Season of the Lost First Impressions in Destiny 2
Season of the Lost has kicked off in Destiny 2, and this acts as the prelude to The Witch Queen, Destiny 2’s big new expansion coming in February 2022. There’s a whole bunch of new stuff this season, plus some fine-tuning of weapons, abilities, subclasses, and more. Today I’m going to get into my first impressions of Season of the Lost, so if you’re on the fence about jumping in, this will give you all the info you need to know.
Season of the Lost continues on the great trajectory if narrative story content we’ve had from Bungie since Beyond Light dropped in November last year. We’ve had Season of The Hunt, with the former Prince Uldren (now a Guardian named Crow) brought back into the fold via Osiris. Osiris himself lost his ghost at the hands of Xivu Arath, one of the Hive Gods along with her Sister Savathun. In Season of the Hunt, we were working to free Crow from the clutches of Spider, the mob boss style black market trader who hangs out on the Tangled Shore.
Next was Season of the Chosen where we struck a truce with the Cabal Empress Caital, however not all members of the Vanguard agreed, in particular Lord Saladin. Divisions were being sown among the Vanguard, seemingly coming from Osiris. That continued in Season of the Splicer, where we truck another alliance with a former enemy in the Eliksni, in particular a familiar foe called Mithrax – Leader of House Light to try and solve the mystery of The Endless Night. It turned out Quria, a Vex Hyrda was at the heart of it, spurred on by The Witch Queen Savathun, who somehow had been lurking in the Last City and sowing seeds of discontent through persuasion and misdirection. Classic Savathun. The Eliskni coming to the Last City was the final straw for the factions, rebelling against the Vanguard openly across the airwaves. Osiris was acting increasingly strange as the season went on, but we’d soon find out why.
That brings up the opening act of Season of the Lost. Mara Sov lived up to her promise and returned from wherever she’s been (most likely drawing up plans for how to stop The Darkness). We open the Season with Saint-14, Crow, and The Guardian wanting to bring Osiris in for a chat, given his role in the Vex attack on the Last City at the end of last season. Osiris is standing with Mara Sov, however, Savathun reveals herself to have been Osiris in disguise since the start of Beyond Light. Everything was her – bringing Crow into the Last City, the alliance with the Cabal.
Mara quickly imprisons her in a chrysalis-style prison, and Savathun is trapped in The Dreaming City. Savathun came to Mara Sov, wanting to be rid of her worm. The Hive gods have a symbiotic relationship with their worm, incessantly wanting more violence and hate, much like the murder battery scenario created on The Dreaming City. Mara has agreed to work with Savathun to rid her of her worm, given she will be vulnerable without it. Mara knows this is a dangerous game, and fully expects Savathun to double or even triple cross them, but we’re on board none the less and we’re sent out to help find Mara’s Tech WIcthes to help Mara achieve her task.
The narrative this season has had a strong start. Bungie has been slowly building this one for years and we’ve finally had the Savathun reveal. What’s interesting about the storyline at the moment is the two Hive Gods are not aligned, and now Xivu Arath appears to be hunting Savathun. The Taken have abandoned Savathun and fallen under the command of Xivu, as have The Scorn. We have the Taken and Scorn aligned, whereas the agreement between Cabal and Vanguard seems to be skating on thin ice.
Savathun reveals that Osiris isn’t dead, he’s trapped somewhere. Hopefully later this season we’ll be able to rescue him. It’s not clear if Sagira, his ghost is actually dead, or maybe she’s trapped with Osiris. There’s a harrowing lore tab in the season of the Wolftone Draw Bow from the perspective of Osiris where he’s watching Savathun disguised as himself doing everything Osiris would normally do. It sounds like Savathun has somehow ‘taken over’ Osiris as he watches interactions with Ikora, Saint-14, and others. It’s fantastic storytelling.
The story is great fun and being told week over week. As well as the story we have massive gameplay changes this season with new weapons, armor, and activities too. Astral Alignment is the new Seasonal activity that takes place in a combination of the Dreaming City and The Blind Well. It’s a 4 phase activity with some decent variety and interesting raid-lite mechanics. We’ve also had a couple of different boss encounters so far, so I’m pretty happy with what we’ve got. The Shattered Realm is another new addition where we go into a dark and Taken realm, looking for Mara Sov’s Tech Witches. This is a weekly story mission that includes puzzles, exploration, and fighting – a good combination of the best bits of Destiny 2.
One of the biggest improvements this season is that players from all platforms will be able to play with each other for the first time including PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Google Stadia. Bungie is rolling out their uniform Bungie Name system, meaning you’ll no longer have a unique identifier across platforms. PC and console players will be kept separate via matchmaking unless you are specifically opt-in via your fireteam, which should nullify some of the mouse and keyboard advantages PC players have. There were a few bugs early in the season, but this was overcome pretty quickly.
Trials have got an overhaul, although we’re waiting for that to come back on 10th September. We have matchmaking, a new rewards system plus anti-cheat. Three-peeking will also be fixed in Trials. For Iron Banner, We have a new Pulse Rifle and a new Sidearm coming, plus the first new set of armor in years. No news yet on the mode itself being reworked, this may come later as it looks like Bungie is focusing on Trials first.
With Nightfalls we have two new weapons returning from D1 including The Comedian Shotgun and the Hothead rocket launcher. Next season a pair of weapons will be on rotation, rather than a single weapon each week. For Grandmaster Nightfalls, all will be available at the launch of the mode someway into the season, rather than the last few weeks. Once you complete a GM, it’ll be no longer available in the rotation.
Weapon buffs and nerfs
Scout Rifles, Hand Cannons, and Machine Guns are getting a buff in PVE.
Anarchy is getting a nerf.
Fusion Rifles are getting a rework.
Breach Grenade launchers & Special Ammo are getting a nerf in PVP.
Exotic Primary weapons are getting a buff in PVE so they are more viable choices in endgame content.
Legendary Stasis weapons have been introduced.
Fusion Rifled and Linear Fusion Rifles are the meta this season, thanks to the new mod Particle Deconstruction. This seems even better than Breach and Clear from last season, and we’re already seeing Fusion Rifles and Linear Fusions rising to the top of the charts in PVE for damage in Raids. I’d never thought I’d see the day this was going to happen, but it has. Bungie also released a nice new Exotic Linear Fusion to go with it called Lorentz Driver.
As well as the Fusion and Linear Fusion meta we also have something new for Hunters and that’s the combo of Lucky Pants and any hand cannon. Last Word and Crimson seem to be doing massive PVE damage, again, something I didn’t think I’d be saying. But it’s a very fun combo and hopefully, Bungie don’t nerf it too quickly.
The Prophecy Dungeon has been updated with Trials of the Nine loot, which is a nice feature given that loot has been gone since 2018 and it makes thematic sense to go back into The Dungeon.
The season is off to a strong start. We have plenty more coming in terms of events too like Festival of the Lost, The Dawning, Moments of Triumph, Bungie’s 30th anniversary, and an Exotic Quest. Witch Queen is up next and although we know little bits about our destination, I’m excited to see the route Bungie takes us to get there.