Bungie News – Page 24

Posted on June 2, 2022 by — Leave a comment

Living Bungie’s Values as Engineers

Company values are a funny thing—they can so easily feel like insincere marketing, or wishful thinking of company leadership, or simply a list of generic positive attributes that any company might endorse—a thesaurus-check away from the Scout Law. In my experience, it’s rare for a company’s values to tell you something insightful about the company itself, and similarly rare for the values to have significant and sustained influence on how employees operate.

In that context, I’m pretty proud of Bungie’s Values. I think they stake out meaningful positions and they’ve felt continuously relevant since we adopted them back in July of 2016. We haven’t always lived up to them, but they’ve consistently felt like aspirational ideals worth striving towards.

Let’s recap those values real quick:

Teams are Stronger Than Heroes: World-class people, world-class teams. We hold ourselves and each other to the highest standard of mutual respect, inclusivity, and support, knowing that teams whose members speak their mind and take risks will accomplish what no individual ever could. Our wins are always team wins.
Player Experience First: We define success as delivering extraordinary experiences to our fans. The first job of everyone in the studio is to know how their work brings joy to our community, and to never get lost in the narrow perspective of their own craft.
Strong Ideas, Loosely Held: We know our first idea will never be our best. Constant improvement means setting egos aside, sharing ideas early and often, and offering constructive feedback with open hearts and minds.
Closing is an Everyday Practice: At Bungie, closing means selecting an achievable, short-term goal and finishing it. Set realistic goals, break big ideas into smaller ones, and make progress every day in the service of our vision.
Widen Your Perspective: Everyone should feel welcome in our studio and in our games. So we work hard to recognize our unconscious biases, amplify underrepresented voices, question the status quo, and to always assume the best of one another.
Keep it Fun: A team that enjoys working together is unstoppable. So be yourself, have a life outside of work, and enjoy the people around you for doing the same.
Put a Dent in the Universe: We believe that everything worth doing is hard. When we see an opportunity to change the world, we’re not afraid to roll up our sleeves and break convention to make it happen.

Standing here in 2022, I still regularly hear Bungie folks organically reference these values, and I think it’s because they’re both inspiring and useful. The counterpoints aren’t trivially wrong, which makes them interesting statements. You could invert most of these and still make good games, but with a very different culture. These principles help us consistently make choices that evolve our culture towards what we want to live in.

That said, by necessity, these values are pretty high level—they have to apply across every project, group, and discipline at Bungie. As engineers, we encounter many decisions and situations that aren’t really covered. There’s fresh urgency to this challenge because we’re growing fast and we’re going digital-first. When someone starts at Bungie, we can’t rely on 95 percent of their interactions being with people who’ve been here a long time, and we can’t rely on the thousand casual in-person interactions that used to happen in their first year.

The natural osmosis of culture has been compromised, so we need to get better at intentionally integrating people into our culture—at reliably helping everyone get to that shared baseline where they move beyond fitting in and start to feel like they belong. Where they move beyond learning Bungie culture and start helping us grow it. To do that, we need to be able to describe our culture with fresh clarity. Of course, documents don’t make a culture, people do—but we all need to know what we’re working towards.

To tackle that challenge, over the last few months we built a v1 of an Engineering Values Handbook to describe how we want to live Bungie’s Values as engineers.

Over the next few Tech Blog posts, we’d like to share that handbook with you. We hope it’s an interesting view into our culture, and into some choices you might consider if you’re evolving your own culture.

Before we dive in, let’s peek at a few disclaimers together:

Going back to the “values as insincere marketing” risk we talked about earlier, our handbook is intended to be 75 percent “reflection of where Bungie engineering is today,” and 25 percent “aspirational ideals we strive towards, helping us get better year after year.” We don’t always live this way, but we’re trying.
To keep our handbook more readable and focused on the interesting bits, we’ve tried not to adopt too many inline disclaimers like “try,” “generally,” “where reasonable,” or “except in emergencies.” Please accept this general disclaimer instead: as with coding guidelines, we believe there are sensible exceptions to most best-practices and we trust our people to work those out together.
We’re trying to avoid polishing these too hard. Like our culture, our handbook isn’t final, and it never will be. Our hope is that, like the Bungie Values themselves, our handbook will help us consistently make choices that evolve our culture towards what we want to live in.

— David Aldridge, Head of Engineering

Posted on June 2, 2022 by — Leave a comment

Engineering Values Handbook – Teams are Stronger than Heroes

(Not sure what this post is about? Check out
Living Bungie’s Values as Engineers.)

Let’s unpack our first Bungie value! It’s a good one.

How do we live this as engineers? Let’s look at the more specific ways we try to cultivate high-functioning teams.

We’re a culture of shepherds, eagerly helping and teaching.

Shepherd is our word for an expert operating in a knowledge-sharing or guiding capacity.
We celebrate explaining things clearly and efficiently.
We empathize with the challenges others face, and recognize that offering assistance often moves us all forward.
We value helping others, incorporating this into our priorities and timeline expectations for our own tasks.

“I appreciate being in an environment where I’m praised/rewarded for knowledge sharing and ’teaching people how to fish.’ I don’t (generally 😊) feel like I’m wasting company resources when I spend time writing up an explanation for how to do something, how things work, why things work the way they do, etc., and it makes me particularly happy to do so.

“I’ve worked in an environment where it could actually hurt your career progression to do work like that. Spending time to teach someone how to solve problems on their own would end up with them being rewarded for solving the problems, while you were seen as having taken time away from your Real Job™, even though it made the team more efficient overall. At review time, “This person took the time to educate these five people about how to solve certain problems” wasn’t nearly as measurable or valued as the correlated “These five people learned how to solve a particular class of problems and then solved a bunch of them.” That actively (and financially!) disincentivized helping your peers.

“I feel like that might be slagging the other place more than it is praising Bungie, but even though I’ve been here for ten years, it’s still a breath of fresh air. It’s a thing I actually think about really often, particularly when acting as a shepherd/point of escalation. I enjoy helping people, and being in a place where that’s encouraged and supported is great for me.”
Mark Yocom, 2012-

We prioritize code clarity over brevity.

Most pieces of code are read/analyzed/debugged many more times than they are written, and the writer usually has the luxury of deep mental context about the meaning of the code, while the reader is trying to build context as quickly as they can.
We value comprehensibility and maintainability over cleverness or terseness.
We support this with virtually universal code reviews.
Clarity includes a lot of things, some of which are in tension. A partial list is below. Specific best practices vary per language/ecosystem and are usually covered in Coding Guidelines.

Easy to understand core functionality
Low likelihood of reader missing a nuance or trap
Easy to discern side effects
Debuggability
Easy to discern performance implications
Easy to discover implementation details
Commentability
Version diffability
Not too verbose
Not too abbreviated

“In the early years of Destiny’s reward system development (2011-2014), Tristan Root, Austin Spafford, Mark Sachs, and I aligned very closely on coding standards, variable names, and best practices specific to investment systems. One day I realized I could no longer tell who had written what code. We had made it so that two reward system engineers, given the same task or spec, had a good chance of producing identical output. It was awesome. It freed us from a ton of engineering friction and made work feel like a team sport, like rowers pulling all together.”
Chris Chambers, 2011-2018 and 2021-

We cultivate egalitarian and empathic relationships with our coworkers.

We believe every group, discipline, and subdiscipline is full of people at the top of their fields who are essential to Bungie’s success.
We empathize with the people who built our technology. They solved hard problems with constraints and context we may no longer fully understand. We don’t ridicule their choices or their bugs.
We recognize the risk of being perceived as ‘gatekeepers’ to other disciplines and we strive to be worthy of the power implicit in our role as the discipline that most frequently changes what’s possible.
We show empathy to those who have to live within the constraints of our decisions, and we’re willing to spend time sharing context and hearing ideas from the customers we serve.
We give context or suggest alternatives when we have to tell someone “no.”

“One of my favorite teams ever was the Destiny 2 Cross Save strike team. Everyone involved was passionate about making it happen and that made it feel really special. It made me feel like I was part of something much bigger than a single task.

“Given the breadth of groups required to land the experience smoothly, our sync meetings were massive. But there was so much mutual respect and excitement to deliver that—instead of devolving into chaos—I remember these being some of the most collaborative meetings I have ever been a part of. It felt like that mutual respect for everyone’s contribution and perspective extended to a belief that if someone had something to bring up in the meeting, it was important enough to discuss and triage at that level. Oftentimes that allowed for a bit of discussion, some humor, and a concrete answer or decision to regroup after the meeting to discuss further. It allowed everyone to be in the know and chime in if they wanted to be a part of that further discussion (even just to listen). I am sure there were times we needed to rein in all the freeform contributions, but they never felt problematic or like wasted time. Regardless of the discipline or skill level, it felt like everyone was able to contribute to nearly every problem in some way, leveling-up all aspects of the final experience.

“I also think we did a decent job showing work early and applauding success. This was especially apparent in the UI/UX design on Bungie.net, where that team would show their prototypes frequently and often helped the broader team spot challenges. For example, we saw an early flow of the user experience for opting in and out of Cross Save, and that allowed us to start the conversation of what information we _needed_ to show players and how the process could fail.”

Brian Chase, 2015-

We place a premium on high-quality management with high skillset-alignment.

We believe there’s tremendous value in your manager having a fairly deep understanding of your job—we believe this leads to fairer outcomes, better growth advice, and a wider understanding of management ideals and challenges.
We believe people management is a hallowed responsibility, not a distraction from “real work.”
We believe good managers are “servant leaders” who aren’t seeking management for power.
We believe management is a deep craft, honed over time, and we recognize and reward people who develop, use, and share those skills.
High quality management means deep and authentic caring, with a proactive focus on growth and inclusivity, and that takes real time, often up to ten percent per report.

“I used to be someone who lacked the skills to cope with work stress and anxiety because of childhood trauma. People at Bungie saw through my workplace issues and offered a helping hand, on the condition that should the behavior be repeated, my employment would be terminated. Bungie, along with several years of therapy and medication, has reshaped me, and I’m less than a month away from celebrating my ten-year anniversary with the studio. I credit a lot to my manager, Sheila Perez, who helped me learn to start from the presumption that people I was frustrated with also wanted the best for the studio. Sheila is the premium of high-quality management—she knows how to drill down to a person’s skillset and align their work with it to help drive their career forward, while also helping them become a better person. I don’t think my career would have survived without her.”
Robert Kehoe, 2012-

We invest in people for the long-term so that we can trust and empower long-tenured experts.

We require diligent work on goals and reviews to consistently guide and recognize growth.
We operate a systematic and anti-bias compensation system so that people are rewarded fairly for their impact and growth without feeling pressure to self-promote or switch companies.
We prioritize transparent hiring for leadership and growth opportunities. We want folks within the company to be able to grow without leaving wherever possible, and we offer clear growth feedback if we don’t think someone is ready for a role.
Shepherds are more willing to teach because they know the asker will probably be here for many years.
If someone leaves in less than five years, that’s a yellow flag for our recruiting/growth/quality-of-life/etc. processes.
We’re able to delegate more power and freedom to individual engineers because we know they’re likely to be here to help with the consequences.
We don’t want to be one more resume entry for engineers jumping between tech companies every 18 months.

“For my first eight years at Bungie, I was a people manager and I’d even become a manager of managers… and while I feel like I was pretty good at it, it wasn’t what I was passionate about, and I was starting to burn out. I didn’t feel like there were any options for me to change my career path. My manager at the time was Luis Villegas, and he proactively invested time as a part of our one-on-ones to explore different long-term career paths for me. He mapped out what it could look like for me to go deep on being a people manager on the one hand, but also fleshed out what it could look like for me to go back to being an IC and still find progression by pursuing technical work with a broader impact to the studio.

“Before we had those conversations, I couldn’t even imagine that as a possibility for me. I almost couldn’t believe that Bungie would be willing to let me switch from a manager-of-managers to a pure IC and still commit to giving me continued growth opportunities in that role… but it really was true. Since I’ve made that switch, I’ve felt 100-percent supported and I’ve been able to go deep on problem spaces that I’d never have had time for as a manager. I really appreciate that my manager worked with me proactively to make this happen. I’m happier, more productive and ultimately feel like I’m on a more rewarding growth path.”

Tristan Jackson, 2011-

“I have definitely felt Bungie investing in me. I have heard from my friends / relatives at other tech jobs that they feel ill-provided for, and kind of just left on their own to fulfill a task they felt unequipped to fulfill. Within my first year here at Bungie, specifically at the beginning few months, I had two different managers constantly drill into my mind that I could ask them questions about anything I needed assistance on. While I felt my friends struggling with getting any time from senior colleagues, my biggest worry was taking up too much time of others offering it. I really and deeply appreciated what those others did for me, and I now try my best to mentor newer folks and remind them that we are always here and willing to help.”
Mason Coram, 2020-

“There’s a piece of advice I sometimes give to engineering interviewers: don’t get too hung up on exactly how well they solved your interview problem. Instead, think about whether you’d be optimistic about working on a team with them, where you have to maintain their code, plan with them, and help them out when they need it. If you’re a manager, also think about whether you’d feel responsible in asking other people to work with them. Did you just give that team an upgrade or a headache? If you wouldn’t be optimistic about working with them or asking others to work with them, that’s definitely a no-hire. If you would be optimistic, that probably means you’re a hire. That’s what Teams are Stronger Than Heroes means to me—it goes right to the foundations of who we hire, and runs from there through everything we do.”
David Aldridge, 2008-

See you next time for value #2 – Player Experience First!

-Bungie Engineering

We’d love to talk with you. Here are some of the tech roles we’re hiring for, with many more on our careers page!

Posted on June 2, 2022 by — Leave a comment

This Week at Bungie – 6/2/2022

This week at Bungie, we dove deep into feedback about all of the exciting things that have been happening in the game. As we continue to conquer the Nightmares that Calus and his army have to throw at us, we’ve got some next steps to share about Solar 3.0, an updated known issues list for players to track with so many new things being introduced, and a special tribute to our community that we think you’ll find welcome.

The last week has been filled with dangers lurking at every corner. Whether it’s confronting our fears in the newest Duality dungeon or getting a little spicy with the recent Solar 3.0 update, there is a healthy dose of newness for Guardians to take on. But before we dive into what’s next for Solar, let’s talk about Iron Banner and Rift’s launch.

Rift is back but it’s not the same Rift that Destiny 1 players will remember. With the launch of the new map, the returning-yet-revamped Rift mode for Iron Banner, and some known issues that we have been investigating, we wanted to take a moment to provide some clarity on what Rift is, while also providing an update on where the team is at in terms of bugs.

What is the objective?

A few TWABs ago (Which, can we just talk about how fast time is going? Is that normal? Is it just me? What is happening?), Bungie’s own Principal Designer Alan Blaine sat down to talk a lot about the changes you’ve now had a chance to see in Iron Banner. He also spoke about different visions for PvP going forward and where the new map fits into the bigger picture. Much of the changes centered around a common feedback item we get in the PvP community, especially with modes like Control: Where is the teamwork? Season 17’s launch of Rift bears that question at its core, so the dev team made a few alterations to make it a more objective-friendly experience that aims to feel rewarding and fresh. With that in mind, what is Rift?

Rift is an objective-based Crucible mode, with a huge focus on “objective.” Teams will have a goal: take the Spark from the middle of the map into the base of the enemy team and dunk it into the enemy Rift. One dunk equals one point, the first to make it to five points or to have the upper hand by the ten-minute mark wins.

Here’s the full breakdown that we previously shared:

A Spark appears in the center of the map a few seconds after a match starts or a point is scored and can be picked up by interacting with it for a couple seconds. The Spark itself is a buff that allows full weapon and ability usage aside from Super.
For the first five seconds after picking up the Spark, or for a few seconds after taking damage, both teams receive a waypoint for the Spark holder. After that, the waypoint only remains for the Spark holder’s own team—marking the Spark holder for your teammates is important!
If you die while carrying the Spark, it drops to the ground where you died (or nearby if the spot is not navigable).
If you hold onto the Spark too long, it detonates.
Team resurrections are enabled in Rift, so make sure and help your teammates in the middle of a push, or if you are playing defense.
There are no points for kills, just for Spark dunks, so playing the objective is key.
When Rift is in Iron Banner, the Hunt is on when your team has the Spark. When the music intensifies, it’s time to score!
There are several ways to extend matches past the time limit:

Continuation: At end of regulation time, If the current Spark holder could change the outcome of the match—either the game is tied, or if the current Spark holder is down one point—the match continues until the current Spark holder drops the Spark or scores.
Sudden Death Multispark: If there is a tie after time is up, the game enters a 90-second overtime where three sparks spawn in midfield. Who will be the first to score? Chaos reigns.
After the sudden-death timer is up, Sparks stop dropping on death, and any Sparks on the ground are removed. As soon as the last Spark is eliminated without a score, the match ends in a tie.

Regarding reputation changes:

Play matches with each match earning more towards Iron Banner reputation.
Win matches to earn a small bonus based on your current Iron Banner rank.
Wear Iron Banner armor (or just as ornaments on your own non-Iron Banner gear) and equip Iron Banner weapons to max out your gear multiplier at 200%.
Five total pieces must be equipped, though please remember this includes Iron Banner armor and Iron Banner ornaments.
Complete the Iron Banner challenges to tack on 100% to your challenge multiplier for the rest of the week.
Use an Iron Banner emblem for an additional 10% emblem multiplier.

There is a reported issue with certain emblems, the team is actively investigating.

Daily Challenges:

We’ve seen some confusion over the daily challenges that can be found when hovering over the Iron Banner node, so we wanted to resurface what was previously shared about this mechanic for anyone that may have missed it. As noted in the previous TWAB, “For the first four days of each Iron Banner week, Guardians will unlock a new daily challenge, one for each day. These challenges unlock each day whether you complete them or not, so if you log in on Friday, you can do them all in succession if you want to. Rewards will also stack reputation bonuses for the remainder of the week alongside a Pinnacle Iron Engram. The weekly bounties that typically award Pinnacles have been deprecated appropriately to balance out this change to Iron Banner.” These work similarly to weekly challenges and can be found in the node for Iron Banner Rift.

At the end of the day, we’re going to be keeping an eye on feedback. It’s an odd spot to be in, where you can see the community in its polarity and its entirety. There are so many opposing viewpoints and wants and sometimes those can contradict each other in a way that can be a confounding puzzle. A fun puzzle, absolutely, but tricky. One small move can make or break an experience, but we will never stop listening and expanding the Destiny 2 experience.

Before diving into what’s next for Solar, we just wanted to say thank you to everyone that shared their feedback, their joy, and their desires with us as we constantly evolve this space-faring experience. Right now, the team is hard at work on investigating known issues such as the Spark sometimes disappearing, progress trackers for the new title, and that pesky loop trap that some are encountering when taking on an enemy team. While we continue digging into every facet of these reported instances, we wanted to give a heads up on what’s happening behind the scenes and drop the Bungie Help resource for those looking for updates going forward. Stay tuned!

The Sandbox Team has been monitoring feedback since the launch of Solar 3.0 closely and with that feedback, comes a few new updates to share with y’all. To help Solar 3.0 live its best life, here are some of the tweaks we have on the horizon from Sandbox Discipline Lead Kevin Yanes:

Kevin Yanes: Hey folks. As you’re all aware, we recently launched Solar 3.0, the latest of our Subclass 3.0 updates. As with any launch, we’ve been watching and reading reactions to the feature, and it has become clear that we needed to circle around the campfire to share a bit about our plans. So, I’d like to get together and talk about our intentions, our next steps, and some expectation-setting for the rest of the Seasons this year.

First, I want to reiterate some of the goals we laid out for the 3.0s, starting with the Void 3.0 update that went live when we announced The Witch Queen: “…we are taking the subclasses you know and love and remixing them. That means adding new abilities and mechanics, ditching some old ones where it makes sense to do so, and spreading out existing ones to create enticing new combinations.”

A common feedback thread is some frustration around losing elements like Heart of the Pack or nerfs to things like Sunspots or Benevolent Dawn. We know that losing things can feel unsatisfying or painful at first blush, but part of our 3.0-ification of these classes is also a rebalancing of some of these atoms. Those passive or self-looping ability-regen benefits silently power-crept over the years to levels that made them too dominant in many activities. With our focus on buildcrafting, we don’t want to have one singular perk complete large parts of your kit by itself. As we continue the process of moving the Light subclasses into the 3.0 system, you’ll see us continue to rebalance gameplay atoms in this manner, with the goal that the new combinations and possibility space they open up will offset the loss of any one perk.

Initial reactions to Solar have not met our “new thing that melts your face off” bar and we believe that’s due, in part, to a few things:

Ember of Benevolence shipped in an inconsistent state that left healers feeling underwhelmed with their kit when it didn’t behave as expected.

Warlocks who wanted to specialize in healing had limited ways to interface with that fantasy, with two of their three Aspects focusing on aerial mobility or Scorching, and losing the flexibility of choosing to use their grenade to heal allies or damage enemies on the fly.

Titans, while bombastic and potent, lacked ways to keep their engine running without needing to run Throwing Hammer or burning multiple cooldowns.

As we’ve said in the past through TWABs, socials, and other dev updates, we’d much rather ship something a little too spicy than something bland that makes a bad first impression. I think with Solar 3.0, we landed somewhere in the middle, and the team feels very passionately that this is the wrong place to be. To that end, the team has pulled some heroics and shifted resources to make some buffs to Heat Rises, Icarus Dash, Celestial Fire, Burning Maul, Roaring Flames and Consecration, as well as bug fixes for Ember of Benevolence and a few of our damage-over-time linger grenades. These changes will go live next week with Hotfix 4.1.0.2.

Solar Warlock:

Heat Rises:

Added behavior: Consuming your grenade now also releases a burst of Cure x2 around you, healing you and your nearby allies. Consuming a Healing Grenade increases the strength of the burst to Cure x3 and consuming a Touch of Flame Healing Grenade provides Restoration as an additional benefit.

Icarus Dash:

Added behavior: While airborne, rapidly defeating targets with your Super or any weapon Cures you.

Celestial Fire:

Each Celestial Fire projectile now applies 10 Scorch stacks. This is increased to 15 stacks with Ember of Ashes equipped.

Solar Titan:

Burning Maul:

Buffed damage in PvE by 25%

Roaring Flames:

Added behavior: While Roaring Flames is active, your uncharged melee attack now deals Solar damage and applies 30 Scorch stacks to targets per hit. This is increased to 40 stacks with Ember of Ashes equipped.

Consecration:

Fragment slots increased from 1 to 2.

Raised the height of the secondary attack’s ground wave by 25% to more easily catch players who jump too late.

That’s no small list of changes. The team takes feedback seriously—we’re players ourselves, so when things don’t land, we also feel that internally. To say it out loud, a hotfix of this magnitude comes at the cost of other changes, so to set expectations here, the team is unlikely to take another balance pass until much later this Season. It’s important to our team that on top of doing amazing new things, we maintain a healthy work-life balance and this patch necessitates some breathing room.

On that note, what’s next for abilities? Well, Arc 3.0 is still cooking up nicely, and we’ll have more to talk about there in a future update. But just to reiterate points the team has made in the past about the next subclass update, after Arc 3.0 you should expect the abilities team to go dark for a little while. Since shipping Stasis with Beyond Light, the team has made huge abilities changes Season over Season. Over the last year, we’ve been back-to-back shipping new aspects for Stasis, adding the Variable Ability Cooldown system, and creating the three Subclass 3.0 experiences—it’s been busy. We hope the changes you’ve read today reinforce our commitment to being responsive to feedback and candid in our communication. We’ll be there right alongside you on the Derelict Leviathan snapping, slamming, and flipping our way to victory.

Sometimes, you just need to freshen up that fashion game. Whether it be an emote or a shiny new Ghost Shell, there’s always something to personalize your Guardian within Destiny 2. Slap your favorite shader on it, and it’s a new day, new you. For those looking to switch things up a bit, we’ve got a new month of Prime Rewards to indulge in. For those that may not know, Prime Gaming is a nifty program with Twitch and Amazon Prime that allows players to get free loot for some of their favorite games. It’s pretty easy to use too, just sign up for your Prime Gaming account (If you have Amazon Prime, congrats! You also have Prime Gaming.) and link it to your Bungie.net account. Once signed in, you can select the sweet cosmetics linked below to claim them, and then they’ll be waiting for you in the Tower with Amanda Holiday the next time you log in.

For this month, we’ve got a little flare for your Ghost and a few Exotic goodies to enjoy:

Polaris Lance Scout Rifle
The Bray Legacy Exotic Weapon Ornament
Ash Angel Exotic Sparrow
Nightmare’s Chalice Projection

Need a little refresher on Prime Gaming? No worries, we’ve got you! Feel free to mosey on over to our support article here for more details.

The Destiny 2 community is filled with heroes from all walks of life. From wholesome streamers to guides willing to help new players with the most difficult content; kindness has no expectation and no limits. Our community inspires us daily and because of that inspiration, we want to directly feature unique stories that have shaped some incredible people in this space.

One such content creator is known for his positive impact on the Destiny 2 community at large. He’s always there with congratulatory words for other players chasing their dreams, his streams are filled with high energy and open hearts. And his raps? His raps are out of this world. Meet Uhmaayyze, the Guardian that can drop the sickest freestyle raps while taking on enemy players in content like Trials of Osiris. Even more impressive? He makes it look so effortless!

Because of his wonderful heart and positive impact, we’re excited to showcase this particular Guardian as our first “Hero” in our Heroes Welcome series. Check out Uhmaayyze in his element showcasing a rap of his own creation below. Just in case it wasn’t obvious, it’s okay to go all-out and throw yourself in the music. That’s what this series is all about: celebrating each other in the microcosm that is the Destiny community.

Roll the clip!

That was amazing! (Or would that be “uhmaayyzing”?) If you enjoyed seeing this Guardian totally in his element, then you’re definitely going to want to check out this behind-the-scenes video that dives into the creation of this epic rap video:

Season of the Haunted launched last week and the feedback about the story of what it means to turn around and face your Nightmares has been nothing short of incredible. That being said, Telesto has become sentient and has taken over the Tower now that it is in the hands of Banshee. Turns out that this was widely regarded as a “bad move” by the universe, but the team has been hard at work at tackling each issue with a dedicated fervor that is honestly impressive. Between that and some hiccups with the launch of Iron Banner and Rift, there are a few updates from our meticulous Player Support Team that players should be aware of. As always, we thank you for your patience as we work hard to make the Destiny 2 experience an enjoyable one for all. But first, let’s talk about some known issues and what’s in the immediate future from our heroes in Player Support.

This is their report.

Hot Fix 4.1.0.2

9 AM: Destiny 2 maintenance begins.    
9:45 AM: Destiny 2 is brought offline.     
10 AM: Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.1.0.2 will begin rolling out across all platforms and regions.   
11 AM: Destiny 2 maintenance completes.

Iron Banner Challenges

We have seen some confusion surrounding Iron Banner’s daily challenges (which work similarly to weekly challenges). When hovering over the Iron Banner node in the Director, players can see the “Weekly Challenge (1 of 4).” One weekly challenge is unlocked daily from Tuesday to Friday. The challenges will stack, so players can complete one a day, or all four when Friday comes around. Each challenge will grant players Pinnacle gear.

Dungeon Key Ownership Clarification

Similar to Season Passes, Dungeon Keys are applied to the first account that logs in after purchase, and moves between platforms with Cross Save.

Dungeon Keys and Season Pass Premium Track rewards can’t be game shared between platform accounts, and must instead be purchased on each account that intends to access them.

Game sharing is a platform feature and is not officially supported by Bungie. For more information, please see our Help article.

Known Issues

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

The Cloak of Bakris doesn’t flow like normal cloaks and is extremely rigid.
The top part of the Mark of the Falling Star ornament disappears if a player’s helmet display is turned off.
Killing Fikrul too quickly can sometimes trap players in the gauntlet.
The Polaris Lance catalyst is no longer progressing with Perfect Fifth burn kills.
We are investigating reports of players who are unable to unlock their Void and Arc subclasses.
The Conscripted weapon ornament for the Travelers Chosen Exotic Sidearm can no longer be equipped.
Some Artifice armor from the Grasp of Avarice dungeon have lost their extra mod slots.
The Anarchy Exotic Grenade Launcher loses its 2x damage against enemies after a character dies or picks up a relic.
Tethers from Hunter Supers can cause severe framerate drops in various activities.
Vortex grenades are doing less damage than intended.
Some players who die in the final boss encounter of the Duality dungeon get stuck outside the area and can’t respawn.
Some Iron Banner emblems don’t count toward the Iron Banner rank boost.
The Spark during Rift matches can sometimes be lost in certain scenarios.
Players will sometimes spawn repeatedly between rounds during Iron Banner matches.
Some players are not getting credit for the Jorum’s Howl Triumph in the Iron Banner Seal or for the Forging Iron quest steps. Based on our investigations, we believe this is caused for two reasons:

Players have equipped more than five (5) armor pieces in total. This can be caused when wearing Iron Banner armor while having universal ornaments made from Iron Banner armor equipped, which can double the amount of armor being worn.
Our system has detected that your character has gone AFK, meaning that our system thinks that your character isn’t participating, resulting in progress not being counted for Triumphs and bounties.

Some players aren’t gaining progress for various Crucible/Iron Banner Triumphs or bounties.

Our system has detected that your character has gone AFK, meaning that our system thinks that your character isn’t participating, resulting in progress not being counted for Triumphs and bounties.

The tooltip doesn’t appear on consecutive items when dismantling them one-by-one.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our Help Forum linked above.

Happy TWABSday, Guardians! We have been having so much fun watching you all explore all of the new things; goodness gracious is it a fun time to be a Guardian right now! And to wrap up our week, today’s movies are bringing the dancing, light (have you been in the dungeon yet, it’s so dark in there!), and a little spark back into your world.

Movie of the Week: Light Forever

Movie of the Week: RIFT: Hunters vs. Titans

Week two of Season of the Haunted’s story is live now and—not to be dramatic or anything—it has thoroughly and completely destroyed my soul. Proud of our little Crow and his progress, even though healing through trauma is anything but easy and simple. As we continue to face our Nightmares each week, we wanted to share a few lighter pieces of art from you all to bring back some of those feel-good vibes. Plus, Eris looking so proud of him was just too good to pass up.

Ready? Let’s get into it.

Art of the Week: “Come on, you’re up, Hunter!”

Art of the Week: Polymer Clay Guardians

B-b-b-BONUS Art of the Week: Subclassed Cursed Thrall (because we don’t already have enough Nightmares)

You all make the coolest art. From tattoos to crotchets, watercolor to digital mediums; there is no shortage of creativity in the Destiny 2 community, and we love to see it! If you want a chance at some spotlight goodness for your own creative takes on the Destiny universe, don’t forget to tag official Bungie socials in your work. Oh! And actual tags, those help too, like #AOTW, #Destiny2Art, and #MOTW.

If you’re like me and shop way more often than is probably wise on gaming collectibles and the like, then:

It’s wearable, it’s bird-tastic, and it’s totally going to make me run around my house pretending I’m a Guardian because I will be perpetually five years old in my head. Still, it’s really cool, and just one of the several new drops that have arrived to celebrate all things Destiny.

Another new addition rings in Pride month with a new Bungie’s Pride Collectible Pin 2.0, a redesigned spin on our previous collectible to be more inclusive while also directly helping the communities that Pride celebrates. Profits go to the It Gets Better Project, as well as a new emblem called The Infinite Prismatic so that Guardians their support in Destiny 2. If you want to donate directly to the initiative that aims to “uplift, empower, and connect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) youth around the globe,” you can do so right here!

For those that decide to snag the Pride 2.0 pin, the emblem that goes along with it will be sent out via email on June 6.

We’ve got some new gameplays pins to commemorate overcoming challenging endgame content, as well. We’ve also got the new Häkke Deep Explorer-inspired hoodie, some new pullovers to rep that Crucible and Gambit love. Basically, there’s a lot of cool new things to peep at, if you feel so inclined. Interested? I get it! Feel free to mosey on over to the Bungie Store here to check out what’s new.

Before we release you all back into the wild to slay those weekly challenges and take on what’s left of this week’s story mission, we wanted to offer just one more reminder about the upcoming GCX marathon! As mentioned in last week’s TWAB, GCX is comin’ in hot this year with yet another way for the community to congregate, relax, and enjoy some good game time while also putting a little more good back out into the world through charity. For those that may have missed the initial announcement, the streaming marathon kicks off at 9 AM PT on June 3 and will conclude on June 10 at the same time. The goal? Raising money for St. Jude’s Hospital. We are doing it for the children, the children!

There are some sweet prizes on the horizon for this streaming event, including new emblems to show off to the world. It’s all going down here soon, make sure to tune into the official GCX stream right here! You can also check out more info on the event here from the previous announcement.

As we head into the weekend and more of you dive into Iron Banner: Rift, wrap up any weekly Seasonal Challenges, and dominate in search of Pinnacles, we just wanted to say thank you again for being part of a community that has grown so much through the years. That growth and this ongoing evolution hasn’t always been easy and certainly not without its missteps, but the teams here are so passionate about what they do and your love and support of this evolving tale means everything.

We have more on the way as Season of the Haunting continues its trek into the depths of the human psyche, and we hope you enjoy the rest of the ride because. Well, it’s definitely a ride.

There’s more to come. In the meantime, this is your usual Hippy reminder to drink your water, take your vitamins, and be kind to yourself and those around you. That’s what Guardians do.

“I should go,”

<3 Hippy

Posted on May 31, 2022 by — Leave a comment

Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.1.0.1

Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.1.0.1 > News | Bungie.net News | Bungie.net”>

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Dungeons and Raids

Duality:

Fixed an issue where players were spawning in an undesirable
location after joining the existing fireteam. You really didn’t want to be
there.
Standard Bearers are now spawning where intended.
Spamming the bell should no longer stop it from functioning.
Fixed numerous texture and environment issues.

Grasp of Avarice:

Fixed an issue where players couldn’t progress in the
encounter.

Vow of the Disciple:

Fixed an issue where previewing weapons in the vendor shop
showed placeholder shaders.

Weapons

Players will be less likely to spawn into the opposing
team’s Witherhoard pools in PvP.
Bump in the Night Rocket Launcher now has a tracking
indicator in the scope when used with the Tracking Module perk.
Fixed several Hand Cannons which had missing scopes
including The Steady Hand and True Prophecy.

Bounties and Pursuits

Fixed an issue where Seasonal Challenges were not correctly
tracking Seasonal quest progress across different characters in some
circumstances.

Fixed an issue where players on Xbox platforms could
sometimes only see limited invite and join actions in the roster when viewing
Xbox network friends.

Your role as a moderator enables you immediately ban this user from messaging (bypassing the report queue) if you select a punishment.

Posted on May 26, 2022 by — Leave a comment

This Week at Bungie – 5/26/2022

Before we begin today’s TWAB, we wanted to acknowledge the horrific events in Uvalde, TX, earlier this week. We are all shocked and saddened by this unprovoked madness and our hearts go out to the victims and their families.

It’s our hope that games and supportive communities can provide respite, and we encourage everyone to prioritize their own mental health needs right now, whether that means gaining comfort from your hobbies or taking a break to focus on yourself and your loved ones. Take care of one another.

Finally, we also wanted to provide some resources to help with mental health:

NAMI: The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) provides education, support, advocacy, and public awareness so that all individuals and families affected by mental illness can live fulfilling, healthy lives. NAMI believes that our culture, beliefs, sexual identity, values, race, and language all affect how we perceive and experience mental health conditions. For members of our community who identify with an underrepresented group, they can find cultural-specific resources here.

JED: The Jed Foundation protects emotional health and prevents suicide for teens and young adults, giving them the skills and support they need to thrive. If you are in need of resources to either care for your own mental health, or support a friend or family member in need, we encourage you to check out the valuable information provided on their site.

This week at Bungie, we geared up and set out to answer the ultimate question. The question that matters more than anything else: Is the Moon haunted? Well, that’s for you to decide, but while you’re knocking that around in your noggin’, we’ve got some exciting things to share for Season of the Haunted, including preparing for the new dungeon that drops on Friday, brand-new activities, and even more surprises to uncover.

We know the wait was tough, but the team here could not be more excited. Sure, we’ve got the meme behind the new name, but this Season also houses a deeper look into the minds of some of our favorite characters, while also challenging Guardians to find their courage once more and persevere no matter what, especially when facing down twisted Nightmares of the past. So, what are we showing off today? Well, how about we start with a second look at the trailer you’ve all been so patiently waiting for, and then dig in more on some gear of the Season, a breakdown on how to get the Solar 3.0 Fragments, shiny new ornaments inspired by the subclass upgrade, and even a little rap surprise from one of our community members.

Excited? Yeah, me too. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Season of the Haunted, it’s finally here. But before we dive in headfirst, let’s all just take a second and take a deep breath. An- OH MY GOD, THE NEW TRAILER DROPPED. Earlier than originally intended, but still—just in case you missed it and the newest ViDoc about Season of the Haunted:

In addition to the new Crucible map and Rift’s return with the Iron Banner rework (which you can read all about here), Season of the Haunted comes with even more adventures to dive recklessly into. Calus is back in the spotlight as the Leviathan returns and begins to wreak all sorts of havoc in the most devious of ways. We’ll get to buddy up with Eris Morn to stop Calus in his quest to connect with the Witness. You remember the Witness, right? The big bad that even had Savathûn running scared. Yeah, the Witness is still making its mission to become everyone’s problem, which means we’ve got to work fast to get the answers we seek to uncover the sinister reality that lurks beneath the surface.

Season of the Haunted dives deep into the philosophy of what it means to be; the duality of existence. Are you ready? Good, because it’s about to get intense.

With the new Season comes new activities, as well. Let’s start with the weekly mission, Sever. Sever challenges a team of up to three Guardians to navigate the seedy Underbelly of the derelict Leviathan to battle it out against hordes of foes to find and sever Calus’s power. His connection to the Nightmares that he can control is strong, sure, but we’re stronger. At least, we hope so…

The second activity is called Nightmare Containment. This is a free-to-play public event aboard the Derelict Leviathan that is designed to be just as chaotic as it is fun. Take on intense battles against Cabal and Scorn and dive a little deeper into the nightmare reflection of our world. The team is excited about how this activity will play out through Season of the Haunted. Nightmare Containment is specifically designed to be always worth the player’s time because it scales depending on the number of Guardians participating. More Guardians? Faster boss burns and even more loot potential.

By now, most of you have discovered the Scythe, the relic that makes taking on Season of the Haunted Sever missions and the Nightmare Containment activity even more impressive. If you couldn’t tell, heavy metal music and the idea behind becoming a damage-dealing Reaper were both heavy influences of this Season, and the Scythe very much reflects that. So how does it work?

As you may already know, Guardians are going head-to-head against some impressively intimidating Nightmares, so this heavy-swinging beauty comes in handy with its flaming projectiles that can be launched at any foe. Use the Scythe to fire those fiery fireballs to prime enemies for that delectable one-two punch move that is designed to go in and cause a particularly stylish form of mayhem. Rip and shred through enemies and throw those horns up, it doesn’t get more metal than that.

Haven’t had a chance to check it out yet? This is how the Scythe works:

Light Attack:

A horizontal slice that launches out a wide Solar projectile.
4-hit combo.
Hitting enemies with the light-attack projectile Scorches them (30+20 stacks) and deals damage.
The light attack also does melee damage to nearby targets when the player swings.

Air Attack:

Launches out a single Solar projectile with a cool spinning slice. Same projectile as the light attack, just with more aerial flare.

Heavy Attack:

Slam the Scythe into the ground and send out a fan-shaped group of AOE flame damage.
Hitting enemies with the heavy attack Scorches them (50+40 stacks) and deals damage.

Scythe Perk:

When you defeat enemies with the Scythe, you spawn orbs of healing Solar light that float back to you and grant Restoration +2.

A new dungeon has arrived and yes, it definitely puts a new spin on existential crisis. Normally, this is where we reveal all sorts of new information for the TWAB readers out there, but in the spirit of this Season, we want you to experience it for the first time with a feeling of discovery. Believe us when we say that we couldn’t be more jazzed up to hear your thoughts!

Also, don’t worry—the wait won’t be long, the new dungeon goes live tomorrow, May 27, at 10 AM Pacific.

With every Season also comes new ways to show off that customized Guardian style, and Haunted is no different. From a Haunted aesthetic to getting in touch with your inner Eris Morn, here is a closer look at some of the different looks you can make your own. Can we also just take a second to appreciate the Nightmare Seasonal armor ornaments, because wow:

The Season Pass also includes a new Seasonal ornament for Trespasser, new shaders, emotes, and more to unlock simply by playing Destiny 2. As shown off in our official reveal earlier this week, here’s just a small recap of some of those rewards:

Just like Void 3.0, Aspects and Fragments will be your best friend when exploring unique new playstyles, perfecting existing combat choices, or just going ham on a new iteration of a subclass that maybe hasn’t fit your niche in the past. The choice to dive all-in on that fiery action is yours, but—and we may be biased here—Solar 3.0 is pretty darn nifty, so we hope you check it out. Plus, you can quite literally fight fire with fire, who doesn’t want to do that?

By now, many Guardians have already started diving into what Solar 3.0 means for new combat possibilities. Just like with Void 3.0, Solar’s revamp can be done through Ikora in the Tower before meditating at the kiosk near her to lock in the newly learned disciplines. You may or may not have noticed that there are a few select Fragments are locked. Don’t worry, it wasn’t Telesto this time, this is actually intentional. Since we’re a one-team-one-fight type of bunch, there are four Fragments that can be unlocked via the community working together. How? Glad you asked, dear reader.

Guardians can unlock additional Fragments for Solar 3.0 by completing a number of Nightmare Containments. Each Guardian that fights the good fight will count as a completion, so having a full fireteam that is focused on the objective will benefit groups greatly. Basically, double the progression for a team of six versus, say, a team of three. The goal is to hit 20-million completions as a community. When we hit that goal, those four Solar 3.0 Fragments will be unlocked and ready to pick up from Ikora.

That being said, there is one thing to note about the Fragments. There was some confusion during the launch of Season of the Haunted and we wanted to explain what happened and what is intentional. The four locked Fragments were always intended for this particular community-driven initiative, but there was a small hiccup on day-one. To clarify this, the four Fragments that will unlock after the above community effort are:

Ember of Empyrean
Ember of Char
Ember of Ashes
Ember of Wonder

However, some players reported being able to receive some of these early. This is connected to something the team found in their investigation that allows early access for veteran players who had previously built into the Solar subclass, whereas newly-created Guardians still have these locked. This has caused some players to unlock Ember of Ashes and Embers of Wonder, which were intended to be locked. Also, some players were unable to acquire Fragments that should have been unlocked for everyone at the start of Season of the Haunted. Those players were not able to receive two Fragments, which were meant to be available on day one, called Ember of Eruption and Ember of Searing.

The team has made the decision that they don’t want to remove any Fragments from people who have unlocked them, and the goal is for all six Fragments to unlock when we hit the community goal mentioned above—we’re sure it’ll happen in no time. Fire can’t be tamed; and apparently, that is also true in Destiny 2.

So, what does this mean for players now? For now, we encourage players that have the unlocked Fragments to play around with them and experiment with different playstyles. For everyone else, we’re getting closer to reaching the unlock goal and we hope you enjoy the new Season until then.

For ornaments, these need no introduction. Just take a moment and feast those eyes on the latest fashion trend to hit the Tower that players will be able to scoop up from Tess at Eververse:

And, of course, a Guardian should always arrive in style with these Eververse options, which can also be found in a bundle for anyone looking to have it all:

In case you missed it, we previously shared a ton of news about Iron Banner and explained some of the reasoning behind its most recent evolution. If you missed that memo, you should mosey on over to our previous breakdown right here to learn more about the specifics, but the gist is that we want to make Valus Forge’s competitive event feel more like… well, an event. Because of that, we’re amping up the ante and moving the event frequency to twice a Season: May 31 and July 12. To spread the might of Iron Wolves, Valus Forge will now be front and center in Eva Levante’s usual spot.

We’re also disabling Power level, so that sweet gear you’ve been holding onto—you can go ahead and dust those off. Iron Banner also comes bearing a new PvP map alongside Rift. The new map, called Disjunction, will be available for all modes, though Rift is just for Iron Banner until Season 18. We think you’ll really enjoy this new area, and not just for the intended design that allows for more ways to strategize. Not only does it continue the Throne World theme, but it is also one of the largest maps we’ve ever had in PvP. It’ll be a good time, but we’ll also be keeping our eyes peeled for any feedback you have for us!

You know us, we’re always down for a good charity initiative and we’ve got even more gameplay goodness that you won’t want to miss. From 09:00 AM PT on June 3 to June 10, there will be a shiny new gaming marathon stream for St. Jude’s Hospital during our GCX celebration. Interested? Good! You can join in on the streaming madness right here during the official GCX stream!

Some sweet prizes are on the horizon for those that want to chip in and do a little good. For those wanting a little added flare, a $20 donation to charity will land you the Spectra Sea emblem. A $60 donation will land you the Euclidean Theorem emblem. The best part? All proceeds go to help St. Jude in its mission to give children and their families hope and strength through trying medical times.

We hope you stop on by during the latest GCX celebration and enjoy the event!

We are Haunted by leaks.

Once again, our immensely talented and wonderful Player Support team is coming in hot with new info about known issues and what the team is looking at in the immediate future. You all know the drill, let’s get right into it.

This is their report.

HOTFIX 4.1.0.1

Next Tuesday, May 31, Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.1.0.1 will be released. View our Destiny Server and Update Status page for maintenance times, as well as the timeline below (all times are Pacific):    

9 AM: Destiny 2 maintenance begins.    
9:45 AM: Destiny 2 is brought offline.     
10 AM: Destiny 2 Hotfix 4.1.0.1 will begin rolling out across all platforms and regions.   
11 AM: Destiny 2 maintenance completes.

DUNGEON CRASH WORKAROUND

Tomorrow at 10 AM PDT, our newest dungeon will go live! During testing, we discovered an issue where players who had set their Sound Effects (SFX) to 0 would crash in the activity. To ensure this doesn’t happen, players should set their SFX to at least 1 or above until we can hotfix this issue next Tuesday.

GUARDIAN GAMES EMBLEM DISTRIBUTION

The Guardian Games emblem, Glory’s Claim, will be distributed next week to the top 10 percent of players who participated in the event.

KNOWN ISSUES

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

Opulent Chests do not visually open as intended upon receiving rewards.
Certain Seasonal Challenges are incorrectly recording progress at a character level instead of an account-scoped level.
Multiple Hand Cannons no longer have a visual scope.
On Xbox One, the impulse effect when dunking a core during the Nightmare Containment appears completely black.
Solar icons for class abilities, melees, and movement have blue backgrounds when viewed from Ikora’s inventory.
Solar Hunter’s Acrobat’s Dodge ability displays the Fists of Havoc icon when equipped.
The Glory’s Claim and A Good Sport emblems from Guardian Games do not appear in Collections.
Several activities and missions are becoming blocked. We have made a change on the backend to limit the number of fireteams in these areas to one, which we believe will resolve the issue until we can release a more permanent fix.
Players are unable to collect the Burdened engrams in the final encounter of the Grasp of Avarice dungeon.
Characters sometimes are extremely zoomed in on the Character inspection screen and only show the boots they are wearing.
The Gunsmith’s weapons don’t have a Masterwork slot on them.
Several Guardian Games items, including quests, weren’t removed for some players at the launch of Season 17.
The Bait and Switch enhanced raid perk isn’t working as intended.
Using the Loyal Companion emote can sometimes cause the game to crash.
Telesto is causing crashes crashes when players interact with Banshee.

No, we aren’t kidding.

Some new armor and older perks are showing watermarks instead of their proper icons.
Some Artifice armor from the Grasp of Avarice dungeon have lost their extra mod slots.
Some players are experiencing low framerates when in their menus or looking at the Director.
The Trespasser Exotic and a few other items don’t appear in Collections.
The Season 17 Crucible Vermillion shader has too similar a name to the Season 8 shader, Crucible Vermilion.
The Hrafnagud ornament for Celestial Nighthawk is no longer available to equip.
The Telesto held by Banshee-44 disappears at random.

Terrifying

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our Help Forum linked above.

It’s another week filled with new content from the Bungie team and glorious creations from you, the players, that make it all worth it. We love seeing them, so please don’t stop creating them. The funny, the inspiring—we want to see it all. This week, the themes in Season of the Haunted are heavy, so the latest picks are leaning hard on the funny and the calming. Oh yeah, and a bonus round to playfully poke at one particular journalist that I’ve known since my journalism days, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a little fun at his expense. With love, of course.

Anyway, let’s get into it!

Movie of the Week: Void

Movie of the Week: Last Wish Raid, But Make It Minecraft

B-b-b-BONUS round:

Movie of the Week: The Tassi Grassi

Happy TWABsday Guardians! As you know, we are just a few days into the Season of the Haunted and the Solar 3.0 art has been… shall we say, on fire! We are still giving you some time to see all of the things and explore before we share any spoiler-type art, but for now, enjoy!

Art of the Week: Season of the Spoopy

Art of the Week: The Crown

B-b-b-BONUS round two:

Art of the Week: The Witness Comes Bearing Gifts

Oh look, some news here too! We love a good emblem just as much as the next Guardian, so we have a few new unique ones to share for those Guardians that are bursting with creative energy! Check out the two new emblems for AOTW and MOTW below:

Want a shot to earn one of the new emblems? Don’t forget to tag us in your art and video creations with #Destiny2Art, #AOTW, and #MOTW for a chance to be featured and don a new player profile look.

If you’ve found yourself moseying on over to Tess at the Eververse store, you may have noticed an adorable new emote that actually lets you pet the dog. For that reason alone, it is an awesome grab, but what makes this deal even sweeter is what this particular emote offers in terms of putting out a little good out into the world. Here to talk about the latest charity initiative is Bungie Foundation’s Christine Edwards.

Christine: Season 17 kicks off with a heartwarming in-game opportunity for Guardians to further the Bungie Foundation’s mission of supporting children’s health and wellbeing by purchasing the Loyal Companion emote from the Eververse. Not only do players get an adorable canine companion to interact with in the form of a cute new emote, but 100% of proceeds will also be donated to the Bungie Foundation.

As we head into Bungie Day in just over a month, you’ll be hearing far more about the origin story of this adorable emote—but for today, we’ll just give you a bit of a teaser.

The Loyal Companion isn’t just any dog. He’s a real-life Belgian Malinois named Artemis and the best friend of a very special Guardian whose story we will share with you in the coming weeks. A story of resilience, recovery, and triumph only made possible by the Destiny community and his dog Artemis.

We can’t wait to share this heartfelt story with you on Bungie Day, but until then, we hope you all get a Loyal Companion of your own so that we can continue to help other Guardians in need.

We tried something new this time around with Guardian Games by adding an element of real-life friendly completion. It was a blast seeing communities rally together for their favorite content creators, and we aim to do more fun things like this in the future. But, for now, we’re sure you’re interested in one thing: Who won?

International Publishing’s Joanna Chen is here with a quick breakdown of the events, with a full blog post dropping this week with more fun stats.

Take it away, Joanna!

Joanna: After three exciting weeks, the Guardian Games are over, and we have the winners of the inaugural Guardian Games Cup activity too. A massive thank you to the 42 teams from around the world who joined in on the fun and games, and to all of you for supporting your favorite teams and raising over $222K USD for Direct Relief in partnership with the Bungie Foundation.

Here’s a look at the teams that put it all on the line for their class:

The winning Guardian Games Cup team will receive lovely, personalized gold trophies (as seen below), as well as a special piece of artwork of their fireteam by Gammatrap. Each winning class team will be receiving similar prizes, with their trophies bringing that silver flare.

The team that raised the top amount is team Punch-a-Bunch led by Datto himself, with a whopping $30,150 raised. They will be receiving a custom piece of artwork by PherianArt.

To learn more about the first-ever Guardian Games Cup, check out the full blog post here.

We’ve got some exciting things coming down the pipeline, including Solstice of Heroes—now simply called Solstice—dropping in July alongside our annual Bungie Day celebration! We’ll have more details on both of those events in the near future, but for now, we’ve got some existential dread to conquer and some Nightmares to face.

We have been loving all of the feedback and excitement you’ve been sharing; it’s been great to see Guardians worldwide severing the Nightmares and facing the next step of the Destiny 2 journey. From cosmic horror to the duality of the “human” experience—our grief, our individual trials and tribulations, our hope. These are heavy themes that we wanted to provide a heads up on, but each thematic thread weaves into a beautiful story that we can’t wait to watch you all experience as this tale unfolds.

We’re just getting started, so hold onto your butts, Guardians, it’s going to be one heck of a ride. While you dive all-in, just a friendly reminder to drink your water, take your vitamins, and put your kindest foot forward. We’ve got some Nightmares to confront.

“I should go,”

<3 Hippy

Posted on May 24, 2022 by — Leave a comment

Destiny 2 Update 4.1.0

Freeroam

The Legend and Master Lost Sector rotation has been updated.

Players can expect to see a Nessus Lost Sector!

Xûr’s Treasure Hoard and Dares of Eternity

Fixed a bug that would cause a flashing effect that could potentially have a negative impact on those with photosensitive epilepsy when interacting with the portal in a specific way.

Iron Banner

Iron Banner reputational changes, detailed here, are in effect to be more in-line with other reputational systems in Destiny 2.
Completing challenges and donning Iron Banner gear, including Iron Banner armor ornaments in place of swapping out armor, earns an additional buff when ranking up that Iron Banner reputation.
4 event challenges have been added when playing Iron Banner.

These will rotate daily.

New intro quest added.

All players must complete this once.

A new Triumph and Seal has been added to ring in a new era of Iron Banner.
Bounties and tokens have been removed from Iron Banner.
Power level advantages are now disabled in Iron Banner.
Rift returns as a new Iron Banner Seasonal mode. Learn more about Rift and its future here.

Gambit

Gambit Reputation: Activity completion now awards 75 reputation points from 50.

Activity streaks award 20 reputation points per streak from 15.
Overall gains should be 25-33% faster.

Reduced the number of wins needed for the Gold Coins gilded Triumph for the Dredgen Seal from 50 to 30.
Quality-of-life update to Gambit bounties:

Daily Bounties:

Added new bounty for collecting Heavy ammo.
Updated defeating combatants with Stasis bounty to include freeze assists.
Changed sending one of each type of Blocker bounty to sending Blockers of any size (with more progress given for sending bigger Blockers).
Now players must bank 100 Motes as a team, versus the previous 25 Motes banked per player.

Repeatable Bounties:

Added a new bounty for defeating invaders as a fireteam.
Added a new bounty for defeating Blockers.

This includes final blows and assists when progressing through this bounty.

Updated the defeating combatants with Stasis bounty to include freeze assists.
Changed the defeating opposing Guardians with final blows or assists bounty to defeating opposing Guardians as a fireteam.

Updated Gambit enemy variations.

Vanguard Ops

Fixed an issue where the incorrect names for Champions in the Warden of Nothing strike would appear.

Identity theft is not a joke, Jim.

Higher difficulty Battlegrounds and strikes can now be rejoined automatically after a disconnect.

No, you still won’t be able to change your loadout when taking on Grandmaster Nightfalls.

Trials of Osiris

Trials Capture Zone and Freelance are no longer referred to as “Labs.”
New Trials weapons can now be earned via Saint-14’s reputation rewards track before they can be decrypted from Trials Engrams.

Complete matches of Trials of Osiris to earn reputation with Saint-14.
Please make our favorite space uncle proud. Thanks.

Crucible

Control: Each player capturing a zone now gets +1 participation point.
Elimination: Each round will now last 90 seconds, reduced from the previous 120-second marker.
Mayhem: Super kills now reward players with 3 points instead of 2.
Mayhem: Increased the score target to 200 from 150.
Mayhem: Time limit has been reduced from 8 to 7 minutes.
Rumble: Time limit has been increased from 8 minutes to 10.
Showdown: Each round’s target score has been increased to 15 from 10.
Crucible private matches will now default to match mode settings in Playlists.
Fixed a bug that caused the Only One Ascends medal to be improperly awarded on capturing a zone.

Raids and Dungeons

Vow of the Disciple: Fixed an issue where players could get out of environment near the Caretaker encounter.
Vault of Glass: Spoils of Conquest are no longer farmable on repeated clears.
Last Wish: Fixed an exploit where players could pick up Diamond Lance to drop Riven’s Heart.

Hasn’t Riven gone through enough? I mean…

Last Wish: Fixed an issue where players could fight Kalli outside of the intended darkness phase.
Garden of Salvation: Fixed an issue where players could continuously spawn combatants in one of the sides of the Sanctified Mind encounter.

Weapons

Weapon Crafting: All element currencies other than Neutral Elements have been removed. Neutral Elements have been renamed to Resonant Elements.
Weapon Crafting: The Masterwork visual has been added to crafted weapons. The weapon must be reshaped with an enhanced intrinsic and two enhanced trait perks in order to Masterwork.

We heard y’all liked gold borders.

Weapon Crafting: PvP kills will generate slightly more weapon level progression.
Weapon Crafting: Reduced the amount of time it takes to progress Deepsight mods.
Weapon Crafting: Vow of the Disciple Adept Deepsight weapons will now progress toward recipe progress.

This will not retroactively provide progress for already-completed Deepsight mods.

Weapons: Glaive projectile speed has been increased.
Exotic Weapon: No Time to Explain’s time portal no longer shoots dead bodies when it’s bored.
The Alacrity origin trait now activates when it is supposed to, no longer impacting players that are in a fireteam.
Fixed an exploit that allowed players to break out of playable spaces with glaive and Mask of Bakris equipped.

Global

Reduced the tier-1 damage bonus from 20% to 15% when going up against other players.

This is specifically to reduce the number of one-hit kills in PvP (e.g., Le Monarque or a High-Impact Sniper with High-Impact Reserves + High-Energy Fire or an Empowering Rift)

The Stability weapon stat now grants flinch resistance in addition to its other effects, with a maximum flinch resistance of 10% to 25% depending on the weapon archetype.

For a complete breakdown, check out our massive novel-length TWAB from a previous week here.

For the full changes made to how airborne gameplay works, please check out the full breakdown here. For a brief recap:

All Primary weapons have their airborne accuracy penalty removed (i.e., they’re just as accurate airborne as grounded—your bullets go where you’re aiming).
We’ve added a new weapon stat called airborne effectiveness, which has been deliberately tuned on all Exotic weapons, everything that shipped in Season 16, and everything from Season 17 onwards.

Some outliers also have a hand-tuned stat, like the rest of the Trials of Osiris and Nightfall weapons.
All other weapons have a default value, set per weapon archetype.
Precision angle threshold – 0 at 0 stat, high at 100 stat.

This controls how easy it is to get headshots while airborne. If this is 0, you must pinpoint aim exactly at the head to get the headshot, otherwise you’ll get a body shot even if your aim assist cone overlaps with the head.

What this means overall is that players will get fewer misses due to randomness from the accuracy cone while airborne, but reliance on aiming is much higher at low stat. In order to make this easier, players will need to build into airborne.

The airborne effectiveness stat comes from three sources:

Weapon:

The weapon’s base airborne effectiveness stat, with ranges varying from 0 to 10 and to 0 to 30, depending on the weapon archetype.

Exotic weapons typically get a higher stat than Legendary weapons in that archetype.

This is available to weapon perks, starting with Air Assault.

Subclass:

The Heat Rises Warlock Solar Aspect: +70 while Heat Rises is active (i.e., on consuming your grenade).
The Tempered Metal Solar Fragment: +20.
The Whisper of Hedrons Stasis Fragment: +20.

Exotic Armor:

Exotic armor that revolves around being airborne, or works on specific weapons, grants a bonus or penalty that is usually in the -50 to +40 range.

Stompees: -50.
Lion Rampant: +100, only while hip-firing.
Peacekeepers: +40 on SMGs only.
Celestial Nighthawk: +100, only for firing the Celestial Nighthawk Super shot.
Lucky Pants: +20, on Hand Cannons only.
Peregrine Greaves: +10.
Wings of Sacred Dawn: +50.
Nezarec’s Sin: +20, with Void weapons only.
Necrotic Grips: +20 with Weapons of Sorrow (and similar weapons).

This means that, in general, if you want good airborne effectiveness (i.e., 80 stat), you should pick a weapon with a high stat, put Icarus Grip on it, and either equip an Exotic armor piece that helps, or run a subclass Aspect or Fragment.
If you want the best possible airborne effectiveness, you’ll generally have to go all in on all three: weapon, Exotic armor, and subclass.

This is a big weapon system change; we’ll be monitoring how it rolls out and adjusting as needed.

Playlist weapons (Gambit, Crucible, and strike drops) now have a chance to roll with extra traits in one or both columns, increasing with number of rank resets with that vendor.
Starting in Season 17, all playlist weapons from Beyond Light and later will drop with the appropriate Origin Trait.

Archetypes

Sniper Rifle:

Reduced stow, ready, and aim-down-sights times by 10%, i.e., all Snipers are now snappier.

Shotgun (applies to both Slug and Pellet Shotguns):

Reduced damage falloff start and end by 1m.
Reduced aim assist and magnetism falloff start and end by 2m.

Fusion Rifle:

Reduced damage falloff near distance.

2m at 0 range (~2.7m when ADS with a 15-zoom stat).
1.3m at 100 range (~2.275m when ADS with a 15-zoom stat).

Reduced damage falloff far distance.

1m at 0 range (~1.35m when ADS with a 15-zoom stat).
1.3m at 100 range (~1.75m when ADS with a 15-zoom stat).

Reduced recoil scalar variance between 0 and 100 stability:

0 stability: unchanged at 0.750.
100 stability: increased from 0.500 to 0.550 (i.e. increased the recoil penalty slightly).

Reduced unmodified High-Impact charge time from 1.000 to 0.960s.
Increased High-Impact damage per burst by 10.
Increased unmodified Precision charge time from 0.740 to 0.780s.
Increased unmodified Rapid-Fire charge time from 0.460 to 0.500.
Decreased Rapid-Fire damage per burst by 20.
New charge time and damage per burst for all fusion rifle subfamilies:

High-Impact: 0.960s, 330 damage.
Precision: 0.780s, 280 damage.
Adaptive: 0.660s, 270 damage.
Rapid-Fire: 0.500s, 245 damage.

Auto Rifle:

Increased damage falloff near distance by 0.75m.

Pulse Rifle:

Increased damage falloff near distance based on the range stat:

0 range: increased from 15 to 16m.
100 range: increased from 22.5 to 24m.

(Note that this is the hip-fire falloff distance and is multiplied by the zoom value to get the aim down sights falloff distance).

Damage falloff far distance remains 40m regardless of the range stat.

Increased Lightweight (450RPM) Pulse Rifle damage per bullet from 15 to 16 (with a 1.65x precision scalar this will increase precision damage from 24.75 to 26.4).

This won’t change the optimal time to kill (TTK) in PvP but will reduce the number of crits required.

Submachine Gun (SMG):

Increased damage falloff near distance by 1.5m.
Adjusted zoom values on most viable Legendary SMGs and one Exotic.

Shayura’s Wrath: 17 → 16.
Multimach: With max zoom scope: 17 → 15 (second highest zoom will bring this to 14 instead).
Stochastic Variable: 13 → 14.
Ikelos: already did this in 600, but 13 → 14.
Seventh Seraph: 13 → 14.
Every Waking Moment: 13 → 14.

Nerfed Adaptive SMGs body damage to increase their body shot TTK by one bullet without impacting optimal.

Decreased body damage from 12 to 11.25.
Increased precision multiplier from 1.35 to 1.44.

Hand Cannon:

Precision Frame Hand Cannons

Intrinsic switched from an airborne penalty scalar to +25 airborne effectiveness stat.

Machine Gun:

Increased damage by 40% against PvE enemies (20% vs bosses).

Xenophage and Grand Overture do not receive the bonus damage against bosses.

Sword:

Fixed several inconsistencies in stat display between different Swords (this has no gameplay impact).
Increased the charge rate of Sola’s Scar from 20 to 50 to match Temptation’s hook.

Trace Rifle:

Increase Trace Rifle buff against non-red bar combatants to a total of 20% over live.
Increased ammo picked up per Special ammo brick from 18 to 30.

Glaive:

Increased melee damage versus PvE enemies (except for bosses and vehicles) by 25%.
Reduced energy drain speed while shielded by 30%.
Increased projectile speed dependent on the range stat:

At 0 stat: increased from 30 to 60 m/s.
At 100 stat: increased from 80 to 100 m/s.

Rocket Launcher:

Fixed rocket damage scalar by ROF so it applies to impact and detonation damage and increased the difference from 5% to 10%.
Reduced the Eyes of Tomorrow damage map buff from 1.3x to 1.2x since it gets 1.1x from this Rocket Launcher change (no other Exotic Rocket Launcher should be affected).

Exotics

All Exotics that shipped before the Forsaken expansion release now have their kill trackers visible by default.
Fighting Lion:

Reverted the Season 15 breech Grenade Launcher blast radius reduction, but just for Fighting Lion, by increasing blast radius by 0.4m.
Increased damage by 5%.

Eyes of Tomorrow:

Increased damage vs bosses and Champions by 30%.

Leviathan’s Breath:

The Archer’s Tempo perk from the catalyst now has increased effect (just on this weapon).

The standard draw time scalar for Archer’s Tempo is 0.75x, it is now 0.5625x on Leviathan’s Breath.

Added a small delay before detonation on Champions, mini-bosses, and bosses.

This allows the impact to stun an Unstoppable Champion and the detonation to deal bonus damage against the stunned Champion.

Damage changed to be more of an even split between impact and detonation, and increased damage across the board by ~50%.

Overall damage vs Champions are roughly doubled (even more compared to shooting an un-stunned unstoppable Champion).

The Huckleberry:

Increased zoom stat from 13 to 15.

Xenophage:

Reverted the Season 15 change (which reduced the rate of fire to 100RPM).

Increased rate of fire from 100RPM to 120RPM.
Reduced damage per bullet to match the previous.
Doesn’t benefit from the Season 15 or Season 17 Machin Gun PvE damage buffs.

Le Monarque:

Reduced poison tick damage vs players by 25%.
Changed poison damage type from burn to poison.
Increased poison tick damage vs AI by 50%.

Lorentz Driver:

Reduced body shot damage against players by 20%.
Body damage reverts to old behavior when in the weapon’s damage mode.
Precision damage in any mode unchanged.

Skyburner’s Oath:

Increased aim-down-sights (ADS) projectile speed to 9999 (i.e., this projectile is now hitscan).
Both ADS and hip-fire are now 150 RPM.
Hip-fire projectile no longer tracks, but arcs similar to a Grenade Launcher have a larger detonation size than ADS.
The hip-fire detonation also applies Scorch to targets.
The bonus range from the Masterwork has been rolled into the base stats of the weapon. The Masterwork now grants bonus reload speed instead.
Has the highest airborne effectiveness stat of any weapon in the game.

The Last Word:

Reduced mouse and keyboard recoil penalty from 33% to 22%.

Arbalest:

Reduced damage vs Champions by 25% (will still break barriers in one hit).

Graviton Lance:

Catalyst changed from granting Hidden Hand to granting Vorpal Weapon and Turnabout.

Grand Overture:

Reduced time between bursts when in missile mode. Holding the trigger will now fire all missiles in a continuous burst, tapping will fire 5-round bursts.

Wavesplitter – Void 3.0 update:

Picking up an Orb of Power now grants 10s of maximum power and caps at 20s, up from 5 and 10, respectively.

Now suppresses targets on sustained fire while in this mode.

Osteo Striga:

Corrected rotation on the projectile model.

Exotic Glaives:

Titan Glaive, Edge of Action: players now gain a Void overshield from entering the bubble.

Helm of Saint-14′ Starless Night now applies to this bubble as it does for Ward of Dawn.

Warlock Glaive, Edge of Intent: increased speed and acceleration of the healing turret projectiles.
Hunter Glaive, Edge of Concurrence: tripled the damage of the wave detonation, increased the number of enemies it can chain to from 4 to 8.

Lord of Wolves is like a Shotgun but has some custom tuning, so it needed some adjustments to keep pace with the last couple of Shotgun changes:

Reduced damage falloff start and end by 25%.

Perks

Note: where an enhanced perk exists and an adjustment is needed, it’s been adjusted in the same way.

Snapshot Sights:

Increased ADS animation speed scalar from 0.5 to 0.75 for Special ammo weapons (i.e., made the speed slower, though Primary ammo weapons are unchanged).

Opening Shot:

Removed the damage falloff scalar.
Increased range stat bonus from +20 to +25.

Full Choke:

Increased spread angle scale from 0.95 to 0.9625 (i.e., narrows the spread a little less).

Smoothbore:

Reduced spread angle scale from 1.1 to 1.075 (i.e., widens the spread a little less).

Desperado:

Increased fire recovery scalar from 0.415 to 0.7 (i.e., doesn’t fire as fast with the perk active).
Reduced duration from 7s to 6s, added a timer to the buff text.
Removed the PvE damage penalty.

This will allow it to work as intended on some other subfamilies, not just High-Impacts.

Shoot to Loot:

Now only activates if the player is capable of picking up the ammo brick.
The cooldown has been removed.

Air Assault:

Now grants up to +60 airborne effectiveness stat when wounded (same trigger conditions as Eye of the Storm).

Mulligan:

Increased chance to return ammo on a miss from 20% to 35% on Primary ammo weapons.
Unchanged on Special and Heavy ammo weapons.

Compulsive Reloader:

Increased reload stat buff from +40 to +50.
Added a 0.95x reload animation scalar.

Adagio:

Reduced the damage bonus for Shotguns from 30% to 20%.

Harmony:

Fixed an issue where kills from the weapon with this perk could sometimes activate the perk if stowed quickly.

Skulking Wolf:

The perk duration has been changed to 10 seconds for use in the updated Iron Banner mode.

Mods

Icarus Grip:

Removed airborne accuracy scalar, now grants +15 airborne effectiveness stat.

Adept Icarus:

Removed airborne accuracy scalar, now grants +15 airborne effectiveness stat and +5 handling.

Abilities

Solar Subclasses:

Reworked to fit the Subclass 3.0 system, in particular: Solar subclasses now use the Aspect and Fragment system used by Stasis and Void.
Standardized a set of buffs and debuffs aligned to the Solar damage type used across your subclass, weapons, and armor:

Cure – You are healed in a burst of mending Solar Light.
Restoration – You continuously regenerate health and shields over time. Cannot be interrupted by taking damage.
Radiant – Your weapons are enhanced by the power of the Traveler and deal increased damage to foes.
Scorch – The target is singed by destructive Solar Light, taking damage over time. Scorch damage increases as the target accumulates more Scorch stacks. After 100 Scorch stacks are applied to the target, they Ignite.
Ignite – A large, damaging Solar explosion in an area around the target.

Hovering over Aspects, Fragments, or abilities on the Solar subclass screen now displays a tooltip flyout detailing any relevant status effects.
Some old subclass perks have been deprecated, while others have been rolled into base ability behavior, Fragments or Aspects will have fluid behavior because of that.
All classes now have access to all Solar grenades.

Grenades

Healing Grenade (NEW):

Releases a wave of benevolent Solar Light on impact with targets or the environment that Cures allies and creates a blessing that grants Restoration on pickup. Tracks to allies in its flight path.

Solar Grenade:

Now applies 20 Scorch stacks to targets on initial detonation and 14 Scorch stacks per second to targets in the lingering damage volume instead of a generic Solar burn effect.
Base cooldown increased from 105s to 121s.

Tripmine Grenade:

Now applies 40 Scorch stacks to targets caught in the blast.

Firebolt Grenade:

Now applies 20 Scorch stacks to targets hit by secondary seekers.

Fusion Grenade:

Now applies 40 Scorch stacks targets caught in the blast.

Incendiary Grenade:

Now applies 60 Scorch stacks to targets caught in the blast, rather than applying a generic Solar burn effect.

Thermite Grenade:

Now applies 10 Scorch stacks to targets hit by each wave.

Swarm Grenade:

Now applies 5 Scorch stacks to targets caught in each drone’s detonation.

Hunter

Gunslinger

Split Golden Gun into two separate variants, Deadshot and Marksman:

Deadshot (6-shot variant):

Now deals increased damage while Radiant.
Now refunds a Golden Gun round when you cause a target to Ignite while your Super is active, rather than on any kill.

Marksman (3-shot variant):

Now deals increased damage while Radiant.
Now over-penetrates targets by default.

Blade Barrage:

Increased consistency of tracking strength.

Knives can now track targets more predictably at very close and very far ranges.

Increased PVE damage vs. PVE combatants by 25%.

Knife Trick:

Now applies 20 Scorch stacks per knife rather than a generic Solar burn effect.

Weighted Throwing Knife:

Now refunds your class ability on precision kill rather than itself.
Now causes Scorched targets to Ignite on hit.

Lightweight Knife (new melee):

A quick Throwing Knife option that deals moderate damage and causes you to become Radiant when you land a precision hit.

Acrobat’s Dodge (new ability):

Perform an acrobatic leap, driving a Solar knife to the ground. On landing, you and nearby allies are made Radiant.

Deprecated the Practice Makes Perfect subclass node perk.
Reworked the Knock ‘Em Down subclass node perk:

Now passively grants additional bonuses to your Solar Supers:

Marksman Golden Gun has 15% additional damage resistance and 4 seconds increased duration (+33%).
Deadshot Golden Gun has 4 seconds increased duration (+33%).
Blade Barrage now fires 5 additional knives per wave (+70%).

In addition, Radiant-defeating targets with your equipped Throwing Knife refunds your melee energy.

Nightstalker

Trapper’s Ambush:

Landing detonation now counts as melee damage and will trigger perks like Echo of Exchange and Melee Wellmaker.

Stylish Executioner:

After a Stylish Execution, your weakening melee attack now also deals bonus damage to targets.

Arcstrider:

Fixed an issue where Tempest Strike would sometimes fail to travel through doors with low ceilings.

Titan

Sunbreaker

Hammer of Sol:

Now shatters into explosive secondary projectiles as default behavior.

Burning Maul:

Increased initial light attack lunge distance.
After landing ten light attack hits, now automatically spawns a Heavy attack cyclone at the target’s location.

Hammer Strike:

No longer weakens targets.
Now applies 40 Scorch stacks to the primary target hit by Hammer Strike and deals damage to targets behind them. If the primary target is killed by a Hammer Strike direct impact, they automatically Ignite.

Throwing Hammer:

Now applies Cure (in addition to refunding the melee cost) when picked up if the Hammer struck a target.
Deprecated the Mortar Blast melee ability and the Explosive Pyre and Tempered Metal subclass node perks.

Roaring Flames:

Now activates from Solar ability kills and kills with Solar Ignitions.
Damage scalar reduced to compensate for expected increased uptime:

Now 20% increased ability damage to combatants per stack, down from 30%.

Note: melee damage bonus is reduced when Peregrine Greaves, One-Two Punch, Wormgod Caress, or Synthoceps’ perks are also active.

Now ~13% increased ability damage to players per stack, down from 25%.

Sol Invictus:

Sunspots are now created from Solar ability kills, kills on Scorched targets, or Hammer of Sol impacts.
Sunspots now apply Scorch (in addition to dealing damage) to targets that pass through.
Sunspots no longer provide an outgoing damage boost, but now grant Restoration when you pass through a Sunspot you created.
Grenade and melee regeneration bonus scalar granted by Sol Invictus (previously Sun Warrior) reduced from 3 to 1.5.

In general, we want significant amounts of ability regeneration to come from buildcrafting rather than any single source, and the amount of bonus energy granted by Sun Warrior didn’t meet our goals in the new system where additional buildcrafting elements are present.

Sentinel

Offensive Bulwark:

Increased the amount of time added to your Void Overshield’s duration when you defeat a target with a melee attack.
Now 6 seconds bonus duration, up from 2 seconds.

Behemoth

Diamond Lance:

Fixed an issue where the Diamond Lance pickup interactable would delete itself if an enemy player walked through it.

Warlock

General

Added a small amount of airborne tolerance when casting a rift to reduce instances of the cast sequence terminating early while on uneven terrain.

Note: this change was also previously applied to the Titan Barricade ability with the launch of The Witch Queen.

Dawnblade

Daybreak:

Now sends out a streak of flames on impact as default behavior.

Well of Radiance:

No longer provides an overshield to players standing in the Well.
Now damage resistance has increased vs. damage from combatants, player abilities, and Special and Heavy weapon damage to partially offset the loss in raw HP.

Celestial Fire:

Tracking effectiveness increased at longer ranges.
Reduced damage of each individual projectile from 35hp to 30hp.
Damage scalar increased against PVE combatants by 25%.

Incinerator Snap (new melee ability):

Snap your fingers to create a short-range fan of burning sparks which explode and Scorch enemies.

Phoenix Dive (NEW):

Dive to the ground and create a burst of Solar Light that Cures yourself and nearby allies.

Deprecated the Guiding Flame and Igniting Touch melee abilities, and the Divine Protection and Everlasting Fire subclass node perks.
Heat Rises:

Now also improves Phoenix Dive. While Heat Rises is active, you are granted Restoration while diving, and deal damage to and Scorch nearby enemies on landing.
Now grants +70 airborne effectiveness to your equipped weapons rather than removing the airborne accuracy penalty.

Voidwalker

Pocket Singularity:

Improved consistency at close ranges.
Now also disables targets’ melee lunge for 1 second on hit.

Stormcaller

Ball Lightning:

Projectile now arms more quickly after passing over a target to resolve an issue where the downward detonation could overshoot targets behind cover.

Solar Aspects

Hunter:

Knock ‘Em Down
On Your Mark
Gunpowder Gamble

Titan:

Roaring Flames
Sol Invictus
Consecration

Warlock:

Icarus Dash
Heat Rises
Touch of Flame

Solar Fragments

Ember of Singeing
Ember of Benevolence
Ember of Eruption
Ember of Searing
Ember of Beams
Ember of Combustion
Ember of Torches
Ember of Tempering
Ember of Blistering
Ember of Solace
[REDACTED]
[REDACTED]
[REDACTED]
[REDACTED]

Solar-Focused Exotic Armor Updates

Loreley Splendor Helm:

The Sunspot created by Loreley Splendor Helm now when casting your Barricade or while at critical health has improved Restoration effects.

The Bombardiers:

Now apply Scorch to targets rather than a generic Solar burn effect.

Dawn Chorus:

Now causes your Daybreak projectiles to apply Scorch to impacted targets rather than a generic Solar burn effect.
Now increases the damage your Scorch effects deal.

Phoenix Cradle:

Now applies the Sol Invictus buff and Solar Restoration to allies that pass through your Sunspots.

Young Ahamkara’s Spine:

No longer grants ability energy from burn damage ticks.

General

Void Invisibility:

Radar ping loop now begins after 5 seconds of invisibility, up from 3.

With Update 4.0.0.4, we made a change to radar behavior for invisible targets. We believe that this was the right path forward, but our tuning was slightly too aggressive and removed space in the Nightstalker kit that allowed them to intelligently flank bunkered players.
The changes in this update mean that base Vanishing Step or Trapper’s Ambush melee invisibility will not trigger a second radar ping (unless the invisible player begins sprinting or uses their vertical movement mode). With one source of invisibility extension (like Echo of Persistence or Graviton Forfeit) active or with an extended invisibility effect (like a Trapper’s Ambush Quickfall or Stylish Executioner activation), one additional radar ping will occur, and if two extensions are used then two additional radar pings will occur.

Void Volatile:

Fixed an issue where volatile detonations could be applied to a single target immediately rather than going on the intended 1-second cooldown.

We don’t believe this will result in a noticeable player-facing difference in volatile behavior or efficacy outside of edge cases with Volatile Rounds or Controlled Demolition but will be keeping an eye on this going forward.

Lowered the amount of physics acceleration applied to targets by volatile detonations.

Resilience:

Now grants increased incoming flinch resistance and damage resistance vs. PVE combatants.

Power and Progression

Power Bands have been increased for the new Season:

Power Floor: 1350 (unchanged)
Soft Cap: 1510 (up from 1500)
Powerful Cap: 1560 (up from 1550)
Hard Cap: 1570 (up from 1560)

The Character Power Boost has been increased to 1510 with the new Soft Cap.

Bounties and Pursuits

Fixed an error granting unintended progress for Weapon Flair Triumph.
Activity streaks for Crucible, Vanguard, Xûr’s Strange Favor, and Gambit no longer reset when you enter a non-ritual activity. Instead, they rebalance themselves every time you complete a ritual activity, so you can never have a total of more the 5 across the 4 reputations.
Players no longer receive Gunsmith reputation for completing campaign missions.
Public events objectives now award participation for all types of public events.
Fixed an issue where The Butler RS/2 Rocket Launcher is rewarded to a new Guardian after starting the New Light campaign a second time.
Fixed several issues affecting the runes in the Veles Labyrinth Lost Sector in the Cosmodrome.
Removed bounty related objectives from Gambit, Crucible, and strike intro quests.
Fixed an issue where new characters would start with other subclasses unlocked when deleting a veteran character.
Vendor buttons leading to abilities now show a checkmark to signify all abilities have been acquired from subclass tree.

Rewards

Dares of Eternity: Increased Strange Coins earned from the reward chest in Dares of Eternity from 1 to 3. This does not affect the number of Strange Coins earned from Lightning Round chests.
Dares of Eternity: Fixed an issue that could result in the Pinnacle reward for completing the weekly activity challenge to result in duplicates more often than intended.

Seasonal Challenges with unique items or upgrades now show those rewards with large icons. Experience and Bright Dust continue to use smaller icons.

Season Pass

Going forward, Catalyst Quest Boosts acquirable from the Season Pass will apply to all active Season Pass Exotic catalyst quests. This applies to Season of the Risen and after.
A Season Pass exclusive Ghost projection has been added to the premium track (available at rank 45).

Some existing rewards were moved/consolidated to accommodate this change but no items have been removed from the Pass.

Vendors

Xûr’s inventory should no longer be different if players manage to find him at destinations shortly after the weekly reset happens on Tuesday. He will still reappear with new gifts from the Nine when he returns at his regularly scheduled time on Friday.
Updated the names and descriptions for some vendor engrams. Engram items titled “Gear” should directly reward you with an item of that type, while engrams items titled “Engram” should reward you with a decryptable engram you can bring to Rahool or focus at a vendor.

Cleaned up Audio settings for voice chat on non-PC platforms:

Voice Settings: Remove console voice chat settings for Blended, Headset Only, Speakers Only.

Improved the consistency with which PlayStation and Xbox platform rosters update the online status of platform friends.

The voice actor for Eris Morn’s Italian dialogue has been recast.

Season 17 entitlement updates (Seasonal Silver Bundle, Season Pass, The Witch Queen Dungeon Key):

The Witch Queen Dungeon Key (which includes both S17 and S19 dungeons) will immediately be granted to players who own or purchase The Witch Queen Deluxe Edition or upgrade the already-owned copy to Deluxe.
For players who do not own The Witch Queen Deluxe Edition, The Witch Queen Dungeon Key can be purchased a la carte from the Eververse store immediately upon 4.1.0 release, or via the Duality dungeon node or Hawthorne vendor when the dungeon launches.

Scorn sniper damage brought in line with other combatant sniper weapons. Spread of projectiles increased to reduce instances of multiple projectiles hitting players.
Removed veteran player Void 3.0 tutorial.

New Light Solar 3.0 updates:

New Hunter characters will start with the reworked Solar 3.0 subclass.
New Titan and Warlock characters will start with Void 3.0 subclasses.
Subclasses you have not acquired are available after finishing the A Guardian Rises questline and talking with Ikora Rey during the A Spark of Hope quest.

New Hunter characters will start with Solar subclass abilities intended to be more friendly and appealing to new players. Additional abilities may be unlocked by purchasing them from Ikora in the Tower and completing meditation:

Hunter:

Super Ability: Deadshot Golden Gun (6-shot variant)
Class Ability: Marksman Dodge
Movement Ability: Triple Jump
Charged Melee: Knife Trick
Grenade: Swarm Grenade

Titan:

Super Ability: Hammer of Sol
Class Ability: Towering Barricade
Movement Ability: Strafe Lift
Charged Melee: Hammer Throw
Grenade: Thermite Grenade

Warlock:

Super Ability: Daybreak
Class Ability: Healing Rift
Movement Ability: Burst Glide
Charged Melee: Incinerator Snap
Grenade: Solar Grenade

Posted on May 19, 2022 by — Leave a comment

This Week At Bungie – 5/19/2022

Before we dive into our final TWAB of the Season, we’d like to spend a moment focusing on an important message that our Black at Bungie inclusion club published on Tuesday. Our hearts go out to the victims of the tragedy that occurred in Buffalo, NY, last weekend, and anyone impacted by this act of violence.

Our full statement, and pledge that all profits from the “Be Heard” Pin on the Bungie Store will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center for at least one year, can be found here:

This week at Bungie, Guardian Games is coming to a close, and we’re but days away from a new Season.

That’s right Guardian Games is nearing its end. Warlocks are dominating as of this writing. Will they hold on for their first Guardian Games victory? Only time will tell. Actually, not true—our social media channels will also tell. And you might be able to do the math by visiting the podium in the Tower, as they might have such a commanding lead that Titans and Hunters couldn’t possibly catch up to their space magic.

We’re just a few days out from a new Season. We’ve covered quite a few systematic changes coming to Destiny 2. Sandbox changes, ritual reputation changes, and a few other details on how gameplay in general will be updated. Many of you (and when I say many, I mean almost every single one of you) have been asking about the new stuff. What is Season of [Redacted] all about? What’s the next challenge our Guardians are about to face? What’s going on with [Redacted] and their [Redacted]!? Where’s the trailer?! Which subclass is getting the 3.0 treatment!?!

There will be a day where many of your questions will be answered, but today is not that day. It’s a scary, but fun, balancing act in the grand scheme of things. I’ve said it before, but player discovery is one of the most potent things in gaming. Do we spill the details in TWABs and tweets, or do we hold things a bit closer to the chest with each Season to let players dig in on day-one and find out some cool things in the game itself?

If you’d like to go dark, this should be one of the last Bungie communications you read before Tuesday at 10 AM Pacific. If you’d like to get a quick taste before launch, tune in a bit earlier on Tuesday morning and keep an eye out for a countdown for our next trailer.

So, what will be our final TWAB before launch? We’ve got some details on how Seasonal Events will be evolving, a quick spoiler free patch note preview, a rundown on when our next dungeon is going live, and a preview of upcoming Trials of Osiris armor sets. Keep an eye out for our Player Support section too, as we’ll be breaking down the timelines for Destiny 2 Update 4.1.0 (which kicks off Season of [Redacted] on Tuesday)!

Destiny Event Updates

Once a Season, Guardians get the chance to take a break from our galaxy-saving duties to relax and reflect in special annual celebrations. These themed events—which include Guardian Games, Solstice, Festival of the Lost, and The Dawning—have become an integral part of the annual flow of Destiny 2, where players can celebrate together and collect cool rewards along the way.

Over the past year, the team has been working hard on giving many of these events a makeover. This effort began with last year’s Festival of the Lost, which featured new twists like the Monsters vs. Dinos community poll and Glint’s ghost stories. Our goal is that every event provides joy and discovery for new and veteran players, and the enthusiastic reaction to the 2021 Festival of the Lost reaffirmed our plans to keep evolving our events to keep them fresh and fun. While not every event will get a big update this year, we wanted to share a high-level look at our plans for the upcoming Solstice event, which begins on July 19.

Solstice. Just Solstice.

That’s right, we dropped the “of Heroes” from the name of our summer event and are just going with “Solstice.” While we’ve got a new name and will have some beautiful new floral arrangements adorning the Tower during the event, those familiar with Solstice events from the past should still feel right at home. As in previous years, there will be an awesome set of armor to pursue; only this time, instead of completing armor objectives and collecting keys and packages consumables, you’ll be completing Event Challenges (more on those in a bit) to make progress towards your ultimate glowing masterpiece of bodily protection.

One of the biggest changes you’ll notice with Solstice is we’ve changed the armor experience a lot. Players will only upgrade one set of Solstice armor throughout the event. While you can get multiple instances of a helmet, for example, upgrading armor will allow you to reroll its stats and the stat potential of the armor will be shared across those drops.

Another new feature coming to Solstice is an activity in the European Aerial Zone called Bonfire Bash, where Guardians will be building and stoking what can only be described as “paracausal bonfires” while the enemies of summer fun (including the Taken, Cabal, Hive, and Fallen) will be attempting to crash the party and extinguish the fires. In your mission to guard the flames from wave after wave of incoming enemies, we’ve made it easier to transverse the EAZ, adding floating islands and removing building-barriers for maximum maneuverability.

Look for more details on Solstice armor upgrades and Bonfire Bash as we get closer to the launch of Solstice.

Introducing the Event Card

With our Solstice event, we’re introducing a new feature called the Event Card. In much the same way that Seasonal Challenges introduces an easy-to-understand (and find) list of goals you can complete in a Season, the Event Card does the same for Destiny 2’s annual events. When Solstice begins, players will gain access to this Event Card which includes new points of interest to explore, including:

Event Challenges
Event Seals and Titles
Unique Event Rewards

Every Event Card will be available for free to all players and can be accessed by interacting with Eva Levante in the Tower or via the Quests tab (right next to Seasonal Challenges). Event Cards and their associated challenges and rewards can be accessed for the entire event before disappearing once their corresponding event ends.

Let’s take a look at some of the individual parts of the Event Card in order to better understand how they tie into events overall.

Event Challenges

Like Seasonal Challenges, Event Challenges are objectives that players can complete to earn rewards. Certain Event Challenges will award players with familiar items such as event shaders, emblems, or other gear, and they’ll also grant Event Tickets.

Every Event Challenge will be available for players to complete right when the event starts, so you won’t need to wait until the next week for additional Challenges to become available. Event Challenges can be completed in any order and at any point while an event is active.

Event Seals and Titles

In addition to Event Challenges, we’re also going to be introducing event Seals and titles that you can earn. There are two types of event-based Seals that players can work towards:

Individual Event Seals
A New Multi-Event Seal

Starting with Solstice this year, each Destiny event will come with a seal that players can complete as well as gild. Completing these event Seals is as simple as completing all the Event Challenges on its Event Card. Finishing every Event Challenge will automatically earn you Seal progress and unlock the title for that Seal. Gilding event Seals will require completing additional Triumphs that will only become available once the standard Seal has been completed—gilding lasts until the event begins again the following year. Progress on individual event Seals can be tracked directly in the Event Card by hovering over the card on the left-hand side of the screen or by viewing the event Seal from the Triumphs page.

There’s also a new multi-event Seal that event-loving players will be able to work toward. Starting with Solstice, players can complete a certain number of Event Challenges in each of the four yearly Destiny events to complete this Seal. This means that the earliest players can complete the multi-event Seal will be in Guardian Games of next year and doing so will also earn them a unique event title. You’ll also be able to gild this new Seal after completing the standard version and we’ll be sharing more details on how to do this in the coming year.

Upgraded Event Card Rewards

A new event means new event-themed cosmetics for Guardians to customize their experience. While those items have traditionally been part of the Eververse store, with the upcoming Solstice event, we will curate a collection of these items as unique rewards through the Event Card itself. These rewards will only be available through the Event Card during their initial release but, like most of our cosmetics, there’s always a chance they’ll become available again via Eververse at a future date.

While the Event Card and Event Challenge rewards are free for all players, acquiring these extra cosmetic rewards will require players to purchase the upgraded Event Card. Upgrading the Event Card will cost 1000 Silver and immediately grants players an Exotic reward bundle. Players can then acquire even more rewards by spending the Event Tickets they collect from Event Challenges.

The overall value of the upgraded Event Card will vary somewhat but is expected to regularly exceed 3000 Silver.

Description	Type	Instant Unlock / Event Tickets
Hot Dog Eating Champ	Exotic Emote	Instant
Sunny Exotic Ghost Shell	Exotic Ghost Shell	Instant
Iris Gossamer	Legendary Shader	Instant
Skateboarding Emote	Legendary Emote	Tickets
(TBD)	Legendary Ghost Hologram	Tickets
(TBD)	Exotic Ship	Tickets
(TBD)	Legendary Ghost Hologram	Tickets
(TBD)	Legendary Transmat FX	Tickets

Hint: If you aren’t sure whether you will complete the event, wait until the last week to make the purchase and see how many Event Tickets you have accumulated! But don’t wait until the very last minute because Event Tickets will expire once an event ends and the Event Card goes away.

We can’t wait for everyone to jump in and experience all the new Solstice changes we have in store. See you in July!

Another Patch Note Preview

While we’ve already gone over quite a few changes, ranging from ritual streak bonuses to a behemoth of a TWAB covering sandbox, we still have a few smaller patch notes to share with you before Tuesday comes around. This will be a mash-up of fixes with no specific theme. It’s all just Destiny 2, baby.

UX/UI

Updated the Director navigation header to a new style to make it more scalable.
Fixed a visual bug on the Title Screen when playing with a screen aspect ratio greater than 16:9.
Fixed a logic bug that would sometimes show inaccurate informational text on the Bungie Name Change screen after a player had changed their name via Bungie.net.
Improved the consistency with which PlayStation and Xbox platform rosters update the online status of platform friends.

Dares of Eternity

Increased Strange Coins earned from the reward chest in Dares of Eternity from 1 to 3.
This does not affect the number of Strange Coins earned from Lightning Round chests.

Power and Progression

Power Bands have been increased for the new Season:

Power Floor: 1350 (unchanged)
Soft Cap: 1510 (up from 1500)
Powerful Cap: 1560 (up from 1550)
Hard Cap: 1570 (up from 1560)

The Character Power Boost has been increased to 1510 with the new Soft Cap.

Vault Space

Vault space has been increased by 100 (was 500, is now 600).
While we know this doesn’t enable players to save every single piece of loot in the game, the team was able to pull some strings and get a little more space for your vaults as they continue to investigate future solutions.

Xûr

Xûr’s inventory should no longer be different if players manage to find him at destinations shortly after the weekly reset happens on Tuesday.
He will still reappear with new gifts from the Nine when he returns at his regularly scheduled time on Friday.
While his will is not his own, he needs a break each week—no more working overtime.

Scorn

Increased Scorn Crossbow damage by 300%, ensuring players will always be one-shot by their attacks, no matter their Power level or how many damage resist modifiers they have equipped.

Don’t worry, that’s a joke.
Had you there for a second, didn’t I?
Here’s the real patch note…

Scorn sniper damage brought in line (reduced) with other combatant sniper weapons.

Spread of projectiles increased to reduce instances of multiple projectiles hitting players.

Dungeon Diving

Next week, we are launching a brand-new dungeon on Friday, May 27 at 10 AM Pacific. The recommended power to enter for normal difficulty is going to be 1550. Master difficulty will be live day one as well, but we’ll leave those entry requirements for you to see in the game next week.

We’re going to let you discover where you will be going and what you will be doing for yourselves, but we wanted to give you a quick tease at what rewards you can expect to earn once inside.

Here is a high-level look at all of the rewards available from the dungeon next Friday:

1 Legendary Armor Set Per Class

Artifice Versions can also be acquired via Master Difficulty

4 Legendary New Weapons
2 Legendary Reprised Weapons
1 Exotic Weapon
1 Exotic Catalyst
1 Exotic Accessory (Ship or Sparrow)
2 Legendary Emblems

Assuming you plan to brave the challenges that await you, these are the treasures you can claim.

Best way to get this dungeon as well as the one coming in Season 19 is to have the Digital Deluxe Edition of The Witch Queen. If you have that, you are already good to go! If you want to experience an entire year of Destiny 2 content and haven’t purchased the Deluxe Edition yet, starting next Tuesday, it’s going to be on sale for 25% off (exact timing and duration may vary by platform).

If you just want the dungeons, totally fine, you can pick up both as part of The Witch Queen Dungeon Key in the Eververse store for 2000 Silver.

Trials, Trials, Trials

This weekend, we have some fun lined up for Trials of Osiris. Over the last two Seasons, we’ve been experimenting with Freelance and Zone Capture weekends, learning some great lessons about the Trials ecosystem and population as it waxes and wanes over a given Season. This weekend, we’re mixing things up just a little more with another Freelance weekend, with Zone Control enabled. This will be your final weekend of Trials for a while, as the mode will have a short hiatus through June 10.

When Trials comes back around, there will be some new loot to earn. While we’ve already announced that a Fusion Rifle and Sidearm will be up for grabs, we’ll also have some new armor for your fashion game. We’re leaning deeper into the Trials themes that you’ve seen over the years, and excited to see how you mix and match these new sets with pieces from activities throughout the game.

But wait! There’s more!

If you’d like to kit out your Guardian a bit more with the Trials theme, we have two new cosmetic rewards coming online next Season. You may have already noticed the Ghost in the armor preview above, but we also have this beauty to introduce…

Falcon’s Chase Sparrow (that I can’t stop looking at. It will be mine. Someday…)

We’ll see you out there (and maybe even duke it out a bit) on June 10 when these rewards go live.

The Gauntlet 2022

Rounding out our week of Bungie news, the Bungie Foundation brings wonderful news of our 8 anniversary participating in the Gauntlet Tabletop fundraiser. If you’d like to help our team in the competition, while also helping to raise funds for important causes, check out the information below!

Bungie Foundation: This weekend will culminate in a head-to-head tabletop tournament full of fun, competition, and most importantly, supporting a great cause. Help us raise funds for this year’s recipient, Zeno Math. Zeno’s mission is to spark joy and inspire a love of math in youth children and families through racial equity, family engagement, and play, all centered in the experience of communities of color. Zeno changes the landscape of early math through a unique play-based approach, and they believe that math skills and abilities are essential to leading a full and robust life.

Head to our team’s Donation Page to commit your support on or before this Sunday, May 22 at 11:59 PM Pacific!

Anyone who donates $25 in a single donation to our Team Page will receive the Venn’s Pulsar emblem, which will be distributed by Friday, June 10.

Rules of the Road: To be eligible for the emblem, donations must be made to this campaign between May 15 and May 22 at 11:59 PM Pacific. A unique redemption code will be emailed to the email address used to make the donation. One redemption code will be distributed per email for qualifying donations.

Thank you in advance for supporting this amazing organization!

Love,

Bungie Foundation

Release the Update!

It can be difficult to wait for the goods, so to speak. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at the clock just today wondering how much longer we have until the new Season is out. Patience, my friends. Patience.

In the meantime, our Player Support team has a roundup of timelines and need-to-know updates in preparation for your upcoming downloads.

This is their report.

UPDATE 4.1.0 RELEASE SCHEDULE

To prepare for the launch of Season of [REDACTED], Destiny 2 will undergo scheduled downtime from 9 AM PDT (1600 UTC) to 11 AM PDT (1800 UTC) on May 24. Below is the scheduled timeline for this release:

9 AM PDT (1600 UTC): Maintenance is scheduled to begin.
9:45 AM (1645 UTC): Destiny 2 is brought offline.
10 AM (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 will be brought back online. Update 4.1.0 will be playable on all platforms and regions.
11 AM (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is scheduled to complete.

LAST CHANCE BUNGIE REWARDS

Players looking to earn certain Bungie Rewards should complete the associated in-game achievement before 10 AM PDT (1700 UTC) on May 24:

2022 Guardian Games Tankard
2022 Guardian Games Medal
Psionic Operator Long Sleeve Shirt
Vow of the Disciple Pin
The Witch Queen Legendary Pin
Risen Seal Collectible Medallion Pin

These rewards will be available to purchase from the Bungie Store until May 31, 2022, at 11:59 PM PDT (0659 UTC).

CLAIM YOUR (IN GAME) REWARDS

Players should make sure to claim all engrams and other rewards before the new Season begins. Any rewards not claimed from ritual vendors (Zavala, Shaxx, Drifter, and Saint-14) will be removed at the beginning of the next Season.

VOW OF THE DISCIPLE EMBLEM

The Cleaver emblem and associated Triumph for the completion of the Vow of the Disciple raid during the Contest Mode extension have been successfully distributed to all qualifying players.

Destiny Player Support has investigated reports of players who believed to have qualified for the emblem and Triumph but did not receive them, and in all instances the players had at least one encounter of the raid that was not successfully recorded as complete during the Contest Mode window.

For players to have earned this emblem, they had to receive a reward in every raid encounter during Contest Mode. If players did not receive a reward after completing a specific encounter, the game did not count them as completing the encounter, and so The Cleaver emblem could not be granted.

KNOWN ISSUES

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

The final two pages of the Mnemosyne lore book do not successfully unlock for players.
The Renewal Grasps’ damage buff may not function within a Duskfield Grenade’s area of effect.
Words in text chat may display vertically. This can be resolved by restarting Destiny 2.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

Get Your Mad Scientist On

Sam: Happy TWABsday, Guardians! (Does anyone else say that out loud, or is it just me?) Anyway, this week we have some super rad movies! Starting off, we have one of the coolest custom PC builds, with some of the most solid video editing I have ever seen. I am a huge fan of customizing your gaming setup, but doing so with Wardcliff Coil, that’s some “mad scientist” stuff right there. After that, we have a PvP montage that not only shows how rad Warlocks are, but it also really captures the essence of space magic.

Movie of the Week: Wardcliff Coil PC Build:

Movie of the Week: Trampoline: Trampoline

A Hunter, a Warlock, and a Titan Walk into a T-Rated Bar

Hippy: Guardian Games is all about which class can come out on top when it comes down to taking home that big W. It’s fun, especially when you get a chance to (playfully) dunk on Hunter mains, but it’s understood by the community that this is all done from a good-natured place. In actuality, the three classes are pretty dope and so, for this week, we wanted to share three gorgeous pieces of art that make this ‘ol Titan’s heart proud. Whether you rep those Jumpy Beans or like to Thundercrash alongside those Space Wizards, at the end of the day, we’re all just here to game and have a good time.

Wow, that was way wordier than anticipated, so let’s just jump right into it, shall we?

Art of the Week: Titan Love

One of my favorite pieces #Destiny2Art #AOTW pic.twitter.com/KsqlVX3xHI

— ItsaMePistola (@pistola_me) May 9, 2022

Art of the Week: Red String of Fate

B-b-b-BONUS round.

Art of the Week: A Peaceful Date Night

As always, make sure to tag us in those glorious Destiny 2 videos and art by tagging #Destiny2Art, #AOTW, and #MOTW. Go on, do it. We dare you.

Before You Go, We’ve Got One Last Spear to Throw

Hippy: That title is funny when you realize we’re talking about an actual spear. The Synaptic Spear is pretty cool, right? But what if we made it real? Well, not us, but we did commission two vastly creative fabricators to create a life-size model of this particular piece of gloriousness. It’s not just one spear, either. We’ve got seven of these bad boys to give away as a super-exclusive product to be distributed worldwide. US, UK, Italy, Germany, France, Japan, and ANZ regions will be utilizing their socials to partake in this speartastic endeavor in order to give away these powerful 1:1 props. Each region will partake in these giveaways with their own unique flare, so make sure to keep a lookout for your local social channels to see some exciting opportunities surrounding this particular spear. Who knows, maybe you’ll be one of the lucky few that wins one!

Designed to stop the unstoppable.

The Synaptic Spear expertly crafted by @hasfoundry. pic.twitter.com/2HO78ltaJp

— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) May 18, 2022

Because this is Destiny 2 and we love our lore, here’s a special snippet from our Narrative team about the history attached to this spear:

Guardian—

My Psions toiled to affix the ruins of Ghaul’s Light-suppressing device to a weapon frame.

A war axe would be too heavy for weak Human arms. A maul lacked the resonance to pierce the psionic sphere.

Finally, I held the Synaptic Spear in my hands. Untested. I frowned.

It was meant to be wielded by a Lightbearer in the Mindscape, where their power would change it into a gleaming beacon. Even Savathûn would shield her eyes from its glare, they told me.

I listened to their claims before taking the weapon for myself. They raised their voices in protest, but I silenced them with a look.

On the far shores of Sorrow’s Harbor, I waded into the hordes of ravening Hive. Though the dull metals of the spear would not speak to me, I still made it sing.

I may not have the Light.

But I have strength.

—Empress Caiatl

The Anticipation…

Well, that’s a wrap! Your final TWAB before Season of [Redacted] ships. Now all that’s left is a weekend of Freelance Zone Capture Trials, and maybe a few Triumphs standing between you and the Season of the Risen title.

We’ll see you again next Tuesday, patch notes and all.

Cheers,

dmg04

Posted on May 17, 2022 by — Leave a comment

Bungie Statement on the Terrorist Attack in Buffalo, NY

On Saturday, May 14, a young white man drove hours from his home to a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, and opened fire in a crowded supermarket, killing ten people and maiming three others. It has since been confirmed that this was an act of terror aimed at Black Americans and is being investigated as a hate crime. Our hearts go out to the victims of this tragedy, and anyone impacted by this act of violence.

Bungie and the Black at Bungie inclusion club have worked together to respond to this tragedy. We are currently showing our “Be Heard” Pin on the front page of the Bungie Store. Starting today, and for at least one year, all profits from this pin will be donated to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a charity whose work includes monitoring hate groups and other extremists throughout the United States and exposing their activities to the public, the media, and law enforcement. In addition, our studio is committed to supporting the success of our ID&E initiatives for 2022 and beyond. We understand the fight for equality and equity is not easily won but is a constant effort by all people.

Far too often, these racist attacks begin within online communities that are used to recruit and radicalize individuals. It is time we begin to examine our practices and see what part we can play in preventing these tragedies. Black at Bungie intends to partner with our Player Support and Community teams to see how we can bolster our ongoing efforts to maintain safe and anti-racist spaces in which our players and fans can come together. We hope our colleagues in game development and gaming communities continue to examine their own platforms and invest in practices to combat bigotry in all its manifestations. We believe games and their communities should be a force for good and we are committed to that.

If you would like to support the families impacted by the attack in Buffalo, donation funds can be directed below:

-Black at Bungie

Posted on May 13, 2022 by — Leave a comment

Community Focus – Ansonikage

And we’re back with another way to shout loud and proud right alongside the community with a brand-new Focus. We’ve had some pretty amazing spotlights through the years and today is no different. He’s an artist. He’s a streamer. He’s the funniest dude on TikTok (and least in my humble opinion), and you may already know him as the creator known as Ansonikage.

Whether you’re a part of his community or someone just looking for other Guardians to vibe with, let’s get right into it to talk about streaming, good people, and even a Destiny conspiracy theory or two.

Roll the clip!

First up, how the heck are ya?! Glad you could make it this week, I’m excited to dig a little deeper into that noggin of yours! But before we do that, go ahead and tell the community a little bit about yourself: What’s your story, who are you, why are you such a gift to TikTok? You know, the usual…

Feeling great, Liana, thanks for having me! Hi, everyone, my name is Anthony. Most know me as Ansonikage, or “AK,” for short. The name kind of has a cool story, it reflects my name translated in Japanese (Ansoni) and a title from my favorite anime show: Kage. I know a lot of people can sometimes struggle with pronunciation, which is why I usually go by “AK.” If anybody is curious though, it’s pronounced: an-so-knee-ka-gay.

I’m a husband and a father to three Little Lights, and outside of content creation, I work as an AV/smart home technician. As far as what is special that I bring to TikTok, well… simply put, it just allows me to blend my passion for video editing, directing, and gaming. Maybe that passion is that special ingredient.

Welp, so I’ve been pronouncing it all wrong, I dug the lesson and a little more about your passion for content creation! Speaking of streaming and content, your account is a big reason why I keep reinstalling TikTok (a.k.a. the biggest time trap ever). I’ve got to ask, what got you started on that platform and what’s the inspiration behind your type of content? You mentioned it was a blend of passions, can you talk a little more about that?

Well, when I first started using TikTok, I enjoyed seeing how well people could lip-sync to other sounds. Something about seeing people act out a sound as if they have been given a script and are able to drive any given emotion, I found that interesting.

Then, one day I came across a gaming clip that was acting out a meme-inspired song about the ice cream machine always being broken at McDonalds. When I saw the clip, it was funny for sure but the only emotion that could be delivered was the characters just swaying their arms left and right to represent them talking. That was when I had the idea, “Yo, I could bring this song to life with emotes in Destiny!” Then I thought about it, laughed, and legit just left it at that and did nothing! (At first.)

Then about two weeks went by, and as I’m scrolling Twitter, I stopped at a tweet from @vNogi. To no one, in particular, he tweeted something along the lines of, “You know that idea you have in the back of your mind, I dare you to go do it.” When I read that, I felt heavily called out. He was right, and in that second, I got up and logged into Destiny and started capturing the footage for what was my first “emote-acting” TikTok (which is what I call it), and it took off! The response was amazing and it’s now been over a year’s worth of posts that have led to a lot of laughs and smiles, and I am proud of that. So again, to you vNogi, I truly am thankful to you for putting out encouraging words, you never know who you’re going to impact and how far it will launch them into their own future. Much love, brother.

That’s wholesome as all heck and I love that you shared that. You really do have no idea how your words can impact someone else, especially when it’s what they need to hear. Love to see that, love that so much.

We’ve talked about TikTok and Twitter, but there’s also the art you create! I would love to see your most beloved piece, if you don’t mind sharing! What was the inspiration, what makes this piece so special to you?

[[data-content-id=’51341′ data-template-type=’Inline’ ]]

My most beloved piece of the Guardian Avatar Edits must be the compilation piece that features 80 Guardians from across our community. It was just nice to see so many of the edits that I did over that year come together like that, it made me feel grateful for every single person.

The inspiration for that piece, and the avatar edits, all started—funnily enough—with the very first Solstice of Heroes. In the article that broke down the event were three images that represented each Guardian class. The image was half of the helmet armor and half of the Solstice logo and when I saw that I was like, “Huh, imagine custom profile pics of our Guardians with logos and wording…” From there, I took to Twitter and found posts that other Destiny players uploaded showing off their Guardians that they were proud of. I added some effects, text, filters, a couple more layers, and voilà! I would then reply to their post with the finished avatar edit as a gift and people loved that.

Some of us have been with our Guardians for over seven years now, so seeing your Guardian in a more personalized way made a lot of people happy. It is a fun way for me to challenge myself creatively and give something back to this community that I’ve been a part of since Destiny 1’s launch.

Right, right, nice way to get me back on track with Destiny. It’s Guardian Games time, baby, who are you reppin’?

Titan strong, all day every day! That lion in the Tower owns most of the real estate and deserves to be covered in gold. When I first read the breakdown from Destiny 1 about the classes, I knew instantly I was going to be a Titan main. I am all for getting up close and personal and the Titan class does not disappoint with that!

Speaking my language with that class choice! Pivoting just a little bit, there have been quite a few surprising twists in The Witch Queen and y’all have no idea what’s next. So, let’s get a little weird before more is revealed about what’s next: hit me with your wildest player theories about what you think is going to happen, or even about anything that has already happened.

Nothing is too outlandish, I was pretty sure before I got hired that we were somehow going to be Savathûn herself as Guardians, so like… go ham. (In my defense, I was very medicated from a doctor’s visit, though loopy me had some cool ideas [laughs]).

I still recall the audible gasp that I let out when I turned the corner on the Moon during the Shadowkeep expansion and saw a Pyramid ship in front of me. That campaign, as we know, eventually led to us exploring the inside of it and when our Ghost started being taken over by the Darkness so that it could speak to us, that is when I started questioning the Light. I started thinking that if our Ghost could be that easily interfered with by Darkness, their relation to each other might be much closer than we think. As opposed to two separate beings, they may in fact be two sides of the same coin. All the events since then have only added fuel to that fire.

We have made some unlikely allies of recent; I foresee us making some unlikely enemies. The idea of a civil war amongst Guardians could be a possibility as the “Light is good, and Darkness is bad” philosophy continues to wither away. I think the breaking point for something like that would likely involve another major loss within the Tower.

Subclasses. Let’s talk about them. What’s your favorite build and strategy around your chosen subclass and, if you could create any subclass you wanted with no restrictions, what would that look like?

So, I mentioned before about how I like to get up close and personal, so you’d best believe that my choice here does just that. My favorite right now is Code of the Missile paired with Synthoceps and a triple-100 -stat build around Mobility, Recovery, and Strength. Basically, death from above followed up with an extended melee reach. This is my go-to, especially in Control and Iron Banner. Map knowledge is key here, understating what routes I can run to get up in the air and slam around a corner or off an object and catch players off guard is just a lot of fun. Pairing that with Forerunner is nice since I can use Inertia Override to slide over Special ammo for the auto-reload and damage boost. Add an SMG with Preputial Motion/Swashbuckler and I’m having a lot of fun. So, I guess you could say, “Eyes up, Guardian.”

As far as creating a subclass, I’m not really sure, now that I think about it. If anything, Sunbreaker has a hammer, Sentinel has a shield, maybe Striker could have a lance? Sort of like the Stasis Diamond Lance Aspect or the Synaptic Spear. Heck, why not make it an axe that can boomerang back to us? [laughs]

You just want pure chaos, I think. [laughs] Is there anything about Destiny that you’d like to see change in the future? Anything you’d like to see make a comeback?

The timing couldn’t be better on this one since it’s Guardian Games time. The idea of playing how you want to earn Laurels across the core activities is great, but I would love to see something special come in that isn’t just scoring on strikes. Something that feels like sports. Imagine a playlist across different locations that feature obstacle course-themed strikes. Each one features three segments:

Platforming like we did in the recent Exotic quest while holding the worm.

Sparrow racing as we’ve done in both the Scourge of the Past raid and the Grasp of Avarice dungeon.

Trivia-based selections that reward and penalize based on right and wrong answers like that of Dares of Eternity.

Having something that feels more sports-like as a core activity during Guardian Games would be fun to see come in and out each year, in my opinion.

As far as something I’d like to see return, I think full-fledged Sparrow Racing League during Guardian Games would also be a nice touch. But I really would like to see Rift come to Destiny 2; I miss dunking on Guardians.

Editor’s note: This interview took place before TWAB went live. Little did he know that Rift is comin’ back! You can learn more about that and the new map coming with it with our most recent TWAB here.

One thing that I personally love about the evolution of Destiny is how much investment is going into building these memorable and unique characters. The Crow, for example, has people very split on how they feel about him, so I want to know which character from the Destiny-verse has impacted you the most, or who you enjoy learning more about the most?

Cayde-6. When I saw the reveal teaser for Forsaken, I was hell-bent on revenge. Cayde was always the most relatable character for me because I am just as much of a goof as he is—was. His carefree and sarcastic humor was always something I looked forward to in cutscenes, and to have that source of joy taken away was tough. But I can also admit that for a major character death to happen in Destiny, nobody at that time would have had a bigger impact than Cayde’s.

While you’ve got that proverbial mic, is there anything you’d like to say to the Destiny community at large?

Laugh. Life is going to throw a lot at every single one of us, it is never going to be easy, but that does not mean we do not deserve joy. We cannot wait for everything in our lives to go well before we decide to be happy. I create the kind of content I do because it can make people smile or laugh—that has always been, and always will be, the goal.

Every time I get a comment that is something like, “Thank you for this, I really needed that laugh today,” I cannot help but wonder what troubles they could be dealing with. At the same time, I find comfort in knowing that I helped provide some much-needed joy. Sadly, there are plenty of people making life more difficult to deal with, so why not play a part in trying to make life a little bit easier?

Well, you made me smile, so you’re already on the tracker for today! Thank you so much for taking the time to hang out and talk, this was a blast hearing more about your journey and your relationship with the Destiny-verse! Before we let you go, go ahead and shout out to anyone you want to share the stage with and tell people where they can find you!

Major shout-out to my clanmates and to our lead PvPer who has helped many of us up our game). A huge shout-out to NerdyJay and Bueller, who make up the foundation of our clan since Destiny 1, our West Coast dynamic duo in Ace & Batz, our East Coast family in Andi, Jrdn, Sin, “old and new” Will. Also, a blast of love over in the UK with JayPalma, also known as the Grandmaster God. I just want to add to that while most of my clan has helped quite a bit with the more difficult skits we’ve created over on TikTok, I have to give some extra big love to Cam for playing a very consistent part in that. I cannot forget the Masanko family for every bit of love they have shown to help me elevate my content in order to reach my goals. And finally, massive love to everyone supporting me within my own community, The Hidden Village; I love y’all so much and I cannot thank you all enough for holding me down.

For where to find me, you all can catch me live on Twitch and find my sillier content on TikTok and Twitter!

And that’s a wrap! Another fine Community Focus in the books sharing a deeper look into the lives of the players that make Destiny what it is today. You all inspire us daily, push us to do better, celebrate with us through the good times, and are there with us through difficult times. We hope that we can reflect back just a little bit of Light you all give to us. Keep shining bright, every single one of you is nothing short of incredible.

Until next time, Guardians!

“I should go,”

Hippy

Posted on May 12, 2022 by — Leave a comment

This Week at Bungie – 5/12/2022

This week at Bungie, we think it’s time we talk about Iron Banner, check out the new PvP Map, and introduce the Cosplay Cosmodrome. Trust us, it’s really cool.

Lord Saladin continues to show why he has the mettle to inspire the likes of people like Zavala. His inner strength has once more become a vital part of the evolving Destiny 2 narrative, and the team thought that it was high time that his Iron Banner event reflected his resurgence in the story. That, and Rift is back, baby, alongside a brand-new map! We also have a nifty new initiative we’re calling Cosplay Cosmodrome, and an update from our specialist team that has been digging deep into the perplexing world of… emails.

But first, Iron Banner.

Season 17 is just over the horizon, and we’ve talked extensively about weapon changes, Gambit tweaks, and more. With the events of Season of the Risen showing Lord Saladin in a new role, it seems fitting that there be a few changes to Iron Banner as well. Here to talk about what’s next, including the return of Rift and core philosophies that surround modes like Iron Banner, is Bungie’s own Principal Designer Alan Blaine.

Alan: Hey there! So, funny story. When we were looking for the first thing for the newly formed Rituals team to focus on and make an impact, we had originally aimed at refreshing Iron Banner. Then, the first Häkke Casino weekend happened, and we pivoted to Trials of Osiris and started on what would become the Season of the Lost revamp. Nine months later, and here we are – back at Iron Banner!

Iron Banner is a celebration of PvP for everyone. We want people playing every day, playing with their friends, wearing their flaming Iron Banner armor, and using Iron Banner weapons. When you land in the Tower, we want it to feel different and special – same as all of our annual events like The Dawning or Festival of the Lost.

Iron Banner is one of our core entry points for adding new and different ideas into the Crucible. We love the Hunt aspect of Control, even if it has snowballing issues. What if we did the same thing with other modes, what about if we add new modes?

Lower the barriers and widen the funnel for players. Everyone should be able to play Iron Banner and access the core reward paths – New Lights and Destiny 1 alpha veterans alike. We want core rewards that are focused on team play and participation, not just winning matches and skillful play. Those should accelerate rewards rather than lock them off.

Without further ado, here’s what’s up next. Picture this: when you first land in the Tower in Season 17 for Iron Banner, you’ll notice something new – what’s that music? (Oh my god! It’s Bracus Forge!) Upon landing, you will see players clustered up around the area where Eva Levante (a.k.a. Space Grandma) usually stands. But, instead of the usual festive decorations, it’s all smoke and fire. Guardians gather around in all manner of flaming armor, and in the middle stands Lord Saladin, now known as Bracus Forge.

Power level in PvP has always been confusing to new players, and it’s quite different than the normal Crucible. We want to open the mode to more players, so Power level is now disabled in Iron Banner. To clarify, Power level will still be active in Trials of Osiris as the PvP endgame mode.

We also know that having Iron Banner be Control for the last few years has grown a little stale for some, so for Season 17, we are bringing back an old favorite: Rift. More on the mode itself later in the TWAB, but our intention is to switch out the Iron Banner mode every Season. Sometimes it might be a brand new or returning mode, sometimes it might be an interesting twist on an existing mode.

Earning Rewards: Iron Banner tokens will be removed starting in Season 17 and those will be replaced by a similar ranking system likened to Saint-14 and Shaxx. Earn Iron Engrams while ranking up and unlock cosmetic rewards and materials for your time playing. But it’s not just the reward track that’s changing, Saladin is also getting a full focusing implementation, as well. Players will be able to convert Iron Engrams into any current Iron Banner weapons or armor set that have been earned previously, for a cost with in-game materials. In future Seasons, we will be looking at adding more, including legacy Iron Banner gear and cosmetics.

To break it down simply, here is how the revamped Iron Banner reputation will work:

Play matches with each match earning more towards Iron Banner reputation.

Win matches to earn a small bonus based on your current Iron Banner rank.

Wear Iron Banner armor (or just as ornaments on your own non-Iron Banner gear) and equip Iron Banner weapons to max out your gear multiplier at 200%.

Five total pieces must be equipped, though please remember this includes Iron Banner armor and Iron Banner ornaments.

Complete the daily Iron Banner challenges to tack on 100% to your challenge multiplier for the rest of the week.

Yes, this means for each challenge.

Use an Iron Banner emblem for an additional 10% emblem multiplier.

All modifiers will be listed on the launch screen, seen below:

Daily challenges: For the first four days of each Iron Banner week, Guardians will unlock a new daily challenge. These challenges unlock each day whether you complete them or not, so if you log in on Friday, you can do them all in succession if you want to. Rewards will also stack reputation bonuses for the remainder of the week alongside a Pinnacle Iron Engram. The weekly bounties that typically award Pinnacles have been deprecated appropriately to balance out this change.

Becoming an Iron Lord: It’s not easy being cheesy or an Iron Lord, so there should be something a little extra spicy to reflect that hard work. With these new Iron Banner reworkings, a new Seal and title will also be available to earn. Don’t expect this one to be simple or an “easy grab.” Being an Iron Lord is no joke; it requires dedication, gumption, and some spiffy gear. To set expectations for this new Seal and title, Iron Lord hopefuls can expect to spend around 15 to 20 hours to unlock this flair. Some of the more hardcore players could unlock this in one week if focused, but we expect most players to need a second week – maybe even a second Season. Intrepid Iron Lords will be able to gild the title in Season 18.

Becoming a Young Wolf: “New quest, who dis?” For anyone that may be scratching their head at some of these changes, Lord Saladin will offer a brand-new quest that will introduce all of these features and demonstrate how they work. You only have to run through it once per account, but with this reset we wanted everyone to get the same introduction, even Iron Banner veterans will need to do this. In fact, you’ll need to start this quest to even access the Iron Banner node.

To even out this change and to welcome the new quest, we will no longer be producing the Seasonal Iron Banner quest. Which brings us to our next point:

Saladin hangs his “out to lunch, be back in 15 minutes” sign: Due to his increased responsibilities on Caiatl’s war council, he now runs Iron Banner in the Tower just twice a Season. Because Iron Banner will be more in-line with those annual events, you’ll never see Iron Banner run during those annual festivities. For Season 17, Iron Banner will run during these times:

Week 2 starts on May 31.

Week 8 starts on July 12.

Rift is back: If you’re like us, Rift has a very special place in that PvP-playing heart of yours. We’re excited to bring back this staple, but for those that may be new to what this is, here’s what you need to know. Rift is an objective-based Crucible mode that plays more like a game of soccer or rugby (but with pew-pew weapons and no passing) than it does Clash. Teams of Guardians will attempt to take the Spark from the middle of the map into the base of the enemy team and dunk it into the enemy Rift. One dunk equals one point, the first to make it to five points or to have the upper hand by the 10-minute mark wins.

A Spark appears in the center of the map a few seconds after a match starts or a point is scored and can be picked up by interacting with it for a couple seconds. The Spark itself is a buff that allows full weapon and ability usage aside from Super.

For the first five seconds after picking up the Spark, or for a few seconds after taking damage, both teams receive a waypoint for the Spark holder. After that, the waypoint only remains for the Spark holder’s own team—marking the Spark holder for your teammates is important!

If you die while carrying the Spark, it drops to the ground where you died (or nearby if the spot is not navigable).

If you hold onto the Spark too long, it detonates.

Team resurrections are enabled in Rift, so make sure and help your teammates in the middle of a push, or if you are playing defense.

There are no points for kills, just for Spark dunks, so playing the objective is key.

When Rift is in Iron Banner, the Hunt is on when your team has the Spark. When the music intensifies, it’s time to score!

There are several ways to extend matches past the time limit:

Continuation: At end of regulation time, If the current Spark holder could change the outcome of the match—either the game is tied, or if the current Spark holder is down one point—the match continues until the current Spark holder drops the Spark or scores.

Sudden Death Multispark: If there is a tie after time is up, the game enters a 90-second overtime where three sparks spawn in midfield. Who will be the first to score? Chaos reigns.

After the sudden-death timer is up, Sparks stop dropping on death, and any Sparks on the ground are removed. As soon as the last Spark is eliminated without a score, the match ends in a tie.

We have had a ridiculous amount of fun testing and tuning the mode internally; it plays so very differently than anything we have in the Crucible right now. It is available during the two weeks of Iron Banner during Season 17. It will be available as a rotator in the main Crucible playlists in Season 18.

Did someone say “new map”? In addition to Rift’s triumphant return, we also created a brand-new map specifically designed for this game made. It is one of our largest maps yet, but features areas that are made for different combat styles, particularly short, mid, and long-range combat.



The map is called Disjunction and is a symmetric map with a base on either end, three lanes with plenty of crossovers, and large backfields. It takes place in the swampy Pyramid area of Savathûn’s Throne World, so expect lots of many-butted horses, transparent brown glass, and art deco designs.

Disjunction will be available on day-one of Season 17 for all 6v6, 3v3, and Free -for -All modes in Crucible, as well as in Iron Banner.

Other Crucible changes: Season 17 is also bringing back Zone Control to Crucible. Zone Control, for anyone that might not be familiar, is a 6v6 mode like Control, only that Guardians don’t get any points for kills. This is intentional, because sometimes matching with random players can result in disjointed team play that can obscure objective focus. To keep all eyes on the objective, players will get points every 15 seconds for every zone that is in their control – so it is very much more diving into a defensive area control game that will allow players to highlight various skill and abilities, rather than just focusing on landing that headshot.

Each waypoint has a timer that shows when points are being awarded in addition to which team currently owns it.

Because this is a team effort mode, solo capping takes 22.5 seconds versus having a full fireteam playing together can cap a zone in 7.5 seconds. “Stronger together” isn’t just said because we like Saladin’s voice actor.

Cap all zones and dramatic music will intensify. Spooky.

Like with everything in the game, we’re always looking for feedback, especially as we continue making tweaks to the PvP experience. Zone Control will be launched via a new Crucible Labs node starting in Week 5 (June 21) and will be available until the end of the Season with the exception of when Iron Banner is live. Hit us with that feedback but just remember: stay together.

In addition to what’s new, we are also making some tuning changes to various existing Crucible modes:

Control

Team gains 1 point per participant when capturing a zone, rather than 1 flat point.

This is how it was in Destiny 1.

Elimination

Time limit is lowered to 90 seconds to match Trials of Osiris.

Mayhem

Points for Super kills increased to 3 (previously 2).

Increased score target to 200 (previously 150).

Decreased time limit to 7 minutes (previously 8).

Rumble

Increased time limit to 10 minutes (was 8).

Showdown

Increased round score targets to 15 (was 10).

There are just a few more things. Still with me? Good. Onto Gambit.

Gambit Reputation: With the updates to the Gambit mode with the launch of The Witch Queen, Gambit matches are taking about 60 seconds longer per match than the Beyond Light version (while still being a few minutes shorter than either Forsaken-era Gambit or Gambit Prime). We also noticed that the Gambit reputation-gain rate has dropped behind both Crucible and Vanguard, so we wanted to make some adjustments to bring Gambit back in line after making a similar set of adjustments for Vanguard at the start of Season 16:

We increased the base reputation gain for a match to 75, up from 50.

We increased the value of each streak to 20 per streak, up from 15.

This increases the top-end reputation gain (a win on a 5-streak during Mythic/Legend ranks) to 250 a match (up from 200), and on the low end (a loss with no streak) to 75 (from 50). Overall, gains should be around 25% faster just from this change.

Ritual Reputation Streak balancing: Speaking of streaks, we have been listening to your feedback on the activity streak system that has been used for the last two Seasons and we’ve made a few adjustments for the Seasons ahead.

The activity streak now takes the sum of streak values across the four reputations (Crucible/Gambit/strikes/Dares) and adjusts them to a maximum of 5 total. If you complete a match that would bring the sum of these over 5, it subtracts a point from the streak of every ritual besides the one you just played. Most importantly, entering any non-ritual activity has no effect.

An example:

You play 5 Crucible matches. You have an activity streak value of Crucible: 5.

You play a Gambit match. You now have Gambit: 1, Crucible: 4.

You play 2 more Gambit matches. You now have Gambit: 3, Crucible: 2.

You play 1 strike. You now have Vanguard: 1, Gambit: 2, Crucible: 1.

You play another strike. You now have Vanguard: 2, Gambit: 2, Crucible: 1.

Grandmaster Rejoin: Lastly, we have some exciting news for all those Conquerors with bad connections. Starting in Season 17, if you get error-coded out of a non-matchmade Nightfall (any level), you will now rejoin after login. While in this state, you won’t be able to change builds or equipment in the game, the app, or on any third-party websites.

We want to keep players in the loop when there are any changes to Eververse, both big and small. . In Season 17, Bright Dust acquisition from bounties and challenges will be the same as Season 16, but we are adding a voluntary option for rank purchases.

Much like in Season 16, rank purchasing will be available starting in week three. In addition, we will be offering a new rank package that includes 10 Season ranks that you can purchase only once a Season. Available in the Eververse Seasons tab on the first day of S17, there will be the option of the Season Pass plus 10 ranks for 2000 Silver, or a standalone option of 10 Season ranks for 1000 Silver if you already own the Season. Whichever option you go with, the 10 ranks can only be purchased once per account each season.

If you’ve been following our Community Focuses recently, you may have noticed an increased excitement over the art of cosplay. We’ve got an immensely talented community here surrounding Destiny 2, so we wanted to celebrate some crafty individuals from all over the world. This brings us to our latest community tip of the hat: Cosplay Cosmodrome.

“But Hippy, what is Cosplay Cosmodrome?” Glad you asked, dear reader! Cosplay Cosmodrome will see nine talented cosplayers showing off their skills as they attempt to put their own creative spin on Moth Mom. Oh, sorry, I meant Savathûn. Their own creative spin on Savathûn. Moving on…

Ready to meet a different kind of The Nine? You can learn more about our nine Sava-hopefuls in our full blog post right here before the final reveal during this year’s Bungie Day, which takes place on July 7, 2022.

Something we’ve talked a little bit about during previous TWABs is the haunting case of missing emails. The team has been working hard on investigating what is blocking so many from getting the emails they want from Bungie, despite troubleshooting steps being taken and fun surveys to be had. While we don’t have all of the answers yet, we do have an update on the team’s findings surrounding these illusive pieces of digital information. We’ve got some good news and some in-progress news, take it away CRM team!

CRM: Since Bungie newsletter emails have become more personalized with stats players are sharing on social media, we have seen a high number of issues from players who aren’t receiving our newsletters. While we fixed some accounts in late February, we have seen that many players still are having issues. We have concluded that most players are affected due to unsubscribing at one point in time and then resubscribing later. Due to a current technical issue, those players are still considered unsubscribed. We are implementing a small update this week that we hope will help.

If you’re subscribed, you’ve played since 5/3, and don’t get this week’s #GuardianGamesMoments email, we request that you follow these two steps to help us identify the issue:

In your Bungie.net Account Settings, under the Email and SMS section, uncheck the first box and hit Save Settings.
Immediately after saving, check the first box, save, and verify.

We understand this is not an ideal process, but this will help us to find a fix. We are excited to bring more Destiny 2 moments and memories to your inbox. Please stay tuned to Bungie Help on Twitter for updates regarding this issue.

DPS Team still officially endorses Warlocks, we’re totally not biased.

The final Iron Banner of the Season is here, so our handy-dandy Player Support team is offering a friendly reminder to turn in those tokens! More than a reminder, the latest weekly breakdown covers known issues like that pesky Heavy Handed mod not working on unique Exotic weapons, missing textures, and more. The unsung heroes of Destiny 2 are here once more with new findings.

This is their report.

GUARDIAN GAMES

Players who encounter issues when participating in Guardian Games should report to our #Help Forum with a description of the issue, where it occurred, and provide videos or screenshots when available.

IRON BANNER TOKENS

The last Iron Banner of Season 16 ends at the weekly reset on May17. With the start of Season 17, any Iron Banner tokens that are in a player’s inventory will be deprecated and no longer available to exchange for Iron Banner gear. Players should exchange their Iron Banner tokens at Lord Saladin in the Tower prior to the weekly reset at 10 AM on May 17.

ETHERIC SPIRAL DEPRECATION

With the start of Season 17, Etheric Spirals will be deprecated and no longer available to exchange for other materials or currencies. Players should exchange their Etheric Spirals at the Cryptarch in the Tower prior to the launch of Season 17 at 10 AM, May 24.

VENDOR REWARD RESET

As a reminder, all vendor ranks will reset with the start of Season 17. Players should claim any vendor rank rewards before they are reset with the launch of Season 17 at 10 AM, May 24.

KNOWN ISSUES

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

The Cunning of the Contender Warlock robes displays a different texture in the armor preview than it does when equipped.
The Way of the Glaive bounty only progresses when using Deepsight weapons.
The Heavy Handed Mod doesn’t work with unique Exotic weapons.
The Father’s Sins Sniper Rifle is missing some textures at the end of the weapon when viewing in first person.
Players can’t perform a finisher for a certain amount of time if they use their Super and have a mod equipped that consumes Super energy.

Movies, you love to make them, we love to see them. With Guardian Games in full swing, we’re all about that friendly rivalry. Keyword: friendly. But let’s be real, we all know Titans are the best. Kidding, kidding, space wizards and ‘ol Jumpy McJumpersons are cool too. That being said, one video was a cool little montage of the true spirit of the Games: emotes. It’s not about winning, it’s about the emoting friends we made along the way, obviously.

Our second video is another sick PvP montage but with a really neat movie-like flare. Not me crying in a corner because I’ll never be half this good, but hey – I’m no hater, either. Get on with your bad self!

Got that popcorn? Good, roll the clip!

Movie of the Week: Friendly Competition

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0mdSxEDE3A&w=560&h=315]

Movie of the Week: Deadly

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WG7KUxPID9o&w=560&h=315]

Something is happening right now with the art submissions, and it is pretty magical to see. With the launch of The Witch Queen a few months back, we are sitting in a neat spot with Guardian Games going on now and the dawn of the next Season on the horizon. I highly recommend checking out the creations page and you’ll see what I mean. But before you do that, we are showing off a beautiful Warlock (I had to—it is Guardian Games after all!) and a really cute shot of the Cabal and Eliksni hanging out in the crowd watching the Games go on.

Art of the Week: Warlock

Art of the Week: The Cabal and Eliksni Take On Guardian Games

As always, don’t forget to hit us with those #Destiny2Art, #AOTW, and #MOTW tags for a shot at being featured in a future TWAB.

New map, new ways to play some PvP action, cosplayers from all over the world showing off their love of the craft – not a bad week, if we do say so ourselves. Which we are, saying ourselves. B-because we just said it.

Anyway.

Until next week, stay hydrated, stay kind, and for the love of God, Titans, get it together. Guardian Games are live, and we can’t let the Hunters take the W this time. DMG and Cozmo rally for Hunters, Sam rallies for Warlocks, and I’m holding the bunker down for my fellow Titans. Let’s get that bag, beefy bois!

“I should go,”

<3 Hippy