage bonuses now have diminishing returns with Wormgod Caress, too.
        • Melee bonuses decreased from 1.4x to 1.1x, based on stack count.
        • Glaive melee bonuses decreased from 1.4x to 1.05x, based on stack count.
      • Frenzied Blade / Bladefury
        • Reduced the forward offset for melee lunge target point from 0.4 meters to 0.18 meters.
        • This should reduce instances where attempting to lunge to a target while at very close range resulted in the character lunging backwards.
    • Broodweaver
      • Weaver's Call
        • Added new behavior:
        • Defeating a target with Strand damage now has a chance to generate a perched Threadling, with a higher chance of generation from defeating more powerful targets.
        • This damage can be from any source, including other Threadlings.
    • Strand Fragments
      • Thread of Warding
        • Reduced Woven Mail duration on Orb of Power pickup from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
      • Thread of Propagation
        • No longer displays its HUD buff text unless a Strand weapon is readied.
• EXOTIC ARMOR
  • Exotic armor can now be upgraded after it has been fully masterworked, granting an Artifice mod slot.
  • This comes at the cost of an Exotic Cipher and 10,000 Glimmer.
  • Hunter
    • Renewal Grasps
      • Replaced generic damage resistance with Frost Armor:
        • On entering your Duskfield Grenade volume, you or allies gain a stack of Frost Armor.
        • About every 0.9 seconds, an additional stack of Frost Armor is granted, resetting the timer.
    • Triton Vice
      • Glaive projectile final blows now always trigger a detonation that matches the Glaive's damage type, even when the Glaive does not match the equipped subclass.
      • The surrounded effect provided by Triton Vice while wielding a Glaive now lingers on the player for five seconds after no longer being surrounded.
    • The Sixth Coyote
      • Now creates an Orb of Power from final blows after using a class ability in addition to its previous behavior.
        • This is implemented as the Exotic granting a free copy of the Reaper armor mod's effects.
    • Star-Eater Scales
      • Increased the Orbs of Power required to grant maximum benefits from 4 to 6.
      • Reduced the increased Super energy gained per Orb of Power when the Golden Gun is equipped from 2% down to 0.5%.
      • Fixed an issue where the Super damage boost for attacks that occur quickly after initial cast, such as Shadowshot at close range, was not always applied.
      • Fixed an issue where a player could maintain the damage bonus after removing Star-Eater Scales.
    • Foetracer
      • Now grants the bonus damage it inflicts on a target to weapons. The damage type also matches that of the ability used to damage that target, instead of always matching the equipped subclass.
    • Assassin's Cowl
      • Now requires the player to expend a melee charge (or defeat an enemy via a finisher) to activate.
    • Mask of Bakris
      • Now requires a Stasis Super to be equipped, instead of a Stasis subclass.
      • Re-enabled the "Light Shift" debuff in the HUD when a class ability is not recharging.
        • This is a cosmetic-only change to keep the cooldown visible even while not holding a weapon that benefits from its damage boost.
      • Fixed an issue where Mask of Bakris applied a Tier 2 damage buff instead of a Tier 4 and failed to display the time remaining on a certain Solar weapon.
      • Additionally, the Solar damage buff will now function in the Crucible.
    • The Bombardiers
      • Now triggers an effect based on the equipped Super element, instead of the equipped subclass.
    • Celestial Nighthawk
      • Fixed an issue where players could swap from Celestial Nighthawk to Knucklehead Radar after activating their Super and be granted the benefits from both Exotics.
    • Dragons Shadow
      • Now triggers its effects when the player uses Ensnaring Slam or the new Ascension Arc Aspect.
    • Liars Handshake
      • Counterpunch now does Arc damage instead of Kinetic.
  • Titan
    • Helm of Saint-14
      • Now causes the wearer's Ward of Dawn to apply the Weapons of Light buff to allies.
    • Ursa Furiosa
      • Now provides increased movement speed while guarding with the new Unbreakable Void Aspect.
      • Also grants Super energy for guarding with Unbreakable that scales based on the amount of incoming damage the shield absorbs.
    • Eternal Warrior
      • No longer requires an Arc subclass for Arc final blows to grant its escalating Arc weapon damage bonus.
    • Armamentarium
      • Now creates an Orb of Power from grenade final blows in addition to its previous behavior.
        • This is implemented as the Exotic granting a free copy of the Firepower armor mod's effects.
    • Khepri's Horn
      • Increased the damage from the Solar blast by 100% in PvE.
      • The Solar blast now Scorches each time it hits a target, instead of Scorching only once.
      • Khepri's Horn now benefits from Ember of Eruption and Ember of Ashes (+30 Scorch in PvE and +15 Scorch in PvP).
    • Synthoceps
      • Reduced the amount of time that Bionic Enhancements lingers after no longer being surrounded, from 8 seconds to 5 seconds. This duration is now visible as a timer on the buff.
    • Severance Enclosure
      • Now requires the player to expend a melee charge (or defeat an enemy via a finisher) to activate.
      • Its explosions now require line of sight to damage enemies. We also reduced the knockback intensity of these explosions, which will now launch enemies more consistently vertically.
    • Heart of Inmost Light
      • Now displays a single, consolidated status effect icon in the HUD to communicate its state, instead of the two to three it used before.
        • The functionality of the Exotic is unchanged.
    • One-Eyed Mask
      • Fixed an issue where the negative status effects applied to victims by One-Eyed Mask no longer persist after death.
    • Precious Scars
      • Now requires a weapon matching the equipped Super element, instead of the equipped subclass.
    • Hoarfrost-Z
      • Now requires a Stasis Super to be equipped, instead of a Stasis subclass.
    • Cadmus Ridge Lancecap
      • Now requires a Stasis Super to be equipped, instead of a Stasis subclass.
    • Lorely Splendor
      • Now requires a Solar Super to be equipped, instead of a Solar subclass.
    • No Back Up Plans
      • Now requires a Void Super to be equipped, instead of a Void subclass.
    • Path of Burning Steps
      • Now requires a Solar Super to be equipped, instead of a Solar subclass.
    • Hallowfire Heart
      • Now requires a Solar Super to be equipped, instead of a Solar subclass.
  • Warlock
    • Ballidorse Wrathweavers
      • Replaced Stasis Shard Overshield with Frost Armor.
      • Activating a Rift grants the player and nearby allies the maximum Frost Armor stacks when Frostpulse is equipped.
      • Activating a Winter's Wrath shatter attack grants nearby allies the maximum amount of stacks of Frost Armor. When Winter's Wrath ends, the player gains maximum stacks of Frost Armor.
    • Mantle of Battle Harmony
      • Now grants Super energy ranging between +1.5% and +4.5%, depending on the target type killed.
      • Removed the 2-second cooldown for the perk's activation.
      • Now requires a weapon matching the equipped Super element, instead of the equipped subclass.
    • Secant Filaments
      • Updated Secant Filaments to require a Void Super instead of a Void subclass.
      • Secant Filaments Empowering Rift will now reset a player's existing Devour buff duration back to 11 seconds when they enter it, in addition to its previous behavior.
      • Fixed an issue where Secant Filament's Overload Rift was removing anti-Champion capabilities granted by the artifact.
    • Sunbracers
      • Reduced the increased Solar Grenade duration from 4 seconds to 2 seconds.
      • Reduced its increased grenade recharge rate to allow a max of 4 grenades while the effect is active, down from 5.
      • Fixed an issue where Sunbracers would not remove the "Sunbracers Ready" buff from the player when they throw a grenade.
    • Cenotaph Mask
      • Multiple players using Cenotaph Mask can no longer trigger its effect using a single enemy target.
      • Cenotaph's target lock visual marker is now hidden for the Exotic's wearer and only appears to the wearer’s allies.
    • Verity's Brow
      • Now requires final blows with a weapon matching the player's grenade damage type, instead of one matching the equipped subclass.
    • Felwinter's Helm
      • Now requires the player to expend a melee charge (or defeat an enemy via a finisher) to activate.
    • Wings of Sacred Dawn
      • Updated its description to correctly indicate that its effects are only active with Dawnblade equipped, rather than all Solar Supers.
    • Contraverse Hold
      • Updated its description to clarify it only works with Void grenades charged with the Chaos Accelerant Aspect.
    • Chromatic Fire
      • Now triggers an effect based on the player's equipped Super element, instead of the equipped subclass.
    • Promethium Spur
      • Now works with any equipped Solar Super.
    • Sanguine Alchemy
      • Now requires a weapon matching the equipped Super element, instead of the equipped subclass.
    • Vesper of Radius
      • The ability for the shockwave to blind now requires an Arc Super to be equipped, instead of an Arc subclass.
    • Karnstein Armlets
      • Fixed an issue where Karnstein Armlet's visual effects were not functioning correctly.
    • Necrotic Grips
      • Updated Necrotic Grips description to note that it requires a melee and that it works against both combatants and players.
• ARMOR MODS
  • The Artifice mod socket icon has been updated to make it more distinct.
  • Removed the energy cost from raid-specific armor mods.
  • Updated all Harmonic armor mods to change their element based on the currently equipped Super, rather than subclass.
    • This behavior is also now explained in their descriptions.
  • A Strand Resistance mod has been added.
    • Additionally, Harmonic Resistance is now compatible with Strand.
  • Heavy Ammo Finder and Special Ammo Finder armor mods now persist their progress towards an ammo brick through death.
  • Heavy Ammo Finder and Special Ammo Finder armor mods no longer function in Crucible, and opposing-team kills will no longer grant Ammo Finder progress in Gambit.
  • Heavy Ammo Finder and Special Ammo Finder armor mods have had their kill requirements increased by 20% for Guardians in a fireteam.
    • Solo Guardian requirements are unchanged.
  • Fixed an issue where Orb of Power mods would not pick up Orbs when Super energy was full. Mods affected are:
    • Recuperation (Leg Armor Mod)
    • Better Already (Leg Armor Mod)
    • Innervation (Leg Armor Mod)
    • Invigoration (Leg Armor Mod)
    • Insulation (Leg Armor Mod)
    • Absolution (Leg Armor Mod)
    • Orbs of Restoration (Leg Armor Mod)
    • Powerful Friends (Helmet Armor Mod)
  • Fixed an issue where multiple copies of Empowered Finisher could be active at once in rare cases.
    • Additionally, corrected an issue where its tooltip did not describe it as having no stacking benefits.
• OTHER
  • Fixed an issue where older Solstice armor did not display the correct glow color when using a Strand or Stasis Super.
• WEAPONS
  • Updated Heavy, Adaptive, and Aggressive Burst weapon intrinsic names to match burst count across all weapon archetypes. Functionality is unchanged. 
    • 2-burst: Heavy Burst 
      • Includes Sidearms, Hand Cannons, and Pulse Rifles. 
    • 3-burst: Adaptive Burst 
      • Includes Sidearms, Linear Fusion Rifles, and Adaptive Pulse Rifles. 
    • 4-burst: Aggressive Burst 
      • Includes Pulse Rifles. 
  • Removed the foundry name from the Veist Rapid-Fire, Häkke Precision, and Omolon Adaptive weapon intrinsics.
• WEAPON ARCHETYPES
  • Exotic Primary Weapons and Trace Rifles
    • Reduced damage bonus versus Minors from 40% to 30% (except Fighting Lion).
    • Exotic Primary Weapons and Trace Rifles benefit from the below damage buffs versus Minor combatants.
  • Increased base PvE damage versus all combatants. 
    • Pulse Rifles: 20%  
      • Exceptions: Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode. (These both have an intrinsic PvE damage buff built in.) 
    • Pellet Shotguns: 10%  
      • Exceptions: Legend of Acrius, Tractor Cannon, Conditional Finality, and The Fourth Horseman. (These are all already performing as intended.) 
    • Slug Shotguns: 9% 
    • Fusion Rifles: 7%  
      • Exceptions: One Thousand Voices. (This one was just buffed.) 
    • Sniper Rifles: 7%  
      • Exceptions: Izanagi's Burden's Honed Edge shots and Cloudstrike's storm. (These are both performing well.) 
    • Glaive projectiles: 7% 
    • Linear Fusion Rifles: 5% 
  • Increased damage versus Minors (red bars)—this stacks with the base PvE damage increase. 
    • Sidearms, Trace Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Bows: 20% 
    • Auto Rifles and Pulse Rifles: 15% 
    • For Pulse Rifles, this is in addition to the above buff, and Graviton Lance and Revision Zero's Heavy Burst mode are included. 
      • I.e. Pulse Rifles will do 1.2 * 1.15 = 38% more damage to red bars. 
    • Submachine Guns: 10% 
    • Hand Cannons: 5% 
  • Increased damage versus Major combatants (orange bars). 
    • Trace Rifles: 20% 
  • Increased damage globally, including PvP. 
    • Machine Guns: 7% 
    • Swords: 7% 
  • With these damage increases, the following Spec mods have been retired:
    • Boss Spec, Taken Spec, Minor Spec, Major Spec, and Adept Big Ones Spec.
  • Scout Rifle
    • Updated the hip-fire reticle to better show accuracy and aim-assist state.
  • Hand Cannons
    • General
      • Reduced the screen shake dealt to players by Hand Cannon projectile impacts by 33% (does not affect flinch dealt to Combatants).
    • Heavy Burst
      • Reduced the base recoil of this sub-family to make them more stable.
    • Aggressives
      • Improved the stats of two Aggressive Hand Cannons that are returning in The Final Shape to be more competitive with our current offerings.
        • Crimil's Dagger (Iron Banner) 
        • Stability: 23 to 31 
        • Handling: 23 to 31 
        • Magazine Size: 8 to 9 
        • Airborne Effectiveness: 10 to 21 
      • Something New (Solstice) 
        • Stability: 27 to 30 
        • Handling: 24 to 30 
        • Magazine Size: 8 to 9 
  • Sniper Rifles
    • Increased minimum reserves from 14 to 17 shots; maximum reserve is unchanged.
    • Changed the way flinch works when taking damage from players (this does not affect incoming damage from combatants).
      • Increased the screen shake duration by 25%.
      • Increased the screen shake intensity by 350%.
      • Reduced the camera roll by 25%.
  • Linear Fusion Rifles
    • Reduced firing animation kick and recoil for Adaptive Linear Fusion Rifles.
  • Kinetic damage type weapons
    • No longer deal bonus damage to bosses; damage to other combatant tiers is unchanged. 
      • For example, a kinetic Sniper Rifle and a Stasis Sniper Rifle of the same subfamily will both deal the same damage to a boss. 
  • Wave Grenade Launchers
    • The size of the wave is now affected by the blast radius stat. This will mostly impact the width of the wave, though the length and height will also be scaled. 
      • The default display stat for the blast radius has been changed from 100 to 50 (where 50 represents the previous baseline—any stat over 50 will result in a larger wave segment than what was possible before). 
    • Special ammo Wave – Frame Grenade Launchers overperform as add clear weapons in their current state, so we've pulled the length of the wave back a little. 
      • Reduced the length of the waves from 22 meters to 15 meters (except for Dead Messenger). 
  • Swords
    • Updated the Sword reticle to better indicate its charge state. When Sword energy is consumed, the amount of delay the Sword has before it begins to recharge now subtly appears in the reticle. 
    • Fixed an issue where the Overwhelming Battlesong debuff from some missions would prevent Swords from recharging or losing energy while guarding. 
    • Fixed an issue where unpowered caster Sword heavy attacks would not reset the Sword's energy recharge delay. 
    • Fixed an issue where uncharged adaptive Sword heavy attacks cost the same amount of ammo as their charged counterparts. They now cost 1 ammo, same as other uncharged heavy attacks. 
  • Rocket Sidearms
    • Added a slight delay to the detonation to allow perks to activate correctly if they required precision kills.
• EXOTICS
  • Non-precision based add clear-Exotic Primary weapons:
    • Reduced splash damage by 10% on the following weapons:
      • Sunshot
      • Trinity Ghoul
      • Polaris Lance
      • Graviton Lance
  • Rat King
    • Swapped the firing animation to the same one used by other auto-fire Sidearms.
  • Dead Man's Tale
    • Baseline: 
      • Cranial Spike stacks now grant stability in addition to aim assist stat and range (+2 per stack). 
      • Increased reload speed benefit of Cranial Spike stacks. 
    • With catalyst, when hip-firing: 
      • Slightly reduced accuracy benefits. 
      • Increased magnetism falloff scale (1.6 to 1.7). 
      • Increased baseline rate of fire from 130RPM to 140RPM. 
      • Removed PvE-only damage buff that scaled with stacks of Cranial Spike and added a 15% damage bonus at maximum stacks of Cranial Spike. 
  • Colony
    • Now spawns additional insectoid robots on final blows. More robots (up to five) spawn from tougher combatants.
  • Touch of Malice
    • Increased duration of burn applied by the Darkness Ball against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds.
  • Necrochasm
    • Intrinsic perk now provides increased reload speed after precision kills. 
    • Increased duration of burn applied by the Cursed Thrall explosion against combatants from 2 to 3.5 seconds. 
    • Catalyst has been rebuilt. 
      • One for Thrall: Damaging 3 combatants in quick succession provides a period of increased damage, range, and aim assist. 
  • Truth
    • Increased area-of-effect (AoE) damage such that it doesn't lose noticeable damage due to not dealing impact damage.
    • Increased total reserves by 3. (This is on top of the reserves change to high impact Rocket Launchers from the 7.3.5 update.)
  • Queenbreaker
    • Increased damage versus bosses, minibosses, Champions, and vehicles by 12%.
    • Increased reserve ammunition by 3.
  • Symmetry
    • Catalyst now provides +10 reload speed, +10 handling, and the Eddy Current perk, in addition to its existing effects.
  • Cerberus+1
    • Focus fire now will activate on Special reloads following a kill and will no longer reduce range or rate of fire.
    • Updated hipfire reticle to better convey weapon spread.
  • Bastion
    • Reworked Saint's Fists perk: Dealing damage with melee increases the charge rate, damage, and reload speed for a short duration. Landing a majority of pellets in a burst increases melee damage.
  • Eriana's Vow
    • Breaking a matched shield or piercing a Champion's Barrier will cause the target to ignite.
  • Devil's Ruin
    • Fixed an issue where the firing animation from Devil's Ruin would get applied to other equipped Sidearms if the weapon was swapped during the firing animation.
  • Gjallarhorn
    • Updated the visuals of Wolfpack Rounds to match the damage type of the weapon. For example: 
      • On Gjallarhorn, they will use Solar effects. 
      • On the Royal Entry Void Rocket Launcher buffed by Gjallarhorn, they will have Void effects. 
  • Grand Overture
    • Grand Overture now displays 'Volley Ready' instead of 'Rockets Loaded' after special reload, to help better indicate when the rockets are primed to fire on trigger pull.
  • Osteo Striga
    • Now has a 4-second cooldown on the poison burst on kills. (Poison burst from sustained damage doesn't receive this cooldown.)
  • The Lament
    • Reduced healing effect by 20%. 
    • While this weapon does inherit the 7% global buff to Swords, we've reduced the damage of the high end of the chained heavy attack by 20% from that point. 
      • This means combos at lower stacks are less affected by the change than combos at higher stacks. 
  • Deterministic Chaos
    • This weapon is now intrinsically anti-barrier. 
    • The Heavy Metal and Vexadecimal perks have had their locations and behavior swapped. 
      • Heavy Metal now causes every 4th bullet to make targets volatile. 
      • Vexadecimal now causes every 16th bullet to also weaken targets. 
  • Divinity
    • Increased the number of shots required to generate the cage by 75% against combatants (PvP unchanged).
  • Ace of Spades
    • Fixed an issue that was causing the Memento Mori sound effect to replay when exiting out of sprint.
  • Edge of Intent
    • Edge of Intent Healing Turret updated to match Speaker's Sight Healing Turret.
    • Edge of Intent's alternate weapon action projectile no longer bounces off walls and non-floor geometries.
    • Healing Turret will spawn offset along the tangent of the surface hit.
    • Healing Turret now applies Cure and Restoration. Having the Aspect Touch of Flame equipped improves these effects.
• PERKS
  • Alacrity
    • Will no longer work in Rumble.
  • Archer's Gambit
    • Reduced the effect so it can be used on Legendary weapons.
      • Reduced draw time buff from 66% to 60%.
      • Reduced buff duration from 8 to 4 seconds (but it can now stack up to 8 seconds).
  • Grave Robber
    • Will now activate on dealing damage with a powered melee, in addition to standard melee kills.
  • The Fundamentals
    • The Fundamentals now maintains its state across death or respawn.
  • Chain Reaction
    • Branched between Heavy and Special ammo weapons.
      • Special: About 15% smaller AoE size and 20% less damage.
      • Heavy: Same AoE as before and 30% more damage.
  • Eddy Current
    • Now takes 1.5 seconds of sprinting to activate instead of 3 seconds. 
    • Also provides a bonus to handling and a 5% scalar on each stat at base. 
    • Being amplified will immediately activate the perk at its maximum effectiveness.
  • Underdog
    • Instances of Underdog have been replaced with Pulse Monitor.
  • Osmosis and Permeability:
    • These no longer drop off when pulling out a Ghost or similar actions.
    • Now partially refill the weapon's magazine on activation.
  • Chill Clip
    • Adjusted the number of slow stacks applied based on properties of the weapon.
      • In this case, Rapid-Fire Fusions like Riptide will still require 3 shots to freeze, but slower firing Fusions only require 2.
    • All other archetypes have been un-nerfed and only require 2 shots to freeze.
  • Killing Tally
    • The Killing Tally perk on the original 21% Delirium Machine Gun has been updated to match the version found on random-rolled weapons.
  • High Ground
    • Reworked to provide a stacking damage bonus when getting kills in any context (like Rampage) or instantly granting the maximum amount of stacks when damaging an enemy from the high ground.
    • PvE max bonus increased to a 25% damage bonus, and PvP max increased to 15%.
  • Perks that currently match the player's equipped subclass have been changed as follows:
    • Osmosis and Tessellation now match the damage type of the equipped grenade.
    • Permeability and Elemental Capacitor now match the damage type of the equipped Super.
  • Deconstruct
    • Now refills from reserves instead of from thin air and should trigger more reliably across weapon types.
  • Headstone
    • Fixed an issue where Headstone used a Stasis positive buff icon for its cooldown status message. Headstone now uses a cooldown icon, similar to other cooldowns.
  • Pugilist
    • Fixed an issue where the melee buff visual effect repeatedly flashed when Pugilist was activated by melee damage-over-time.
  • Dream Work
    • Updated to work with additional weapon archetypes.
  • Precision Instrument
    • Fixed an issue that caused this perk to activate too quickly on burst-fire Linear Fusion Rifles.
  • Heavy Burst Intrinsic
    • Now slightly reduces incoming flinch.
• GENERAL
  • The Wicked Implement Scout Rifle has been moved to the Monument to Lost Lights.
    • Its catalyst will now be available as a random drop via ritual playlist post-match rewards.
  • Updated new drops of Raid Adepts from Crota's End and Root of Nightmares to have 2 traits in their trait columns.
  • Added Weapon Enhancement to the Raid Adepts from Vow of Disciple and King's Fall.
  • Collecting base weapon patterns will now provide a boost per weapon set to the chance of getting a third trait in the trait columns on new drops.
  • This can be tracked via new Triumphs in each raid's respective collection.
  • Memento stack size limit has been increased from 1 to 3.
  • Mementos are no longer tracked in the Inventory tab.
  • Players can now view, track, and apply their collected Mementos within the inspection screen of an enhanced or shaped weapon.
  • Dismantling Faded Mementos will provide +1 Memento to use within the inspection screen.
  • If a player is at the new stack size limited of 3 Mementos, that Memento will not drop again until they are holding less than 3 Mementos.
  • Fixed an issue where Raid Adept Weapons from The Pantheon Triumphs dropped without selected perks. Players will now see these perks applied on those items.
  • At a later date, a fix will be applied to correct bad masterwork or enhanced intrinsic options on these weapons to the intended roll.
  • We recommend players select a Masterwork option that functions on that weapon type to get the stat benefit when upgrading to enhanced.
  • Removed Resonant and Harmonic Alloys.
  • Acquiring an Adept version of a weapon now unlocks Focusing for base version of that weapon.
  • Fixed an issue where anti-Champion mods were causing other weapon perks to fall off.
  • Fixed an issue causing Mindbender’s Ambition to not glow when getting kills.
  • Fixed an issue where the intensity on some damage screen effects and various projectiles could cause potential photosensitivity issues.
• POWER AND PROGRESSION
  • Power Bands have been updated.
  • Power Floor: 1900
  • Soft Cap: 1940
  • Powerful Cap: 1990
  • Hard Cap/Pinnacle Cap: 2000
  • For more information on Power changes, check out the April 25 TWID.
• SPARROWS
  • Adjusted the Alpine Dash Sparrow to have available speed options similar to other Sparrows and made the auto-reloading perk always available.
  • In the spirit of the original Sparrow upgrade progression from 2019, the side-to-side boost perk is only available during the Dawning.
• TRIUMPHS
  • Added Strand fireteam Triumphs to all previous raids.
  • These are not required for Seal or title but provide an additional optional challenge for all interested fireteams.

General

• The Tower's weapons vendor, Banshee-44, will now reset his weapons and their perks at the same time along with all other vendors at 10 AM PT.
• Fixed an issue where the tutorial prompt teaching players how to summon their Sparrow wasn’t always appearing.
• Fixed an issue where the shader library order in the Appearance Customization did not match the layout in other screens.
• Fixed an issue where the header for Ascendant Alloys did not match the format of other items in Special Orders.
• Fixed an issue where Paraversal Haul did not appear in Collections.
• Fixed an issue where the Bonus Objective progress bar could overlap with status effects UI.
• Fixed an issue where several emotes were not properly sorted with their associated quality level when viewed in the emote selection screen.
• Fixed an issue where the Season of the Dawn icon was not properly applied to items acquired from the Season of the Dawn Flashback offer.
• Fixed an issue where previewing associated Exotic weapon ornaments whose Pattern has been unlocked showed as Unacquired rather than Craftable in the Eververse.
• Fixed an issue where the Season Pass messaging did not note that a 20% XP bonus is unlocked alongside the Exotic weapon when the premium track is unlocked.

What you need to know

• Destiny 2: The Final Shape, the capstone expansion to Destiny's decade-long Light and Darkness Saga, is slated to come out next week on June 4.
• To help new players understand the plot, factions, and characters of this 10-year long story, James "My Name is Byf" Byford — the biggest Destiny lore YouTuber — has created an incredible 10-hour video that recaps the events of the entire franchise.
• The video includes narration and editing from Byford himself, along with bespoke fanart, community-made animations and music, relevant gameplay footage, and more.
• The video is premiering shortly after this article's publication, so check the text for the link to it and you can watch it live with other viewers as it debuts.

After 10 long years, Destiny 2's Light and Darkness Saga — a gargantuan narrative arc that's been building since the original game came out in 2014 — is finally reaching its climactic crescendo with The Final Shape expansion. Slated to go live on June 4 next week, the DLC represents a conclusion to that decade-long journey, as well as the dawn of a new era for future stories and adventures in the universe of Destiny 2.

Part of what makes this imminent final showdown with the Darkness and the Witness feel like such a big event is the scale of the conflict and the history of its participants; much like the heroes and villains of Marvel's cinematic universe, players have spent years with Destiny 2's vast cast of characters, with developer Bungie exploring countless themes throughout their developments, seasonal narratives, and an ocean of rich background lore. All of that coalescing into one bombastic climax makes The Final Shape a can't-miss-it experience for longtime Destiny fans — but if you're a newcomer, you'll be missing that connection to everything that's led to this moment.

Destiny 2's in-game Timeline feature does a solid job of catching "New Lights" up on the basic plot of past events. However, the removal of old base game, expansion, and seasonal content — and also the fact Destiny's story is split between two games — means there's a lot that new players can't directly experience and get invested in. Don't worry if you're one of them, though, because Destiny 2's biggest lore YouTuber, James "My Name is Byf" Byford, has created a colossal overview video that recaps the entire Destiny story in incredible detail, complete with faction and character backstories, bespoke fanart, community-made animations and music, relevant gameplay footage, and more.

Clocking in with a runtime of 10 hours, one minute, and 11 seconds, the video is so long that its length nips on the heels of The Lord of the Rings movie marathons, and it's got two intermissions intended for folks watching the recap's premiere live. It's actually premiering shortly as I write this, so if you come across this article soon after publication, you can tune in and chat with other viewers as you watch.

Byford — now with 1.6 million YouTube subscribers — has been closely covering the developing lore and story of Destiny ever since the space fantasy looter shooter debuted a decade ago, and I'm willing to bet you've watched or listened to some of his videos if you've ever been interested in learning more about it. I've always greatly enjoyed the way he narrates and edits his content, and even for big Destiny nerds like me, his discussions and coverage is useful to refer back to. For that reason, I'll definitely be checking this project out this weekend.

"I also have no shame in admitting that I teared up a bit at the ending to this," said Byford of the video, one day before it went live on his channel. "For the first time in a long time, I feel really, truly proud of this thing that I've made and of all the people who pushed so hard to help me bring it to life. It's a really special project."

Whether you're a New Light hoping to learn everything there is to know about the Destiny universe or a veteran looking for a refresher on specific parts of the Light and Darkness Saga, Byf's new video is a must-watch (its description has timestamps in the event you want to skip around to different sections). Just make sure you keep some snacks and beverages handy.

In terms of gameplay, The Final Shape will take players inside the Light-bestowing Traveler itself and give them access to Prismatic, a wild new "multiclassing" subclass that allows you to wield and combine abilities, Aspects, and Fragments from all five of Destiny 2's other subclasses together. Accompanying it will be Exotic class items with two randomly rolled Exotic armor perks, several new Exotic weapons and armors, a ton of new Legendary weapons to grind for, and a wholly original race of Darkness enemies called the Dread.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten. Notably, preorders for it are on sale right now, and Destiny 2's older expansions are available for big discounts as well.

There's a little under a week to go before Destiny 2's highly anticipated The Final Shape expansion goes live and kicks off the bombastic conclusion to the game's decade-long Light and Darkness Saga, and until the game comes offline for pre-launch maintenance on Monday morning, players are rushing to get some last-minute prep done. After all, there are tons of amazing Destiny 2 weapons and powerful Exotic armaments to collect in Bungie's space fantasy looter shooter, and having lots of them at your disposal during your battle with the Witness will elevate your experience in the DLC.

With just a few days left before the expansion's release, though, you'll need to prioritize and focus on farming the most lucrative loot sources. And right now, the best activity to grind is unquestionably Onslaught, the three-player PvE wave-based horde mode added as part of April's free-to-play Into the Light update. Onslaught was already showering Guardians with loot before, but thanks to some big boosts to the mode's drop rates that came in the last two weeks, the amount of gear it's rewarding — both from direct drops and from Tokens of Bravery you can spend on drops in the Hall of Champions — is honestly downright ridiculous. After just a few hours of play, you'll be walking away with dozens of weapons.

The big reason you should be grinding Onslaught is that nearly every single weapon you can get from it will be (and already is) cemented in the Destiny 2 PvE meta. I go over the best god rolls to hunt in the section below, but know that whether you're hoping to pick up something for elite boss DPS, strong crowd control and add clear, or specialized buildcrafting utility, you won't have trouble getting something effective and fun to use from Onslaught's "BRAVE" weapon pool. Each weapon also has multiple great perk combinations available, so it's pretty unlikely you'll get something bad.

It's worth noting that while Onslaught isn't going away when The Final Shape arrives on June 4, the ability to attune to specific weapons to make them drop more often and get lucky "shiny" drops with two perks in each trait column is. Therefore, you should grind the mode now so you can target farm the weapons you want and snag some shinies, too. Note that the standard rate for shiny drops was very low before (2.5% or lower), but this week it was doubled, and since that increase, I've managed to get at least one or two per Onslaught run.

Onslaught itself is also just a ton of fun to play, with high enemy density and diverse wave spawns making it a highly replayable playground for creative and synergistic PvE builds. There's also a Legend variant of the mode that's harder, but gives you even better rewards; I wrote up some builds that work great in it (my builds skew a bit more towards "fun" than "meta"), but there are plenty of other setups for every class that will perform well, too. Generally, as long as you've got at least 100 Resilience on your armor for the 30% damage resistance it provides, you shouldn't have too much trouble in Legend Onslaught if you're an experienced player.

Ultimately, if you're not sure what to do in the days leading up to The Final Shape, hop into Onslaught and farm for some great weapons to use in the DLC. You'll be happy you did, especially if you plan to take on some of the expansion's harder challenges like the Legendary version of the campaign and its new raid that's coming out on June 7.

The best Destiny 2 BRAVE weapon god rolls

All 12 of the BRAVE weapons from Onslaught can get some truly exceptional PvE god rolls, but some are more useful than others overall. To give you an idea of the best ones to prioritize farming for, I've put together a list below that's organized in order from the best to worst weapons. Also included are the top perk combinations for each that you should keep an eye out for as you play.

• Edge Transit: Spike Grenades / Envious Assassin / Bait and Switch
• Forbearance: Ambitious Assassin / Chain Reaction OR Demolitionist / Wellspring
• The Mountaintop: Hard Launch / Spike Grenades OR Implosion Rounds, Auto-Loading Holster / Recombination OR Impulse Amplifier / Frenzy
• Luna's Howl: Appended Mag / Heal Clip / Incandescent
• Midnight Coup: Arrowhead Brake / Accurized Rounds / Explosive Payload OR Firefly / Kinetic Tremors
• Succession: Arrowhead Brake / Tactical Mag / Reconstruction / Vorpal Weapon OR Recombination OR Firing Line
• Hammerhead: Arrowhead Brake / Ricochet Rounds / Rampage OR Rewind Rounds / Killing Tally OR Onslaught
• The Recluse: Arrowhead Brake / Alloy Magazine / Repulsor Brace OR Subsistence / Destabilizing Rounds OR Frenzy OR Master of Arms
• Elsie's Rifle: Arrowhead Brake / Ricochet Rounds / Repulsor Brace / Destabilizing Rounds
• Blast Furnace: Arrowhead Brake / Accurized Rounds / Kinetic Tremors / Firefly OR One for All
• Hung Jury SR4: Arrowhead Brake / Accurized Rounds / Kinetic Tremors OR Enlightened Action / Firefly OR Explosive Payload OR Precision Instrument
• Falling Guillotine: Hungry Edge / Balanced Guard OR Swordmaster's Guard / Frenzy OR Vorpal Weapon / Eager Edge OR Surrounded

With Envious Assassin and Bait and Switch, the Edge Transit heavy grenade launcher has instantly become a top DPS weapon for endgame dungeon and raid encounters, arguably making it the single most-valuable weapon from Onslaught. I would focus on getting a good Forbearance wave frame grenade launcher next if you never obtained a good roll of the original from the Vow of the Disciple raid, with either Ambitious Assassin and Chain Reaction or Demolitionist and Wellspring; the former is superb for add clear, while the latter performs spectacularly in builds centered around grenades. The Mountaintop grenade launcher is also extremely valuable, with Auto-Loading Holster and Recombination making it a "kill this yellow bar now" tool and the combo of Impulse Amplifier and Frenzy making it a strong option for general-purpose add clear in the Kinetic slot.

From there, I'd move down the list and attune to each weapon so you can target farm each one as you go, making sure to complete the (simple) quests from Arcite 99-40 in the Hall of Champions that unlocks this focusing. The refreshed Luna's Howl has become a powerhouse for Solar builds with the combo of Heal Clip and Incandescent, while Succession with Reconstruction and Vorpal Weapon, Recombination, or Firing Line stands tall as Destiny 2's best sniper rifle. The Hammerhead machine gun is fantastic for slaying adds, and both The Recluse and Elsie's Rifle synergize strongly with Void builds. Midnight Coup, Blast Furnace, and Hung Jury SR4 will all see lots of play during The Final Shape since anti-Champion perks will be available for their archetypes (as revealed in a new blog post), and Falling Guillotine may get popular too since there will also be Artifact perks for sword damage.

I didn't focus on PvP options at all in this article, but one crazy good god roll for the Crucible I'll highlight in closing is Elsie's Rifle with Zen Moment and Headseeker. This combination turns the weapon into a two-tapping machine, and it's quickly become one of my favorite primaries to use whenever I have a reason to go into PvP activities.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten.

Ever since the original Destiny released in 2014, developer Bungie has released yearly expansions for the space fantasy looter shooter that push the narrative of its colossal 10 year-long "Light and Darkness Saga" forward. Now, all of that buildup has led to The Final Shape — an incredibly ambitious and climactic Destiny 2 DLC that aims to give that saga a fulfilling conclusion while simultaneously kicking off a new era of new stories for Guardians to experience.

With Destiny 2 going through a massive resurgence right now following the disastrous reception of 2023's Lightfall DLC, all eyes are on Bungie and The Final Shape to see if the studio can stick the landing and give Destiny's decade-long narrative the capstone it deserves. Luckily, we won't have to wait long to find out, as the expansion is almost upon us.

Ahead of its highly anticipated arrival, I've put together a guide below that goes over everything you need to know about Destiny 2: The Final Shape's release date. This includes its launch time, when you can preload the DLC, and what we know of its download size, along with a brief overview of what to expect from the content and activities in the expansion.

What is Destiny 2: The Final Shape?

I'll go over when The Final Shape will be in your hands shortly, but first: what's all the hype about, anyway? Well, as I wrote above, the expansion represents the climax of a story that's been developing for a full decade at this point, complete with deep and nuanced character arcs, a plethora of thoroughly explored themes, and mountains of rich, in-depth lore. It's a journey many Destiny players have been a part of since their childhood or adolescence, and its end — as well as the subsequent dawn of a new era — will be a landmark moment for the franchise.

The DLC will take players inside of the benevolent Light-bestowing Traveler itself as they pursue the Witness, Destiny's primary antagonist that aims to coalesce the paracausal energies of Light and Darkness to calcify the universe into lifeless stasis. To combat the Witness and its Darkness allies, Guardians will gain access to Prismatic, an incredibly dynamic subclass that allows you to use and combine abilities, Aspects, and Fragments from various Light and Darkness subclasses. Prismatic is unlocked very early in The Final Shape's story campaign, though once the expansion's new raid is beaten after its release on June 7 and its second week begins on June 11, players will be able to earn special Exotic class items with two Exotic perks that will take Prismatic buildcrafting to the next level.

The Final Shape is also bringing new Light Aspects and Supers to all three of Destiny 2's classes, and will feature plenty of powerful weapons and Exotics to chase within the Traveler's "Pale Heart" as well. Then, beyond the core of the DLC, there's also The Final Shape's "Episodes," which are replacing Destiny 2's quarterly seasonal releases in Year 7. Separate from the expansion itself, these three longform seasons will launch throughout 2024-25 and will transition the game from the Light and Darkness Saga to new adventures. Access to their content will cost $15 each, though the Annual Pass edition of The Final Shape includes it; the first Episode is Echoes, seems to be centered around the Vex, and will launch alongside The Final Shape.

Note that for a limited time, preorders for The Final Shape and copies of other Destiny 2 expansions are on sale for up to 87% off, making now a superb time to start playing (or return to) the game if you're a newcomer. These deals are expected to go away once The Final Shape launches, so I'd pull the trigger on them sooner rather than later.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape release date, start time

After a long wait made even longer by a delay late last year, Destiny 2: The Final Shape is coming out on June 4, 2024. Specifically, the expansion will go live at 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET, which is the time of day for Destiny 2's daily and weekly reset. At this time, players will be able to access The Final Shape's campaign and other activities, though keep in mind that The Final Shape's raid doesn't release until three days later on June 7.

In the table below, you'll find conversions of The Final Shape's start date and time for all of the major time zones around the world. Using this, you can determine when access to the DLC will unlock in your region. Note that depending on where you live, you may not be able to play the expansion until very early in the morning on June 5.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Destiny 2's servers will be under heavy strain on The Final Shape's launch day, which means getting into the game may be pretty difficult. You may have to wait in a long queue, though since this wasn't much of a problem with Lightfall despite the record-breaking concurrent player count of 316,750 on Steam on its release day, the launch of The Final Shape may be relatively smooth as well.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape server downtime

Destiny 2's servers were taken down for maintenance on Monday, June 3 at 9:00 a.m. PT / 12:00 p.m. ET and won't come back online until the expansion comes out. In total, this downtime will last 25 hours if everything goes according to plan, though there's always a chance it might last longer and The Final Shape's release could be slightly delayed if there are unforeseen issues Bungie has to take care of before bringing the servers back up.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape preload date

To make sure you can jump right into The Final Shape as soon as it's out, you'll want to pre-download — or preload — the expansion ahead of its release. Fortunately, you can preload it now during the 25-hour maintenance period directly before the DLC's launch. Make sure you check the below section for details on how much storage you'll need.

Destiny 2: The Final Shape storage requirements

Destiny 2's annual DLCs typically have fairly large download sizes, though the size of the game overall hasn't gotten much bigger in recent years. We don't know the download size of The Final Shape itself, but thanks to a recent This Week in Destiny blog post, we do have Destiny 2's storage requirements that have been updated to include the expansion. They're listed in the table below:

If you're planning to preload The Final Shape and are playing on Steam, the Epic Games Store, or PS4, you'll also need a sizable amount of additional free space to do so; this requirement isn't present in the Xbox and Microsoft Store versions of the looter shooter. Note that even though Destiny 2 requires having this extra space available to preload the game, it will be freed up once the expansion actually goes live.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten.

What you need to know

• A security miss from Sony allowed players using PlayStation game streaming to briefly access unreleased content from The Final Shape, the upcoming expansion for Destiny 2. 
• This leak has been stopped and the content is no longer available through game streaming. 
• Some story spoilers from the first mission of the expansion have leaked, alongside details on gear like weapons and armor, including Raid loot. 
• There's a number of actions you can take to avoid seeing any spoilers ahead of Destiny 2: The Final Shape's official launch on June 4, 2024.

Unfortunately, there's a big leak out now for the finale to the last 10 years of Destiny 2's story. 

A Sony security issue early on Thursday allowed players using PlayStation's game streaming to access some content from Destiny 2: The Final Shape, the upcoming big expansion that concludes the Light and Darkness story arc. Players who accessed the leaked content were able to see the first mission of the game, as well as extensive details on upcoming gear, including Raid rewards. This also includes a number of extremely vague terms related to Raid mechanics, but this isn't comprehensive enough to truly spoil the Raid's details. 

How to avoid leaks and spoilers for Destiny 2: The Final Shape

To avoid leaks and spoilers for Destiny 2: The Final Shape, there's a few different actions you can take, though bear in mind that with the internet being...well, the internet, only completely taking yourself offline can possibly guarantee 100% safety from seeing any leaked information.

On Twitter, you can go to Settings, then to Privacy and Safety, and then Mute and Block. From here, you can mute words, keeping any posts that contain these words from showing up for you. Some recommended terms to mute include "The Final Shape," "Destiny 2," "The Witness," and "The Traveler."

Within Destiny 2 itself, you can also go into the gameplay menu, then select "Hide Chat" to keep from having any spoilers blasted away when you're hanging out in social spaces. 

Finally, there's a Google Chrome extension, Spoiler Protection 2.0, which is perfect for muting key phrases or words that you select when you're browsing the internet.

On top of all this, I will stress it's important not to panic. Yes, a lot of things have leaked, but the leak did not include the finale of the game or any big twists that would've taken place outside of the first mission. If someone claims to be spoiling the ending of the game, they're lying to you. 

Analysis: Man, this is disappointing 

I feel extremely bad for all the Bungie staff right now, as The Final Shape is just a few days away, and by all accounts the Destiny 2 community is extremely excited to finally see the conclusion to the story that first began almost a decade ago in the original Destiny. These spoilers don't go as far some initially feared, but even so, take care and take actions to mute things so you don't have any part of your experience ruined. 

Destiny 2: The Final Shape is slated to launch on June 4, 2024 across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation 4.

What you need to know

• After falling to a new all-time low player count in November 2023, Destiny 2 has begun to go through a large resurgence in recent weeks.
• The game has averaged around 100,000 concurrent players on Steam during peak gaming hours since early April, and it's currently in first place on Steam's Top Sellers chart. It's also the 12th most-played game on Xbox right now, according to Microsoft data.
• The space fantasy shooter's comeback can largely be attributed to the excellence of the free and content-rich midseason Into the Light update, as well as hype for all the exciting additions and changes coming when The Final Shape launches next week on June 4.
• Some of these include the impressive Prismatic subclass that will allow players to wield and combine abilities from multiple different Light and Darkness subclasses, new Aspects and Supers for buildcrafting, and a number of tweaks that will significantly lower the barrier to entry for new and inexperienced Guardians.

Over seven months ago back in November, I wrote an article reporting on Destiny 2's player count falling to a new all-time low at the time. I wasn't surprised by the game's struggles at all back then, as 2023's Lightfall DLC was fiercely criticized for having a terrible story and a mediocre raid, Year 6's first two seasons were "just OK," and meaningful, much-needed updates for trite core systems in Destiny 2 still hadn't been implemented (or even announced). Though there was hope that the incoming Season of the Wish would be enjoyable (it was), the community was looking to the delayed The Final Shape DLC and the rest of Destiny's future with a lot of pessimism — especially in the wake of developer Bungie laying off 8% of its staff.

Fast-forward over half a year later to where we are now, though, and one look at Destiny 2's recent success on Steam makes it clear that Bungie has done plenty to turn the ship around. Since early April, the space fantasy looter shooter has maintained a consistent average of around 100,000 concurrent players during peak gaming hours, routinely putting it in the platform's top 10 most-played games list. It also currently holds the top position in Steam's Top Sellers chart — likely indicative of skyrocketing preorders for The Final Shape — and is #12 on the official most-played Xbox games list, too. But just like I wasn't surprised about the game's shortcomings months ago, I'm not shocked to see this bounceback after seeing (and engaging with) everything the studio's done to win players back.

At the heart of Destiny 2's revitalization is the free Into the Light update, which breathed new life into the FPS in April with the highly replayable PvE horde mode Onslaught, tons of powerful weapons to chase, reprised versions of the classic "The Whisper" and "Zero Hour" Exotic missions, three new PvP maps, and a limited-time endgame raid boss gauntlet called Pantheon. The quality of this midseason content drop rivals (and arguably surpasses) Destiny's $10 seasons, and everything in it sans Pantheon is sticking around after The Final Shape launches.

Bungie's marketing teams have also done a stellar job of getting fans hyped for The Final Shape itself, which is on track to go live next week on June 4. Trailers like the "Journey into The Traveler" teaser and the official launch trailer (embedded above) have done much to renew faith in the developer's ability to conclude Destiny's decade-long Light and Darkness Saga satisfyingly, as have the positively received narratives from Season of the Witch and Season of the Wish. From a gameplay perspective, The Final Shape also looks to be one of the biggest and boldest DLCs in the history of the series.

For the first time since 2018's Forsaken expansion, players will be challenged by a new race of Darkness enemies called the Dread that directly serve the Witness — the story's ultimate antagonist that aims to calcify the universe in a permanent and lifeless stasis. In addition to using a myriad of new weapons, armors, and pieces of Exotic gear to pursue it within the Traveler's "Pale Heart," you'll also get access to Prismatic — a wild new subclass that will allow you to use and combine abilities from Destiny 2's various Light and Darkness subclasses, complete with tons of different options to consider while buildcrafting. 

Access to Prismatic will be given very soon after starting The Final Shape's campaign, though once the DLC's raid is beaten after it releases on June 7 and its second week begins on June 11, players will be able to make their builds even stronger by grinding a new activity to get special Exotic class items. These are Prismatic-exclusive, and will feature two randomly rolled Exotic armor perks that influence your weapons and/or abilities in desirable ways.

It's also important to note that Destiny 2's barrier to entry for new and inexperienced players will be lower than it's ever been in The Final Shape era, with Bungie planning to allow low-level players to play with more experienced friends without penalties, significantly shorten the length of the game's leveling process, and making it considerably less important than it is currently. The developer is also "sunrising" all weapons that were previously affected by the controversial (and cancelled) sunsetting system, meaning that fans who last played several years ago will be able to return to the game and use the gear they earned then without drawbacks.

All in all, Destiny is in one of the healthiest states it's been in in a long time going into The Final Shape, and while I'm not allowing myself to be more than cautiously optimistic after how disappointing Lightfall was, Bungie is definitely moving the franchise in the right direction right now. I'm also very interested in seeing where the story goes after our fight within the Traveler ends, as Year 7 will bring three longform act-based "Episodes" that are replacing the game's quarterly seasonal releases. I've quite literally bought into the hype with a preorder; if you're interested in one, too, don't miss these excellent deals on The Final Shape and other Destiny 2 expansions before they go away soon.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten.

As I write this, the climactic Destiny 2 DLC The Final Shape — the capstone to developer Bungie's decade-long Light and Darkness Saga — is just one day away from its scheduled release on June 4. Set to bring players inside the Traveler itself, give them access to the highly anticipated Prismatic subclass that allows for the use and combination of abilities from various different subclasses, and pit them against the Witness as it prepares to realize its vision for a frozen and lifeless universe, the expansion aims to satisfyingly conclude Destiny's ongoing narrative arc while simultaneously kicking off a new era of stories for the space fantasy looter shooter. And as you'd expect, community excitement for the DLC is at its peak.

As evidenced by Destiny 2's dominant position on the Steam Top Sellers chart and its rising player count, new and returning players alike have flocked to the game ahead of The Final Shape's launch and likely preordered it, too. If you still need to do so — or you still need to get some of Destiny 2's older expansion content — don't miss these amazing deals on its DLCs, including 20% off Destiny 2: The Final Shape, 53% off Destiny 2: Lightfall, an 80% markdown for the Destiny 2: Armory Collection, and an 87% discount on the Destiny 2: Legacy Collection 2023.

Get all Destiny 2 DLCs for crazy low prices

These deals aren't as impressive as the ones Bungie offered earlier this year in Humble's "The Story So Far" bundle, but they're still incredible discounts, with a few getting up to 80% off and above. Notably, this is also the first and only time we've ever seen The Final Shape go on sale, making now the time to pull the trigger on a preorder if you're planning to jump into the DLC once it goes live. Sure, a 20% markdown isn't huge, but for an expansion that isn't even out yet, it's a steal.

Though The Final Shape will serve as the finale for a 10-year story, it also marks the beginning of a new one — and between low prices like these on past expansions and in-game onboarding systems that have improved quite a bit in the last year or two, I'd argue there's never been a better time to start playing Destiny (or return to it after a long hiatus). These systems are further improving in The Final Shape era; for example, the DLC is introducing a mechanic called Fireteam Power that will raise everyone in your group near the Power Level of the strongest player, allowing low-level Guardians to play harder content with their friends even if they haven't done much to get their individual Power Level up.

By and large, Destiny 2 is a PvE game, though there are some PvP offerings available with things like matchmade Crucible games, ranked Competitive matches, and the weekend-exclusive 3v3 mode Trials of Osiris. Still, you'll be spending the majority of your time engaging in deep buildcrafting and earning powerful loot while playing story campaigns, standalone missions, three-player "Strikes," harder versions of those Strikes called Nightfalls, and six-man endgame raids. There are three-player "mini raids" called dungeons, too, though these require purchasing $20 dungeon keys (each key gives you access to two dungeons) unless you buy the Annual Pass version of an expansion. For example, to play the two dungeons that will come out in 2024-25 without buying The Final Shape Dungeon Key standalone, you'd need to get The Final Shape + Annual Pass edition (this will also allow you to play everything from The Final Shape's upcoming three Episodes, which are replacing Destiny 2's quarterly seasonal releases).

It's worth noting that Bungie plans to release a new Legacy Collection bundle once The Final Shape comes out that includes access to all past Destiny 2 content except The Witch Queen's and Lightfall's dungeon keys, and will also make the campaigns from Shadowkeep and Beyond Light as well as Beyond Light's Stasis subclass free for everyone (more details in this blog post). It's unclear how much this new bundle will cost at the moment, though I'd be very surprised if it was more affordable than all of the DLC is right now; because of that, I recommend taking advantage of these deals while they're around.

Ultimately, these are some of the best prices I've ever seen for Destiny 2's expansions, and it's also the first time I can remember seeing one of its upcoming DLCs on sale before launch. These discounts will likely go away once The Final Shape releases and there's no way to know when they'll come back around, so whether you're looking to preorder the final expansion of the Light and Darkness Saga, catch up on everything that led up to this moment, or both, don't miss your chance to save big while getting into one of the best PC games and best Xbox games available right now.

What you need to know

• Destiny 2: The Final Shape, the final expansion in the game's decade-long "Light and Darkness Saga," is scheduled to launch on June 4 — exactly one week away, at the time of writing.
• Earlier in May, I was invited to a press event in which Bungie developers previewed the expansion by showing off a handful of missions and answering some questions about the DLC.
• During the event, Destiny 2 game director Tyson Green confirmed to me that players will have access to additional Loadout slots in The Final Shape. These allow you to save builds and switch between them with a single button press, with the system automatically swapping your subclass, weapons, armor, and mods.
• More Loadout slots couldn't come at a better time, as The Final Shape is introducing Prismatic — a special "multiclassing" subclass that allows players to use and combine abilities from various other subclasses. With more Loadouts, buildcrafting with Prismatic will be much easier.

When the penultimate expansion in the decade-long Destiny 2 "Light and Darkness Saga," Lightfall, launched in February last year, it was fiercely and widely criticized for its lackluster story campaign, disappointing endgame raid, and the underwhelming state that Strand — the new Darkness subclass it introduced — released in. One thing fans of Bungie's space fantasy looter shooter praised universally, though, was the Loadout system Lightfall added. With Loadouts, players can save up to 10 builds per character and switch between them with single button presses, with the system automatically changing subclasses, Aspects and Fragments, weapons, armor pieces, mods, and even chosen fashion ornaments and shaders so you don't have to do so manually.

With its highly customizable subclasses and an ocean of different viable Exotics and weapons to choose from, buildcrafting in Destiny 2 has never been deeper and more rewarding than it's been in the Lightfall era. And thanks to Loadouts, it's also never been easier to keep track of your builds and all their components. I've used them extensively over the past year, and as a player that enjoys figuring out engaging and effective ways to battle the Darkness, I've fallen in love with the way they enable creative buildcrafting. The only issue I've ever had with Loadouts is that you're limited to 10 of them on your characters, but Bungie is finally addressing that in The Final Shape DLC launching next week.

Destiny 2 game director Tyson Green confirmed more Loadout slots are coming to the shooter earlier this month during a preview event I was able to attend, in which the developers showed off gameplay for a handful of The Final Shape's campaign levels and a new three-player Strike. Green went on to note that the additional slots won't be difficult for players to unlock; currently, to get all 10 of the ones available right now, you have to reach Guardian Rank 8 and then complete a Legend or Master Lost Sector by yourself without dying.

An extra set of Loadout slots couldn't come at a better time, as The Final Shape's premier gameplay addition — a "multiclassing" subclass called Prismatic that will allow players to use and combine abilities from multiple different subclasses — was built from the ground up to be a buildcrafter's dream. The base subclass I can confirm you'll get access to early in the expansion's campaign has a wealth of different Aspects, Fragments, and abilities to choose from, and Prismatic buildcrafting will be taken to an entirely new level when the DLC's new Prismatic-exclusive Exotic class items with two randomly rolled Exotic armor perks start dropping.

As Bungie confirmed earlier in May, earning these Exotic class items will be possible "at the beginning of Week 2" (June 11 at 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET), after The Final Shape's upcoming new raid is beaten once it's made available on June 7. You'll be able to farm them from a new activity that will be unlocked at this time, with each completion of it giving you a guaranteed drop.

It's worth noting that by linking your Destiny 2 account to the popular third-party web app Destiny Item Manager (DIM), you can save as many loadouts as you want and switch to them at any time, as DIM hooks into the game's application programming interface (API). However, DIM's loadout swaps are slower than in-game ones, and there are times where DIM isn't functioning properly due to maintenance or strain on Destiny 2's servers. Because of this, I've always preferred using Bungie's in-game Loadout system, and am very happy that the studio is expanding it.

The Final Shape itself looks to be the biggest and boldest Destiny expansion ever made, which is arguably exactly what Destiny 2 needs to cap off the Light and Darkness Saga after Lightfall's extremely poor reception. It will take Guardians inside of the Traveler itself as they pursue the Witness and attempt to thwart its plan to converge the Light and Darkness into what it calls "The Final Shape," defined as "a nightmarish calcification of reality into the Witness' twisted design" that will freeze and end all life in the universe. The DLC is set to release on June 4 — exactly one week away at the time of writing.

Along with a full story campaign, a new raid, an explorable destination within the Traveler called "The Pale Heart," and the Prismatic subclass, the expansion will also feature a new arsenal of armor, weapons, and Exotics to collect, along with a fresh race of Darkness enemies to fight known as the Dread. Later in The Final Shape era, there will also be three Episodes, which will focus on the Vex, Scorn, and Hive respectively and are replacing Destiny 2's seasonal releases. Like seasons, they'll have additional story content and gear to chase, and each one will be split into three distinct acts.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten. Notably, it's available to preorder now.

Destiny 2's climactic The Final Shape DLC expansion is only about a month away from launch, and to help new and returning players prepare for it, developer Bungie has made nearly every big Destiny 2 DLC free to play. From now until June 3, you can play through all the content in 2019's Shadowkeep, 2020's Beyond Light, and 2022's The Witch Queen, along with all of Year 6's four seasons (Season 20-23), with "Expansion Open Access." This includes all their story missions, matchmade activities, Exotic quests/missions, raids, and more — and you'll get to keep all the gear you earn even after the free access period ends.

Another benefit of Expansion Open Access you may not be aware of is that since you technically own the above DLCs while it's active, you can head to the Monument to Lost Lights Exotic Archive at The Tower to obtain certain Exotic weapons from their expansion year that were originally unlocked from seasonal quests or reward tracks that have now been sunset. And while many of these weapons range from "terrible" to "just okay," a handful of them are extremely powerful and have a strong position in the Destiny 2 meta.

Each Exotic weapon at the Exotic Archive costs 1 Exotic Cipher, 1 Ascendant Shard, and 100,000 Glimmer to snag. You'll get Ascendant Shards from Rahool in The Tower (and various other sources) and Glimmer from general play, but Exotic Ciphers can only be earned by completing the weekly "Xenology" quest from Xûr, a vendor who shows up in a random location every weekend to sell Exotic gear (use this website to track him). There's also one available as a Rank 55 reward for XP progression on the free track of the current season pass; between it and the ones you can get during the remaining weekends between now and The Final Shape, you'll be able to acquire five Exotic Ciphers in total.

Five Exotic Ciphers mean five new Exotic weapons for your arsenal, and below, I've listed the five best ones from the Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and The Witch Queen eras you should spend them on while Expansion Open Access is available. Note that the Exotics have been sorted in descending order from most to least useful, so if you find this article later on in May, get as many as you can starting from the top of the list and working your way down. Also, make sure you talk to Banshee-44 after acquiring each one to pick up the quest for their Exotic catalysts, as completing these enhances the weapons with additional perks and bonuses.

Witherhoard

The Witherhoard Exotic grenade launcher has been an absolute monster in PvE ever since it was originally added back in Shadowkeep's Season of Arrivals, and still sees frequent use in many loadouts today. When fired at the ground, it creates a large circular pool of energy that does heavy damage-over-time (DOT) to any enemy that touches it, making it phenomenal for crowd control and ad clear. Direct hits with its projectiles inflict that DOT to the target while also dealing a chunk of impact damage as well, and when the target dies, it drops an energy pool at its location.

The catalyst for Witherhoard gives it a special trait called Silent Alarm that gives it a massive Handling stat buff while also enhancing it with the effects of Auto-Loading Holster — a perk that auto-reloads the weapon after a few seconds while it's stowed. This allows you to swap to other weapons and keep shooting while Witherhoard reloads passively then switch back when it's ready to fire, making the grenade launcher a strong pick for boss damage loadouts as well as ad clear-focused ones.

All in all, Witherhoard is simply incredible, and if there's one Exotic to get from the Exotic Archive during Expansion Open Access, it's this one. It's even solid in PvP, as direct hits with it are a guaranteed one-shot kill and you can use its energy pools to pressure players in Warlock rifts or behind Titan barricades.

Leviathan's Breath

The Leviathan's Breath, a unique heavy Bow from Shadowkeep's Season of the Undying, used to be one of the worst Exotics in all of Destiny 2. Thanks to a massive buff last year that gave it 30% more damage, the intrinsic ability to create volatile Void explosions, and a catalyst that adds Archer's Tempo to speed up the rate of fire, though, it's quickly become a meta DPS option for any boss with a crit you can hit consistently.

Notably, Leviathan's Breath also brings some Champion-specific utility to the table, as it's capable of stunning Unstoppable Champions with a fully charged arrow. This makes it a popular weapon in difficult Nightfall strikes, and it also occasionally sees some play against Unstoppable Champions in Master-level raids, too. Overall, an excellent weapon.

Ager's Scepter

Whenever players need extremely effective crowd control, Ager's Scepter is often the  weapon many Guardians turn to. This Exotic Stasis Trace Rifle from Beyond Light's Season of the Lost freezes any foes near ones that you kill with it, making them sitting ducks for follow-up from you or your allies. It also refunds ammo to the magazine whenever you get kills, allowing you to shoot for much longer than you'd be able to with a regular Trace Rifle before reloading.

Notably, there's no cooldown on Ager's Scepter's Exotic effect, so it's possible to chain it over and over to the point where you're freezing and clearing out entire battlefields in seconds. That freezing effect is also influenced by the Aspects and Fragments you've chosen for your Stasis subclass, if you've unlocked it; this makes it a top pick for Stasis builds.

Where it really starts to take off, though, is with its catalyst that adds the Will Given Form perk. This trait gives Ager's Scepter an alternate firing mode that slowly drains a fully charged Super to overcharge the weapon's beam, improving its damage and giving it the ability to directly slow and then freeze the target you're shooting. It's not always worth trading your Super for this mode, but in certain builds — Stasis Warlock with the Mantle of Battle Harmony Exotic chest armor, for example — it can absolutely pop off.

Grand Overture

Like Leviathan's Breath, Grand Overture is a unique Exotic heavy, but was considered pretty worthless when it was added in The Witch Queen's Season of the Risen. Also like Leviathan's Breath, a series of major buffs last year have transformed it into a very viable weapon. These days, it's a popular choice for burst DPS against bosses as well as for effectively clearing out tanky "yellow bar" ads, especially if the activity you're in has an Arc surge or Machine Gun overcharge active.

Grand Overture essentially functions like the weapons used by a Cabal Colossus. Its standard firing mode shoots slow, high-damage slug rounds that prepare up to 20 missiles on-hit, which you can then fire in an extremely fast burst by holding reload to switch to its alternate firing mode. 

Though its total damage over time is lower than other meta options, the burst damage its missiles are capable of is fantastic, making it a fan-favorite in boss encounters with short damage phases. The missiles also blow through groups of enemies easily, too — Grand Overture's catalyst enhances this ad clear capability by making the missiles blind enemies they hit and cause additional Arc explosions when they kill.

Ticuu's Divination

All of Destiny 2's primary Exotic Bows are awesome weapons, and the Ticuu's Divination from Beyond Light's Season of the Chosen is no exception. It features a "primer and detonator" mechanic that makes it very useful for ad clear, especially if you're in a situation where you're fighting a lot of Solar-shielded enemies.

To use the weapon properly, you'll first want to hipfire an arrow at a crowd of ads, which sends out multiple seeking projectiles that "prime" them with a Sacred Flame debuff. Then, aim down the sight and shoot a fully charged Causality Arrow at one of those targets to "detonate" them, causing a high-damage explosion that also detonates other Sacred Flame-affected foes within its area-of-effect.

The catalyst for Ticuu's Divination makes it even more powerful by buffing the damage of your "detonation" Causality Arrows, while also resetting any "primer" Sacred Flame debuffs on the field if you hit an enemy with a Causality Arrow. Ultimately, this is the least useful of the five weapons I'm recommending here, but it's still excellent and an amazing weapon to have on-hand whenever Bows are overcharged or have anti-Champion perks from the current Seasonal Artifact.

Get ready for The Final Shape, Guardian

All five of these Exotic weapons are amongst the best in Destiny 2's PvE meta, and while access to Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and The Witch Queen are free, picking all of them up before June 3 should be a top priority for new and returning players alike. If you're reading this article shortly after publication, you'll be able to get enough Exotic Ciphers before Expansion Open Access ends to get them all; if you happen to read it much later in May, make sure you at least get Witherhoard and Leviathan's Breath.

To prep for The Final Shape, make sure you also play through all the campaign missions in Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, The Witch Queen, and Year 6's four seasons (go to the H.E.L.M. to get started with those) to catch up on Destiny 2's major story beats. Doing this will also unlock plenty of Exotic quests and missions for you to complete, giving you access to additional powerful and fun Exotic weapons like Xenophage, Deathbringer, Salvation's Grip, The Lament, Parasite, and Wish-Keeper.

The seasonal story quests will also take you into Year 6's seasonal activities, and notably, all four of these are dropping a single guaranteed Deepsight "red border" weapon daily from now until The Final Shape's release (you'll always get a red border for a weapon pattern you don't have). You need these to be able to get patterns for and craft Year 6's seasonal weapons — AKA, choose the perks you want once you level them up with kills or Enhancement Cores —  so make sure you're running one of each of them every day. The best of these weapons to focus on are Raconteur, Regnant, The Eremite, Semiotician, Scatter Signal, and Doomed Petitioner.

Don't forget to also check out Destiny 2: Into the Light, a free-to-play update that's added a special PvE horde mode called Onslaught, 12 excellent "BRAVE" weapons, reprised versions of The Whisper and Zero Hour Exotic missions, and more. Its Hall of Champions social space actually has a "Gift of the Thunder Gods" chest full of solid gear that'll bring you up to the current max Power Level of 1810, and Onslaught is worth grinding (check out the best Onslaught builds I've put together) since the BRAVE weapons will no doubt be meta in the new DLC.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten. Notably, it's available to preorder now, and the PC version is on sale for a small discount.

What you need to know

• Exactly one month ahead of the launch of Destiny 2: The Final Shape DLC, nearly all of the game's other major expansions have been made available to play for free with "Expansion Open Access" until June 3 — one day before The Final Shape's June 4 release.
• These include the Shadowkeep, Beyond Light, and The Witch Queen expansions, along with their story campaigns, Exotic quests, strikes, raids, and gear. You'll be able to keep the gear you earn after Open Access ends, though you won't be able to use Beyond Light's Stasis subclass anymore unless you buy that DLC specifically.
• The activities and story content from all four of the seasons in Year 6 (Season 20-23) is playable for free until then, too; that content will be sunset from Destiny 2 when The Final Shape releases.
• The only major expansion that isn't included in Open Access is Destiny 2: Lightfall, which released in 2023 and had a very negative reputation. Though its Strand subclasses are great, the rest of the DLC is widely considered to be very disappointing. You can claim it during May if you're a PlayStation Plus member, though.
• Minor DLCs like the 30th Anniversary Pack and the Forsaken Pack aren't included in Expansion Open Access either, so be aware of that.
• Update: Bungie has announced in a new This Week in Destiny blog post that the campaigns for Shadowkeep and Beyond Light and Beyond Light's Stasis subclass will remain free after The Final Shape launches. The rest of Shadowkeep's and Beyond Light's content will be sold in new DLC packs.

Original article: As I write this, Destiny 2's huge The Final Shape DLC — the final chapter in the game's decade-long "Light and Darkness Saga" that began with the original 2014 shooter — is one month away from its planned release on June 4. With a climactic story that'll take players inside the Traveler itself, a wild Prismatic subclass that allows you to combine Light and Darkness powers, plenty of loot to chase, and more, it looks to be the biggest and boldest expansion in Destiny's history. 

Excitement for it has been building steadily in recent months, drawing new and returning players alike to the space fantasy FPS. An issue for newcomers, though, is that Destiny 2 is quite expensive to get into since all of its older expansions still cost money. From now until June 3, though, you can play through nearly all of them for free thanks to  "Expansion Open Access," which was announced in a new trailer on Tuesday by developer Bungie (honestly, Shadowkeep and Beyond Light should be free by now anyway since they're several years old, but I digress). 

Available content includes everything from 2019's Shadowkeep, 2020's Beyond Light, and 2022's The Witch Queen, including story campaign missions, Exotic quests and gear, strikes (three-player levels), raids (challenging six-player endgame missions), and more. The activities and story questlines from all four of the seasons in Year 6 (Season 20-23) are freely accessible as well, which covers all the events that directly precede The Final Shape's (it will be sunset from Destiny 2 once The Final Shape launches). Once you're in-game, all of this should be accessible.

Notably, you'll get to keep all the gear you earn while playing through these DLCs even if you don't purchase them before this Open Access period ends, giving you a chance to build up a good arsenal before confronting the Witness in The Final Shape. One thing you won't get to keep access to, however, are Beyond Light's Stasis subclasses. For that reason, I recommend buying Beyond Light if you can (it's $19.99, but goes on sale often), especially since Stasis can be very powerful with the right build.

Alongside minor DLCs like the 30th Anniversary Pack and the Forsaken Pack, the one story expansion that isn't included in Open Access is Destiny 2: Lightfall — but honestly, it's not worth the $29.99 it costs. Don't get me wrong, the Strand subclasses it added are pretty awesome, but they're not essentials unless you're a hardcore endgame player (and if that's you, you probably already own the DLC, anyway). Even if you are, you'll be just fine with the "vanilla" Solar, Arc, and Void subclasses.

Compared to Destiny 2's other expansions, Lightfall has what has to be the worst core narrative since the abysmal (and now-sunset) Curse of Osiris and Warmind add-ons, along with an extremely boring raid in the Root of Nightmares. The loot from its (bland) Neomuna patrol space is solid and some of its post-launch story dialogue is actually pretty good, but you can look up the latter in YouTube videos, and overall, I just can't bring myself to recommend it unless it's discounted.

Something important to note is that Lightfall is available for PlayStation players to claim without a purchase in May if they have a PlayStation Plus membership. Take advantage of that while you can, if you can, as the offer won't be available once June rolls around and there's a new batch of monthly games for PlayStation Plus.

Thanks to Destiny 2's Expansion Open Access, now is definitely the time to get started with the game if you're interested in jumping in ahead of The Final Shape. The Witch Queen, Beyond Light, and especially Shadowkeep aren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but for the rock bottom price of $0, their campaigns — The Witch Queen's, in particular — are a good time. Along with the "New Light" free-to-play story missions and the in-game Timeline feature, they'll also help you get up to speed on what's going actually going on in Bungie's universe. Several of their Exotic quests are great, too, and all three DLCs have enjoyable raids.

There's also Destiny 2's Into the Light update to enjoy, which is entirely free-to-play and just got its final major batch of content with today's weekly reset. It's added an awesome PvE wave defense mode called Onslaught, 12 special refreshed "BRAVE" weapons to chase, reprised versions of the fan-favorite Whisper and Zero Hour Exotic missions, three new PvP maps, and a raid boss gauntlet called Pantheon that overhauls popular raid encounters with some new twists. It, along with the official reveal of The Final Shape's Prismatic subclass, doubled the game's player count in early April.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten. Notably, it's available to preorder now, and the PC version is on sale for a small discount.

What you need to know

• After the launch of Destiny 2's new Into the Light update, the game's player count on Steam has risen from around ~40-50,000 up to about 80,000, essentially doubling overnight.
• The update features a brand new PvE horde mode called Onslaught with highly desirable returning fan-favorite weapons, along with a tweaked version of The Whisper Exotic mission. Future patches for it will also add the Zero Hour mission, new PvP maps, a raid boss gauntlet called Pantheon, and additional Onslaught weapons to earn.
• Bungie's recent gameplay showcase of The Final Shape expansion is also a factor, which has gotten many excited with its "Prismatic" subclass that will allow players to mix and match different subclass abilities and its new enemy race, the Dread.
• Destiny 2: The Final Shape is scheduled to launch on June 4, with preorders for the DLC available to buy now.

Following the release of the free-to-play Into the Light update for Destiny 2 on Tuesday, Bungie's space fantasy shooter has gotten a dramatic increase in players. Specifically, it's averaging around ~80,000 concurrent players on Steam at the time of writing according to SteamDB info; prior to Into the Light, that number tended to hover between 40-50,000 (console metrics are harder to track, though Destiny 2 is at #15 on Xbox's most-played games list).

It's great news for the live service FPS, which has largely struggled since the release of the poorly received Destiny 2: Lightfall expansion early last year. Widespread frustration for that DLC's underwhelming story, location, raid, and first few seasons drove many from the game, as did a lack of meaningful updates or additions to its core activities. Thanks to Into the Light, though, tons of fans are flocking back to check out the excellent, highly replayable new PvE horde mode Onslaught, chase both classic and new god rolls on 12 returning fan-favorite weapons (six now, with two more added each week until April 30), and jump into a tweaked version of The Whisper, a beloved Exotic mission that's come back as well.

Into the Light is arguably the most exciting Destiny 2 release we've gotten in a year, and it's not even done yet — there's a special raid boss gauntlet called Pantheon coming on April 30, three new PvP maps being added on May 7, and the Zero Hour Exotic mission is returning May 14. Even so, however, it's not the only thing driving players back to the game right now.

Undeniably, another contributing factor to the rising player count is growing excitement for Destiny 2: The Final Shape, the last expansion in the decade-long Light and Darkness Saga that's slated to go live on June 4. Prior to Into the Light's launch, Bungie released a The Final Shape gameplay preview that revealed two things nobody saw coming: a crazy "Prismatic" subclass that will allow you to combine abilities from different subclasses, and an entirely new race of Darkness enemies called the Dread that are completely different than anything else we've seen or fought in Destiny thus far.

It's true that we've gotten new powers like Strand and new individual enemy units such as Tormentors and Vex Wyverns in recent DLCs, but the Dread are the first wholly original hostile race since Forsaken added the Scorn six years ago, and we've never had anything like the multi-classing that Prismatic will bring. There's lots of hype for The Final Shape's new Exotic class items, too, which will drop with two random Exotic armor effects you'll be able to use to take your Prismatic buildcrafting to the next level.

Overall, it feels like Bungie is pulling out all the stops for what looks like it might be the biggest and boldest Destiny expansion ever made. And after the disaster that was Lightfall, that's exactly what the studio needs to do for the final chapter of this 10 year-long adventure.

Where Destiny 2 will go from there is still a bit of a mystery, though we know that The Final Shape will be followed by at least one year of three season-like content drops called "Episodes." Ideally, these will shake up the game's trite seasonal structure with something fresh, and will be accompanied by some major additions and overhauls for its relatively stale core activities like regular Vanguard strikes and Crucible PvP.

Only time will tell, of course, but if Destiny 2's improving player numbers are evidence of anything, it's that Bungie is taking steps in the right direction. Hopefully The Final Shape's launch is the beginning of a bright new era for the franchise — until it launches, I'll be crushing Onslaught with some of my favorite builds for the horde mode. I've got god rolls to hunt.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten. Notably, it's available to preorder now, and the PC version is on sale for a small discount.

The huge free-to-play Destiny 2: Into the Light update is here, and the highlight of the patch is its new PvE wave-based defense mode Onslaught. In it, you and two other Guardians are tasked with defending a special objective called the ADU from hordes of enemies. You can build turrets, traps, and distraction decoys with scrap collected from slain foes to help you, but ultimately, your fireteam will need to do the heavy lifting — and while pretty much any setup will get you through the normal version of Onslaught, you'll need a strong build to succeed in its more challenging (and more rewarding) Legend difficulty version.

I've been experimenting with several different loadouts in the horde mode since its release, and have put together three for each Destiny 2 class that have proven to be very effective in Legend Onslaught. You'll find a complete overview for all nine of those builds below, including subclasses, Aspects, Fragments, Exotics, recommended gear, armor mods, and playstyle explanations.

Destiny 2: Best Hunter builds for Onslaught

These are three of the best Hunter builds you can take into Onslaught. Two of them take advantage of how stealthy Hunters can be with Void Invisibility, while one features Stasis and a fan-favorite Exotic to simultaneously debuff enemy damage while making your entire fireteam significantly tankier.

Void Hunter Nightstalker build

• Abilities: Shadowshot (Deadfall or Moebius Quiver), Gambler's Dodge, Triple Jump, Snare Bomb, Vortex Grenade
• Aspects: Stylish Executioner, Vanishing Step
• Fragments: Echo of Cessation, Echo of Starvation, Echo of Persistence, Echo of Obscurity
• Exotic: Gyrfalcon's Hauberk
• Armor mods: Harmonic/Void Siphon, Firepower, Bolstering Detonation, Impact Induction, Charged Up, Void Weapon Surge, Insulation, Time Dilation, Powerful Attraction, Bomber
• Important stats: Resilience, Mobility, Discipline
• Weapons: Void weapons; The Manticore, Graviton Lance, or Collective Obligation recommended

This build uses the Exotic chest armor Gyrfalcon's Hauberk, which gives Volatile Rounds to your Void weapons whenever you shoot to come out of Invisibility. It pairs perfectly with Stylish Executioner since it allows you to go invisible whenever you kill an enemy affected by Volatile, and with Vanishing Step, you have an easy way to go invisible in the first place. Essentially, what you're getting with this core combo is an infinite loop of Invisibility and Volatile Rounds, which makes this setup one of the safest and deadliest Hunter builds for enemy dense activities like Onslaught. Dodging to go invisible will also refresh your Smoke Bomb as long as you do it relatively close to enemies, so in addition to keeping every threat you encounter permanently Volatile until it dies, you can also Weaken many of them, too.

Gyrfalcon's Hauberk also gives you and nearby allies a reserve Void Overshield whenever you use a finisher on an enemy, which can then be deployed by using your  class ability. The Fragments used here empower your finishers to make this element of the build even better, while also allowing you to create Void Breaches by killing Volatile enemies and get Devour from them as well as any Orbs of Power you or your teammates make. Devour's heal-on-kill and improved grenade regeneration effects round out this setup nicely and make it even stronger, so it's worth building into.

Using specific armor mods isn't crucial to get this build to work well, but you'll be using your Void weapons constantly, so make sure you use a Harmonic/Void Siphon to create Orbs of Power on multikills as well as a Void Weapon Surge to improve their damage. Time Dilation will make that surge last longer whenever you get Armor Charge from Orbs, Charged Up allows you to have more Armor Charges at once, and Powerful Attraction gives you an easy way to collect Orbs by dodging while close to them (you'll be doing that often to go invisible or deploy your reserve Void Overshield).

Arc Hunter Arcstrider build

• Abilities: Gathering Storm, Triple Jump, Gambler's Dodge, Combination Blow, Pulse Grenade
• Aspects: Lethal Current, Flow State
• Fragments: Spark of Resistance, Spark of Shock, Spark of Magnitude, Spark of Feedback
• Exotic: Assassin's Cowl
• Armor mods: Hands-On, Heavy Handed, Impact Induction, Innervation, Recuperation, Bomber
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Mobility
• Weapons: Shotgun w/ One-Two Punch

Arc Hunter builds centered around the Combination Blow melee have been popular for years, but have historically struggled due to survivability issues. By using the Assassin's Cowl Exotic helmet, though, you can solve this problem completely, as it both heals and gives you Void Invisibility whenever you get a powered melee or finisher kill. This invisibility ensures you can safely stay close to groups of enemies while punching them, and whatever damage you do take will be mitigated by the health-on-kill effect.

The build works like this: first, weaken a low-tier foe and then punch them with your Combination Blow, which both gives you a Combination Blow damage buff stack and makes you invisible thanks to Assassin's Cowl. Then, perform a Gambler's Dodge near enemies while you're invisible to get Combination Blow back (you'll always have your dodge after getting a Combination Blow kill, since each one fully refunds class ability energy). Rinse and repeat from there; you'll soon have three Combination Blow stacks that make your melees hit like a truck, making it very easy to continue this loop indefinitely.

Armor mods aren't important at all here, but Hands-On and Heavy Handed are optimal choices since you'll be getting tons of powered melee kills. The Lethal Current Aspect is also ideal, since the Jolt effect and damaging aftershocks it gives your melee attacks hard-hitting area-of-effect capabilities — perfect for Onslaught. The suggested Fragments improve your overall survivability and the power of your Pulse Grenades, while the use of a shotgun with One-Two Punch gives you another way to buff your melee damage whenever you're up against tanky foes. Note that the ad clear-focused Arc Staff super won't get much value here since you'll already be clearing everything with melees, so take Gathering Storm instead and save it for bosses.

Stasis Hunter Revenant build

• Abilities: Silence and Squall, Gambler's Dodge, Triple Jump, Withering Blade, Duskfield Grenade
• Aspects: Touch of Winter, Grim Harvest
• Fragments: Whisper of Chains, Whisper of Durance, Whisper of Shards, Whisper of Conduction, Whisper of Rime
• Exotic: Renewal Grasps
• Armor mods: Harmonic/Stasis Siphon, Impact Induction, Grenade Kickstart, Charged Up, Stacks on Stacks, Innervation, Recuperation, Reaper, Bomber, Powerful Attraction
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Mobility
• Weapons: Stasis primary w/ Headstone, Demolitionist weapons, Winterbite (situationally)

Players were unhappy when Bungie nerfed the grenade regeneration of the Renewal Grasps Exotic gauntlets a while back, but ever since the developer reverted that nerf last year, they — and Stasis Hunter, by extension — have become top-tier in difficult PvE content like Legend Onslaught. This build I've made with them is great in all three Onslaught maps, but it's particularly effective on Midtown since it's got tons of tight chokepoints you can take advantage of.

Renewal Grasps give your Duskfield Grenades the unique ability to significantly reduce damage dealt by enemies within their radius while also buffing you and your allies' damage resistance while you're inside it. It also makes that radius larger, and that effect stacks with the one from the Touch of Winter Aspect, which is why we're using it here. We also take Grim Harvest, which generates Stasis shards that restore melee energy for your Withering Blade shurikens; with some of the listed Fragments, these will track to you and give you a small amount of health/overshield, too. The other ones improve your Slow so it crowd controls enemies longer, gives you even more damage resistance while near a Stasis crystal — Touch of Winter creates one at the center of each Duskfield you create — and boosts your grenade recharge rate whenever you shatter one of these crystals.

As you can see, this entire build is focused on using Duskfield Grenades to clog up chokepoints, Slow and Freeze everything, and make your fireteam nigh-unkillable. For that, you'll need to spam as many grenades as you can, which is why I've chosen armor mods that either help you quickly get them back directly or give you a chunk of grenade energy when you use your other abilities. I also recommend using weapons with the Headstone and/or Demolitionist perk to get extra Stasis crystals or grenade energy, respectively. For your heavy weapon, consider the Exotic Winterbite Glaive, which can help Freeze any foes not in your Duskfields, dish out high melee damage to anything that is in them, and create a tanky shield you and your teammates can use for cover.

Destiny 2: Best Warlock builds for Onslaught

Warlocks are Destiny 2's masters of support and crowd control, which is what you'll get with all three of these builds. In an activity like Onslaught, you'll get tons of value no matter which one you're using.

Solar Warlock Dawnblade build

• Abilities: Well of Radiance, Balanced Glide, Incinerator Snap, Solar Grenade
• Aspects: Heat Rises, Touch of Flame
• Fragments: Ember of Torches, Ember of Singeing, Ember of Searing, Ember of Mercy
• Exotic: Boots of the Assembler
• Armor mods: Kinetic Siphon, Dynamo, Firepower, Impact Induction, Grenade Kickstart, Charged Up, Elemental Charge, Innervation, Reaper, Bomber, Powerful Attraction
• Important stats: Resilience, Recovery, Discipline
• Weapons: Lumina, Solar weapons w/ Incandescent (optional)

While using a Phoenix Protocol build that maximizes Well of Radiance uptime is never a bad idea as a Solar Warlock, I prefer using this loadout that takes advantage of the synergy between the Exotic Hand Cannon Lumina and the Exotic armor piece Boots of the Assembler to provide consistent healing and damage buffs to my teammates. Standing in your Healing Rift with Boots of the Assembler will create Noble Seekers that fly to allies and heal them, and these also give your Lumina Noble Rounds, eliminating the need to get kills with it first. You can then hipfire your Lumina at teammates to shoot these Noble Rounds at them, which gives them additional healing as well as a meaty 35% Blessing of the Sky damage buff.

The build is incredibly strong at baseline with these two Exotics, but by using the suggested Fragments, you'll make it even better. The Scorch caused by your Incinerator Snap and Solar Grenade will boost the regen rate of your Healing Rift, and killing enemies affected by it will improve your melee regen and create Firesprite pickups that both heal you and give you grenade energy. Notably, Lumina's Blessing of the Sky buff also counts as Radiant, which procs Ember of Benevolence and temporarily increases the regeneration of all of your abilities.

The main downside here is that you won't have Well of Radiance up as much as you will with a traditional Solar Warlock support setup, but honestly, the Super charges up pretty fast even without Phoenix Protocol. Also, this build gives your fireteam more overall flexibility, as you can provide strong healing and damage buffs from afar without having to have everyone group up in a Well all the time. 

Stasis Warlock Shadebinder build

• Abilities: Winter's Wrath, Healing Rift, Balanced Glide, Penumbral Blast, Coldsnap Grenade
• Aspects: Glacial Harvest, Bleak Watcher
• Fragments: Whisper of Torment, Whisper of Shards, Whisper of Rime, Whisper of Conduction
• Exotic: Osmiomancy Gloves
• Armor mods: Harmonic/Stasis Siphon, Grenade Kickstart x2, Charged Up, Stacks on Stacks, Innervation, Bomber x2, Reaper
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Recovery
• Weapons: Stasis weapons w/ Headstone

If you're looking to put together the ultimate crowd control setup for Onslaught, look no further than this build that uses the Osmiomancy Gloves Exotic and Stasis Warlock's Bleak Watcher turrets. The former gives you two Coldsnap Grenades you can hold to transform into the latter, which can then be thrown to deploy. These will then automatically shoot bolts of Stasis energy at nearby enemies that Slow and Freeze them, making them easy for you and your allies to pick off.

With high Discipline from your armor, as well as the Fragments and armor mods I've suggested along with a Stasis weapon with Headstone you can use to make and then shatter Stasis crystals (a Disparity Pulse Rifle with Rapid Hit/Headstone is my personal favorite), you should be able to easily get your grenades back and keep multiple Bleak Watcher turrets on the field at all times. Note that while enemies won't target them, their attacks can destroy them, so try to throw them on an elevated position where they'll be out of harm's way.

While the Bleak Watcher Aspect and the Whisper of Torment and Shards Fragments are core parts of this build, there's room for flexibility with the second Aspect and the other two Fragments. I went with Glacial Harvest, Whisper of Rime, and Whisper of Conduction to get lots of bonus healing/shielding from Stasis shards, but Iceflare Bolts and something like Whisper of Durance to extend the duration of each turret you make will work great, too. Think about what you'd prefer and make adjustments accordingly.

Arc Warlock Stormcaller build

• Abilities: Chaos Reach, Healing Rift, Balanced Glide, Ball Lightning, Pulse Grenade
• Aspects: Electrostatic Mind, Arc Soul
• Fragments:
• Exotic: Vesper of Radius
• Armor mods: Spark of Shock, Spark of Ions, Spark of Discharge, Spark of Resistance
• Important stats: Ashes to Assets, Dynamo, Firepower, Bolstering Detonation, Charged Up, Stacks on Stacks, Innervation x2, Bomber, Powerful Attraction, Utility Kickstart
• Weapons: Arc weapon w/ Voltshot

Compared to the previous two builds, this one is more aggressive, and is a bit riskier to play as a result. However, it's also capable of much higher damage, especially around chokepoints. At its core is Vesper of Radius, an Exotic chest piece that makes your rifts release powerful Arc shockwaves every few seconds; while using the Arc Stormcaller subclass, these shockwaves also Blind, which is an effect that disorients enemies and prevents them from shooting you.

This Blind debuff, along with the Spark of Resistance Fragment and the healing from your Healing Rifts themselves, will make survival in close-to-medium range much easier — and since Vesper of Radius also dramatically boosts your class ability regen while you're surrounded by enemies, you'll be able to spam plenty of rifts to Blind and shock incoming waves. The rest of your Fragments and your Electrostatic Mind Aspect are geared towards causing extra grenade damage with Jolt and getting Ionic Traces to boost the regen of all your abilities, while Arc Soul augments your firepower with an auto-turret that sits on your shoulder and shoots what you're fighting (allies can get one by running through your Healing Rifts, too).

The armor mods I recommended will give you maximum rift uptime, while also helping to collect Orbs of Power easily and get grenade energy back. For weapons, use some good Arc ones to take advantage of Spark of Discharge, especially ones that have Voltshot since that perk causes Jolt and synergizes with both Electrostatic Mind and Spark of Ions.

Destiny 2: Best Titan builds for Onslaught

Titans excel at direct frontline fighting, and with these three builds, you'll provide incredible value to your team by either holding the line with defensive Strand crowd control, dishing out huge Solar boss damage, or blowing through enemy lines with an explosive Void setup.

Strand Titan Berserker build

• Abilities: Bladefury, Rally Barricade, Catapult Lift, Frenzied Blade, Shackle Grenade
• Aspects: Drengr's Lash, Banner of War OR Into the Fray
• Fragments: Thread of Mind, Thread of Wisdom, Thread of Continuity, Thread of Warding
• Exotic: Abeyant Leap
• Armor mods: Weapon-matching Siphon mod, Bolstering Detonation x2, Charged Up, Stacks on Stacks, Insulation, Recuperation, Bomber, Utility Kickstart
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Recovery
• Weapons: Quicksilver Storm (optional)

Ever since Destiny 2: Lightfall released last year and players got access to Strand and the Abeyant Leap Exotic leg armor, Strand Titan has stood tall as one of the best subclasses to play when you need to hold the line against legions of incoming foes. Essentially, it supercharges the Drengr's Lash Aspect so that casting your barricade sends out three projectiles that Suspend enemies instead of one, and also gives you Woven Mail each time you Suspend something. Since Suspend is so powerful — you can keep entire crowds stuck in mid-air for several seconds, unable to fight back as you pick them off — Abeyant Leap is undeniably a meta pick, and it's absolutely perfect for something like Onslaught.

Your Shackle Grenade allows you to Suspend whatever your barricades don't, though by using Rally Barricade (it has a shorter cooldown than Towering Barricade), Thread of Mind, a high Resilience stat, and Utility Kickstart, you'll almost always have a new barricade ready to go anyway. The rest of your Fragments help you make Orbs of Power, give you another source of Woven Mail damage resistance, and extend the duration of your Suspend effects.

For your second Aspect, both Banner of War and Into the Fray are excellent choices. The former gives you and allies near you periodical healing and stacking melee and Sword damage buffs when you get melee, finisher, or Sword kills, while Into the Fray lets you give Woven Mail to teammates by throwing or detonating a Tangle near them. Go with Banner of War if you want stronger offense, or Into the Fray if you'd prefer to be more supportive and defensive.

Solar Titan Sunbreaker build

• Abilities: Burning Maul, Rally Barricade, Catapult Lift, Throwing Hammer, Healing Grenade
• Aspects: Consecration, Roaring Flames
• Fragments: Ember of Searing, Ember of Mercy, Ember of Torches, Ember of Benevolence
• Exotic: Pyrogale Gauntlets
• Armor mods: Harmonic/Solar Siphon, Hands-On,  Heavy Handed, Impact Induction, Focusing Strike, Invigoration, Solar Weapon Surge x2, Reaper, Distribution, Time Dilation
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Recovery
• Weapons: Solar weapons w/ Incandescent

This Solar Titan build doesn't have the utility that some of the others I've listed do, but makes up for it by having the best overall damage output. As a result, it's an exceptional boss-killer, and will also help your team burn down priority targets like Saboteurs or Skybombers. It features the Pyrogale Gauntlets, a pair of Exotic gauntlets that turns the Burning Maul Super into a single hammer slam that dishes out ridiculous damage and creates multiple lingering flame cyclones. It also adds a cyclone of fire to the slam of Consecration as well, which is one of the Aspects I've chosen for this setup.

Consecration got buffed recently, and hits significantly harder than it did when it was introduced. To use it, you start by using your powered melee while sliding, which creates an initial wave of fire that inflicts Scorch to whatever it hits; then, while mid-air, press the powered melee input again to slam down and launch a second wave that Ignites whatever's Scorched. It's excellent at baseline, but it gets even better when you add the Roaring Flames Aspect that allows you to stack up to three ability damage buffs by getting Solar ability kills (including kills with Consecration). 

Normally, it'd be difficult to get your Consecration back before those Roaring Flames stacks wear off, but thanks to Ember of Searing, Ember of Torches, and Ember of Benevolence, you'll get your melee energy back extremely fast by killing Scorched enemies and giving your allies Radiant. In fact, the regen is so strong that you can basically spam Consecration over and over to infinitely refresh Roaring Flames as long as there are enemies to kill, which notably applies to Burning Maul and lets it hit bosses for over 500,000 damage. Ember of Searing and Mercy also combo together to create Firesprites that give you Restoration, which, alongside your Healing Grenade, covers your healing needs.

Void Titan Sentinel build

• Abilities: Ward of Dawn, Rally Barricade, Catapult Lift, Shield Bash, Vortex Grenade
• Aspects: Controlled Demolition, Offensive Bulwark
• Fragments: Echo of Cessation, Echo of Starvation, Echo of Instability, Echo of Undermining
• Exotic: Severance Enclosure
• Armor mods: Harmonic/Void Siphon, Ashes to Assets, Firepower, Momentum Transfer, Impact Induction, Stacks on Stacks, Innervation x2, Proximity Ward, Reaper, Explosive Finisher
• Important stats: Resilience, Discipline, Strength
• Weapons: Void weapons w/ Repulsor Brace

Void Sentinel Titan is generally thought of as a defensive subclass, so how about we flip the script with this last build? Using Severance Enclosure — a wildly underrated Exotic chest armor that creates powerful explosions when you get powered melee or finisher final blows — it's possible to transform the Sentinel into a highly disruptive and tanky offensive juggernaut.

The primary components of the build that work with Severance Enclosure are the Controlled Demolition Aspect and the Echo of Cessation Fragment. Echo of Cessation  makes every enemy affected by your finisher explosions Volatile, while Controlled Demolition gives you burst healing whenever those Volatile targets explode from being shot or hit by follow-up Severance Enclosure blasts. Cessation also creates Void Breaches when Volatile enemies are slain, which give you the healing and grenade regen powers of Devour when picked up thanks to Echo of Starvation; the final two Fragments, Echo of Instability and Undermining, strengthen your grenades by having kills with them give your Void weapons Volatile Rounds and making them Weaken foes, respectively.

You'll then want to equip a Void weapon with Repulsor Brace so that every Volatile enemy you defeat with it (AKA, every enemy on the map, with this build) gives you a Void Overshield, which ties into the build's second Aspect Offensive Bulwark to grant you tons of grenade energy and a damage buff to your Shield Bash. Finally, with your armor mods, use a Void/Harmonic Siphon and Firepower to make plenty of Orbs of Power for Armor Charge, then use Proximity Ward and Explosive Finisher to get big chunks of grenade energy back when finishing enemies while simultaneously making you near-invincible when performing a finisher.

Ultimately, this build makes use of everything Void is capable of other than Invisibility, and is — quite literally — an absolute blast. Running around the battlefield spamming finishers like a maniac doesn't seem like a safe or effective way to play, but it's incredible with this setup, and it might just be my favorite Destiny build of any I've ever used. Give it a try.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten. It's scheduled to release on June 4, 2024.

What you need to know

• Following a gameplay showcase for Destiny 2's upcoming The Final Shape expansion, developer Bungie has released a huge new Destiny 2 update called Into the Light.
• Into the Light is free-to-play, and includes a new wave defense PvE mode called Onslaught where players can earn 12 returning fan-favorite weapons (6 now, with 2 more added every week until April 30). The Whisper Exotic mission is back too, and the Zero Hour one is coming May 14. These missions give players access to craftable versions of Whisper of the Worm and Outbreak Perfected.
• On April 30, we're also getting a raid boss gauntlet called Pantheon, and a PvP map pack that includes 3 maps is slated to drop on May 7 as well.
• The complete roadmap and patch notes for Into the Light can be found in the text below. Note that all of this content is here to stay even after The Final Shape's June 4 launch, so don't worry about missing out on it if you can't play Destiny right now.

Following quite an impressive livestream showcase for the upcoming Destiny 2: The Final Shape expansion — it revealed that the DLC is bringing a special Prismatic multi-classing subclass to the game, along with Exotic class items for it that drop with combinations of Exotic armor perks and a new Tormentor-inspired enemy faction called the Dread — the huge and free Into the Light update for Destiny 2 has gone live. You can download and install the ~4GB patch now, and to everyone's surprise, the game's servers actually seem to be holding up despite all the players flooding into the game.

To coincide with Into the Light's launch, developer Bungie has also published a roadmap for it, which you'll find in the image below. Today, a new wave defense PvE activity called Onslaught has arrived alongside the return of six fan-favorite weapons (Elsie's Rifle, Falling Guillotine, Edge Transit, The Recluse, Hung Jury SR4, Succession) you can get by playing it, complete with new perk options and special "BRAVE" skins exclusive to players who earn them before The Final Shape's June 4 launch; every week until April 30, two new BRAVE weapons will be made available from Onslaught.

The beloved timed Exotic mission The Whisper has also returned to the game today, with Zero Hour coming on May 14; these will give players access to craftable versions of the Whisper of the Worm sniper rifle and Outbreak Perfected, respectively. On April 30, we'll get a special raid boss gauntlet called Pantheon, too, and there's even a PvP map pack that includes three new maps coming on May 7.

Overall, this completely free-to-play update is massive, and if you ask me, it's honestly more exciting than any of the paid seasonal releases we've had during the Lightfall era. Note that the patch notes for it have also been published, which you'll find in the section below. They're mostly just bug fixes, but there is some notable stuff like PvE weapon buffs in there.

It's important to note that all this content is here to stay, too, so don't worry about missing out on it in the long term if you're not able to play Destiny right now. The only thing that's going away when The Final Shape launches are the unique appearances for the BRAVE weapons, but you'll still be able to hunt down the weapons themselves and grind for the perk rolls you're after.

Destiny 2 Into the Light: Patch notes

Here are the patch notes for Destiny 2: Into the Light, taken directly from Bungie's website.

ACTIVITIES

CRUCIBLE

• Updated the playlist tooltips to correctly display which matchmaking style is used for each mode.
• Fixed an issue where the Special ammo crate location was incorrectly displayed in the announcement when picked up on Vostok.
• Added the Hardware modifier to Crucible Labs for testing.
• Added a sound effect for the "Special ammo incoming" announcement when a Special ammo crate is about to spawn.

Competitive

• Removed Survival and Countdown Rush from the Competitive playlist and replaced with 3v3 Clash and Collision.
• Collision
  • Updated the zone placements for Vostok and Dead Cliffs.
  • Updated several Special ammo crate placements on Altar of Flame, Anomaly, Endless Value, Eternity, and Multiplex.
• Clash
  • Replaced the Special ammo meter system with Special ammo crates for 3v3 Clash.
• Enabled a unified Competitive ruleset for Collision and Clash.
  • Game Length: 10 minutes.
  • Respawns: 7 seconds.
  • Revives: Enabled.
  • Special ammo spawns: 4 crates, 60 seconds, shared.
  • Heavy ammo spawns: Single crate, 120 seconds, not shared.
• Expanded the Not Swap modifier to cover changing ammo types in either your Kinetic or Energy slot mid-life.
• Reduced variation in Competitive rank adjustment on match completion.

Trials

• Post-game weapon drops will now reward the weekly weapon.
• For the first two weeks, Special ammo crate variants will be tested in Trials, alongside the Not Swap modifier.

RAIDS AND DUNGEONS

• Crota’s End
  • Fixed an issue where all players could die and wipe at the same time that Crota is defeated, awarding loot but not awarding completion of the encounter.
• Deep Stone Crypt
  • Fixed an issue where shooting the Atraks replication attached to a player would cause ammo to spawn.
• Warlord’s Ruin
  • Fixed an issue in the jail puzzle where Glaive projectiles and Bow arrows could not hit targets consistently.
  • Fixed an issue in the Ogre encounter where the Warden Knight on the right side of the stage wouldn't spawn totems consistently.
  • Improved respawn placement in the room with the giant Taken orb and flying debris hazards.
• Vow of the Disciple
  • Adjusted some visual effects in the final encounter to mitigate some photosensitivity concerns.

FREE ROAM

• Fixed an issue that could cause players to crash after The Arsenal Walker public event.
• Fixed an issue where a loud volume spike could occur when exiting the Fynch vendor screen on Throne World.

UI/UX

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue where players had to spam click to give commendations to other players that left their activity.
• Fixed an issue where direct launching a quest from the Quest Details screen wouldn't always launch players to the landing zone closest to the objective.
• Fixed an issue where the Dawning emblem icon displayed no background.
• Fixed an issue where the Legacy button on the Character Select screen was not working.
• Fixed an issue where Iron Banner Legacy ornaments were missing a reward acquire sound.
• Fixed an issue where the Stasis subclass category icons at the Exo Stranger/Elsie vendor were using Void iconography.
• Fixed an issue where the icons for the Trials Auto Rifle, Strike Grenade Launcher, and dungeon Pulse Rifle Relentless were facing the incorrect way.
• Fixed an issue where the icon for the Warlock Guardian Games class item was not accurately representing the armor art.

FIRETEAM FINDER

• Reduced the size of the Fireteam Finder banner in the Roster screen.
• Added an animation to a Listing when successfully submitting an application.
• Improved notifications for applications and join requests to Roster contacts when the players don’t own the required game content.
• Players will now be able to see all players that are included in an application to help make a more informed decision on applying or joining Listings.
• Improved the way Listing Settings and Filters are stored for quicker Listing creation.
• Fixed an issue where pressing Reset in the Join Settings Filter screen did not reset options.
• Fixed an issue where a random Select button appeared in the Fireteam Finder application screen.
• Fixed an issue where spamming buttons could load an empty Activity screen.
• Fixed an issue where the wrong selection screen appeared in Fireteam Finder when using the Activity Launch screen while already in a Fireteam.
• Fixed an issue where the Accept Application pop up would shift when attempting to Accept Applications.

LOCALIZATION

• Fixed issues with text overlaps and alignment for various languages in The Guardian Oath screen.
• Fixed font issues for some languages in the Summon Fireteam button.

GAMEPLAY AND INVESTMENT

ARMOR

• Extended the handling bonus granted by Lucky Pant's Illegally Modded Holster buff by 2 seconds so that it lasts until the Out of Luck debuff is activated.
• Fixed an issue where a visual bump would occur when Overload Artifact perks were triggered.
• Fixed an issue where weapons that can change their element type were benefitting from multiple surge bonuses at once.
• Fixed an issue where the intrinsic perk Warlord's Sigil used an incorrect term for Freeze.

WEAPON ARCHETYPES

• Auto Rifles
  • Precisions
    • Reduced base damage by 5%.
• Hand Cannons
  • Precisions
    • Increased base damage by 6%.
  • Adaptives
    • Increased body shot damage by 1% and critical hit damage by 4%.
    • Improved the stats of Luna's Howl and Midnight Coup.
• Pulse Rifles
  • Rapid-Fires
    • Increased body shot damage by 3.5% and critical hit damage by 1%.
  • Lightweights
    • Increased body shot damage by 6% and critical hit damage by 3%.
  • Adaptives
    • Increased body shot damage by 5% and critical hit damage by 2%.
  • Aggressives
    • Improved the stats of Blast Furnace.
• Scout Rifles
  • Rapid-Fires
    • Increased base damage by 2%.
• Submachine Guns
  • Lightweights
    • Improved the stats of Recluse.
• Bows
  • Lightweights
    • Increased base damage by 6%.
      • Le Monarque and Wish-Ender are not affected in this change.
• Shotguns
  • Precisions
    • Corrected a rounding issue that was causing Precision Shotguns to require one extra pellet to kill max-resilience Guardians.
• Breech Grenade Launchers
  • Increased direct impact damage by 40%.
    • This works out to be roughly a 15% overall damage buff, though total damage varies depending on the blast radius stat.
  • Reduced Disorienting Grenade radius for both damage and the disorientation effect by 15%.
  • Increased The Mountaintop's PvE damage to make it competitive with other Breech-Loaded Grenade Launchers.
  • Reverted a change from Season 12 that made The Mountaintop less accurate while airborne.
• Heavy Grenade Launchers
  • Increased the stats of Edge Transit.

EXOTICS

• Updated perk descriptions to include subclass verbs for the following weapons (these weapons already had this functionality, but it just wasn’t explained in the perk descriptions):
  • Sunshot, Polaris Lance, One Thousand Voices, and Leviathan's Breath.
• Whisper of the Worm
  • Increased total ammunition from 18 to 24 (before reserves mods).
• One Thousand Voices
  • Increased total ammunition from 7 to 11 (before reserves mods).
• Quicksilver Storm
  • Increased the shots needed to trigger rockets by 50%.
  • Reduced grenade area-of-effect damage vs. combatants by 37.5%.
• The Last Word
  • Increased base damage by 6%.
• Forerunner
  • Increased base damage by 6%.

PERKS

• Reintroducing Dares of Eternity weapon perks that were previously removed. These can now roll on new drops or be added to shaped versions of the weapon.
• Master of Arms
  • Reduced damage bonus from 20% to 15%.
• Magnificent Howl
  • Precision final blows grant stacks, and reloading converts the stacks into Magnificent Howl rounds that deal greatly increased damage and have additional range. Getting a precision kill with a Magnificent Howl active converts an additional round.
• Micro-Missile
  • Redesigned this perk to be a weapon intrinsic. It’s rebuilt to do less direct damage vs. players, but with dramatically more self-physics impulse.
  • Retuned its PvE damage to be competitive with other Breech-Loaded Grenade Launchers.
  • Increased its reload speed slightly.
  • Since this is now an intrinsic on The Mountaintop, Micro-Missile has been replaced with Rampage in the first trait slot on old versions of the weapon.
• Permeability
  • Fixed an issue where this perk was causing the The Slammer Sword to get stuck on the Strand damage type.
• Omolon
  • Fixed an issue where overflowing the magazine could break the Omolon origin perk.
• Deconstruct
  • Deconstruct will no longer activate on Scorch, Threadling, Stasis Shatter, and Jolt damage.
• Slice
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Slice to lose stacks when shooting an enemy with a weapon that has a rapid rate of fire.
• Headstone
  • Fixed an issue where Headstone's cooldown was using the wrong icon. Headstone now uses the standard cooldown icon instead of a Stasis buff icon.

CRUCIBLE ONLY CHANGES

• Reduced flinch taken by all Primary weapons by 15%.
• Sunshot
  • Increased precision damage by 11%.
• Wish-Ender
  • Reduced base damage by 5%.
• Forerunner
  • Removed the critical hit damage bonus that was supposed to be just for Primary ammo sidearms, and replaced that with the 6% global base damage bonus.
• Corrected several weapons getting the wrong ammo amounts from either the Special ammo crates or meter systems, including Buried Bloodlines and some Fusion Rifles.

OTHER FIXES

• Fixed an issue where reprised Dreaming City weapons could not obtain the Rare shader Burnished Dreams or the Legendary shader Blueshift Dreams.
• Improved the chance a player will obtain the Burnished Dreams shader when dismantling a weapon with the shader.
• Improved the likelihood of Blueshift Dreams appearing on Dreaming City weapons.
• Fixed an issue where the Last Rite Scout Rifle had an incorrect appearance.
• Fixed an issue where the Xenology quest incorrectly stated that having an Exotic cipher would prevent rewarding another, despite the player being eligible.
• Fixed an issue where Word of Crota was using the incorrect stat group.
• Fixed a photosensitivity issue with Outbreak Perfected.
• Fixed an issue where Mountaintop and Jotuun's hip-fire reticles were not centered.
• Fixed an issue with Vengeful Whisper where an arrow was visible when holstered and stored on the players back.
• Fixed an issue where the updated Dreaming City weapons were not appearing in Collections.
•  Fixed an issue where notifications specific to The Coil could appear in Riven's Lair.

ABILITIES

• Reduced the cost of Strand fragments at the Pouka Pond from 200 Strand Meditations to 100 Strand Meditations.
•  Fixed an issue where Overload or Antibarrier capabilities granted through artifact mods or subclass keywords could reduce ignition damage created by some weapons.

BOUNTIES AND PURSUITS

• Fixed an issue where completing the 2023 Moments of Triumph title did not count towards the appropriate Guardian Rank objectives.

GENERAL

• Fixed an issue where Dares and Wellspring Fireteam Finders would try to launch the Salvage activity.
• Fixed a visual issue causing the Chill Out finisher effects to persist after the finisher ends.
• Fixed an issue that was causing the Ascendant Realm sky to block out the Dreaming City skybox in certain areas.
• Fixed an issue where players could regenerate Skimmer energy in midair by re-summoning their Skimmer.

Destiny 2 is one of the best Xbox games and best PC games for fans of multiplayer and looter shooters, and The Final Shape — the final expansion in the Light and Darkness Saga — looks to be the biggest DLC that Bungie's popular live service game has ever gotten.

Bungie's space fantasy looter shooter Destiny 2 has always been an expensive game to get into, with each of its expansions costing $25-50 and other add-ons like $10 season passes, $20 Dungeon keys, and the $25 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack making it even harder to play everything it has to offer without breaking the bank. Therefore, even as a hardcore veteran of the game, I generally find it pretty difficult to recommend to new players.

Right now, though, you can get every piece of current Destiny 2 DLC and seasonal content for the incredibly low price of $40 on PC (Steam) thanks to an amazing discount that Bungie's teamed up with Humble Bundle to offer on the latter's storefront. Labelled "The Story So Far," this bundle deal gives you all of Destiny 2 for the price of a single expansion — a full $165 off the cheapest way you could buy its DLC and Year 6 seasonal content on Steam directly. 

This is unquestionably the best Destiny 2 deal I've ever seen, and if you're interested in checking the game out, I strongly recommend taking advantage of it before the bundle becomes unavailable at the end of February. Note you could also opt to only pay $20 and still get every DLC release, though you'll be missing out on Year 6's season passes and Dungeon key.

An absurd amount of Destiny 2 content

There's ultimately not many games like Destiny 2, which blends an MMO-like focus on social activities like raiding with deep RPG buildcrafting and some of the finest first-person shooter mechanics in the gaming industry. Set in the far future, the game puts you in the armored boots of a Guardian — someone who was resurrected with the power of the Light by the mysterious and paracausal Traveler that hangs over humanity's skies. Guardians wield the power of the Light alongside their firearms to protect humanity from the Darkness as well as hostile extra-terrestrial civilizations.

Destiny 2 is primarily a PvE experience, as the true meat of the game lies with its story campaigns, matchmade "Strike" missions, seasonal activities, Dungeons, and Raids. However, there is PvP in The Crucible, which features a number of different casual 6v6 modes as well as fiercer 3v3 experiences like ranked Competitive and the weekend-exclusive Trials of Osiris.

The quality of Destiny 2's storytelling and the depth of its content has gone through some peaks and valleys over the years — Year 6 has been a valley for the former, but generally a peak for the latter, if you ask me — but overall, it's one of the best PC games, and getting all of it for just $40 is an absolute steal. Notably, the proceeds from this bundle go to the Bungie Foundation, which is a Bungie organization that works with children's hospitals to provide patients with iPads loaded with age-appropriate entertainment.

Calling the bundle "The Story So Far" is a bit of a stretch since major parts of the game have been removed to ensure its stability as part of Bungie's controversial "content vaulting" that began in Year 4 with Beyond Light, but at least there's a Timeline menu in-game you can read through for the gist of everything that happened pre-Shadowkeep. You could always watch cutscenes and gameplay from The Red War, Curse of Osiris, Warmind, and Forsaken on YouTube, too.

The only thing this bundle doesn't include is a preorder of The Final Shape, the next Destiny 2 expansion launching June 4 that'll cap off the Light and Darkness Saga that began way back when the first Destiny launched a decade ago in 2014. It's what all of Destiny and Destiny 2's DLC has been building towards, and while we know Destiny 2 will continue to get content updates called "Episodes" after its arrival, there's a possibility it will be the final expansion-style release for the space fantasy shooter.

What you need to know

• Destiny 2 will soon receive a "character recustomization" feature that will allow you to change your Guardian's body type, face, hair, and markings. You won't be able to change your origin race (Human, Awoken, or Exo), though.
• Destiny players have been asking for this change ever since the first Destiny game came out nearly 10 years ago.
• It's unclear exactly when this feature is coming, though we know it'll be added before The Final Shape DLC that's scheduled to release on June 4, 2024. It will also be free, and without a cap on the number of times you can make modifications.
• Destiny 2's 250,000 cap on Glimmer is also being raised to 500,000 on January 30, and a March update will reset Season of the Wish's Synthweave bounty cap so players can earn more currency for armor transmog before it ends.

After nearly a full decade since the launch of the first Destiny game, it will soon finally be possible to change your Guardian's appearance in Destiny 2. This includes options to modify their body type, face, hairstyle, and markings, essentially giving you all the same choices you had when you first created your character.

"Let's see if this sounds familiar: You created a very edgy Awoken when you were a teenager. Maybe you chose some regrettable markings on your Human’s face, or you didn’t coordinate the colors of your Exo’s mouth and eyes. Or perhaps your character's body type no longer represents who you are," wrote developer Bungie's Destiny 2 Community Team in a new This Week In Destiny blog post. "No matter the reason, you'll be able to change your Guardian’s look when character customization goes live in an update before the release of The Final Shape. To do so, you'll only need to launch Destiny 2 and you'll notice a new option when you hover over a character at the character selection screen."

Notably, taking advantage of this new feature will be completely free, and there won't be a cap on the number of times you can make changes, either. The only restriction is that you won't be able to change your Guardian's origin (Human, Awoken, or Exo), which is likely due to a technical limitation of some sort.

We don't have an exact release date for character "recustomization" yet, but it's confirmed to be coming some time before The Final Shape expansion's June 4, 2024 launch. We do know that Bungie is pushing an update live in March that will reset the Synthweave bounty cap (Ada-1's bounties) to celebrate, though. This will allow players to earn 10 additional Synthweave per character to use for armor transmog before the ongoing Season of the Wish ends.

A feature that's been a long time coming

The ability to redesign your Guardians is something that players have been asking for consistently since Destiny first released in 2014 — and according to the recently laid off former Bungie Community Manager Liana Ruppert, it's a feature that many within the studio have pushed for, too.

"The character customization feature is something we pushed HARD for. I did several data breakdowns for leadership and teams from all disciplines fought the good fight on their end to make this a reality," she wrote in a thread on X (formerly Twitter). She also commented that "VERY proud of the teams and I don't even mind that it's a PR move!"

"To clarify here, I had a part in it but I was one of MANY parts. And I promise you the community team post-layoffs worked really hard for this," she continued. "As mentioned in the original post, teams from ALL disciplines pushed for the resources to make this happen. It's a dev and player win."

The ability to change your character's appearance isn't the only long-requested improvement coming to the science fantasy looter shooter, by the way. Bungie is also raising its cap on its common Glimmer currency from 250,000 to 500,000 when it releases Update 7.3.4 on January 30, 2024. Players often hit the current cap very easily since Destiny 2 quite literally showers you with Glimmer constantly, so it's nice that we're getting a bigger wallet.

Analysis: Why did it take this long?

While it's obviously awesome that we'll finally be able to alter the way our Guardians look — as you can see in the image further up the article, I'm the "chose some regrettable markings on your Human’s face" guy Bungie is talking about, so I am hyped — it's frustrating that it's taken this long to make the option available. Adjusting your appearance is one of those features that's been in the majority of games for years now, and Destiny 2 has always stuck out quite a bit for not offering it.

It's quite emblematic of a larger problem, which is that Bungie's implementation of beneficial additions and changes generally feel late. We didn't even have armor transmog until 2021, and before then, it was incredibly difficult to make your Guardian look good while using gear with optimal stats. Savable loadouts weren't added until last year, and you still can't pull weapons from your Vault without either loading into the Tower/H.E.L.M. or using an external tool like the Destiny Companion App on mobile devices or Destiny Item Manager in a web browser.

As frustrating as the slow update cadence is, though, I'm largely just glad this feature is finally on the way. Now please, Bungie, I beg you: give us beards in the customization options. My Titan's face is smoother than clay, and I can't stand it.

Destiny 2: Lightfall, the looter shooter's latest expansion, is available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One consoles, Windows PCs, PS5, and PS4. In it, you'll take the fight to Emperor Calus, gain access to Strand subclasses and their unique abilities, and more. The Annual Pass edition of the DLC includes access to everything in all four of Year 6's seasons as well.

What you need to know

• A new report details a degraded mood at Destiny 2 developer Bungie following the recent wave of layoffs that saw roughly 100 workers cut from the studio.
• There are some industry expectations that Sony PlayStation could move in and "take over" the subsidiary studio, which has up until now enjoyed some autonomy and independence. 
• Destiny 2's player count has dropped in recent months, which can create cash flow problems for service type games with large overheads. 

According to a report that appeared in Forbes, things are looking rocky at Destiny 2 developer Bungie. 

Bungie was previously known for having created the Halo universe in a broad partnership with Microsoft. Years later, the two entities separated, leading to the creation of 343i to oversee the development of Xbox's biggest sci-fi franchise. Bungie later released Destiny in partnership with Activision-Blizzard, although the partnership there also became strained over the years, leading to another split. Bungie was then picked up by Sony PlayStation and continues to build upon Destiny 2, which remains one of the most popular PvE-oriented service shooters, but things are looking rocky at the developer. 

According to the report in Forbes, Bungie is suffering from huge morale problems stemming from layoffs, and missing targets associated with monthly active users. Many service type games use monthly active users or "MAUs" as a benchmark to gauge growth, and a drop off in MAU also correlates with a drop off in revenue. Destiny 2 is funded by expansions, in-game cosmetic purchases, and other avenues. Without consistent spend from those monthly active users, though, games with significant overheads like Destiny can potentially run into cash flow problems. Games like Destiny require huge amounts of spend in server tech, on-going development, and support services. Destiny also sports quite detailed photorealistic visuals, which can at times require more work to reproduce than something more stylized or "cartoony," with fewer polygons. 

The report in Forbes comes at a time of widespread upheaval in general in the gaming industry. Thousands have lost their jobs this year, despite record profits, as certain publishers retreat and predict recession in 2024. Recessions typically mean lower consumer spend, although some analysis (such as this one in CNBC) suggest that consumer behaviour is changing. "Doom spending" is the new "doom scrolling," according to these reports, suggesting that some consumers are still spending money despite concerns about a broader economic downturn. 

Indeed, gaming industry spend is generally up as well. Microsoft reported record engagement for its Xbox gaming platform at its last quarterly earnings report. If spending overall is up, it could suggest that Destiny 2 is struggling in the face of increased competition from other service-type games, many of which demand increasing amounts of our free time. 

In the report from Forbes, it was suggested that Sony PlayStation could potentially "take over" Bungie, which up until now, has enjoyed some form of independence. Bungie still publishes Destiny 2 on Xbox, for example, despite some expectations that PlayStation could pull it. Bungie's next Destiny 2 expansion "The Final Shape" has been delayed until June 2024, creating a significant content drought. Doubtless, if The Final Shape shapes up nicely, it will certainly see players return despite the downturn. However, that is a large gap of time for a service game to lose out on players, and who knows what type of trending shiny new service game could launch around the same time?

What you need to know

• Destiny 2: The Final Shape is officially delayed to June 4, 2024, pushing the expansion back from its original February release window. 
• This news confirms a prior report, in which Bloomberg indicated both The Final Shape and Marathon were being delayed. 
• In the lead-up to The Final Shape, Bungie is releasing additional content for the game called Destiny 2: Into the Light, as well as including new PvP maps.

Destiny 2's next big expansion is delayed, and this time it's official. 

The news comes from Bungie, confirming the report from Bloomberg weeks ago that indicated both Destiny 2: The Final Shape and the upcoming title Marathon were delayed following the studio choosing to lay off around 100 employees. While The Final Shape DLC was previously meant to launch in February 2024, it will now be set for June 4, 2024. 

What is coming to Destiny 2 in the meanwhile?

With the expansion pushed back by four months, Bungie is extending Season of the Wish, which will now run all the way until The Final Shape arrives. The developer is also working on a content drop of sorts that will arrive in April, meaning players won't be waiting as long to have something new. 

Titled Destiny 2: Into the Light, this content pack will also be accompanied by some new PvP (player vs. player) maps. Speaking on what to expect from the expansion itself, Destiny 2 game director Joe Blackburn acknowledged the extremely high expectations, while teasing that "I'm gonna be honest, we've been holding some cards close to our chest on this one, and I'm gonna ask that you bear with us for a little bit longer," adding that gameplay will be shown in April 2024. 

When will Marathon arrive?

While Bungie has not discussed Marathon's release date publicly, the report from Jason Schreier at Bloomberg indicated that the game was originally set to launch in 2024 and has now been delayed to 2025. Even though Bungie is owned by Sony and helps assist with PlayStation Studios' live service plans, the developer continues to operate as a multiplatform publisher, meaning that Marathon is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5. 

Analysis: Expected news, but curious timing

Nothing here is surprising, as Jason Schreier's track record speaks for itself and there was no reason for anyone to ever expect the delay wasn't going to happen, any thought otherwise was just silly. That said, it is curious that Bungie decided to wait until now to confirm the delay. Usually when those kinds of reports break, it doesn't take as long for the news to pan out. 

Regardless, I truly hope this pans out well and Destiny 2's Light vs. Dark story arc can end on an extremely high note.