It’s been quite a long time since anything in the Destiny universe has felt “fun”, but Bungie is making great progress on working to make the game just as great as it can be. Season of the Chosen is a great step in the right direction for this and is the most fun I’ve had playing Destiny in – quite honestly – years. Sure the Shadowkeep and Beyond Light expansions were fun at launch, but they got old really fast and Shadowkeep didn’t exactly innovate the game a whole lot. While we’re still in the Beyond Light expansion’s lifespan, thankfully we’re out of Season of the Hunt’s and onto greener pastures with Season of the Chosen. So why does Destiny 2 feel so good this season (outside of PvP, but that’s a whole different story). Let’s take a look at some of the improvements Bungie has made to the game in Season of the Chosen.
Strike Specific Loot
The addition of a few Nightfall specific weapons is honestly my favorite part of this season. Bungie has finally reintroduced strike specific loot (at some capacity) by introducing The Palindrome, The SWARM, and Shadow Price – all famous weapons from Destiny 1 – into Destiny 2. However, the only way you can even have a chance at obtaining these weapons is if you hop into the Nightfall: The Ordeal playlist and complete one of five levels of difficulty. You’ve got Adept, Hero, Legend, Master, and Grandmaster; the higher difficulty you play, the higher your chance of obtaining one of these legendary weapons. However, you can get an Adept version of these weapons once Grandmaster Nightfalls begin this season, but that’s not a challenge for just anyone – you’ll need to have a particular set of skills and gear in order to even get into a Grandmaster Nightfall. This entire week I’ve played Destiny 2, I have been grinding this week’s Nightfall (The Arms Dealer) for a shot at the Palindrome (so far I’ve got 7) and let me tell you, seeing that weapon drop after a completion is the reason I fell in love with Destiny in the first place. Running a challenging activity and waiting in suspense for the activity to complete to see if you’ve gotten lucky enough to be rewarded with the weapon you’ve been chasing is the exact reason that so many of us play the game. I don’t understand why it took so long for Bungie to introduce this into the game, if they had done it any earlier the game would have been infinitely more fun to play. I hope that in future seasons, Bungie implements even more of this strike/Nightfall specific gear and even expands into strike/Nightfall specific class armor as well – like the Hood of Malok for Hunters in Destiny 1. We just want something to chase for – an activity that we can target farm good loot and run it again and again, back to back, over and over, for more of them with different rolls. Please Bungie, do more of this in the future.
Characters
The characters in Season of the Chosen feel better than they’ve ever felt since the beginning of Destiny. Zavala and Osiris seem to be headlining this season, but we’ve even got more character from Amanda Holliday and Lord Saladin who, outside of Rise of Iron, has had nothing to do outside of Iron Banner. It’s great to see these characters finally getting some of the spotlight, although we still have yet to see much from Ikora Rey this season. It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from Ikora at all, which leads me to wonder what they are doing with her character behind the scenes – are they working on developing her even more, or are we soon to see the end of Ikora? My best guess is that they’re working on fleshing out her character and giving her the spotlight for The Witch Queen expansion that will be coming this Fall.
Battlegrounds
Battlegrounds is also one of the best seasonal activities that we’ve seen in Destiny 2. It’s not too short like Wrathborn Hunts, it’s not entirely too long like Vex Offensive (although I would like to be able to shave off just a few minutes, but other than that it’s solid), it’s fun, and it gives some great loot. Sure, they’re essentially just shorter strikes with the linear gameplay and straight-forward objectives, but collecting the loot at the end of a Battlegrounds completion and getting to smash open a Tribute Chest with a massive Cabal hammer? What’s not to love about that?
Overall, so far I’m happy with Season of the Chosen at least from a PvE perspective. I still hate Stasis in PvP (yes, I do use it, but only for quests and bounties!) and PvP is definitely in one of the worst states it’s ever been in, but outside of that the PvE side of Destiny 2 is looking pretty positive.
Image Credits: USgamer
