solstice-2022-everything-you-need-to-know
Season of the Haunted 

Everything you need to know about the Solstice 2022 Event in Destiny 2

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This week Destiny 2’s summer event, Solstice, kicks off on July 19th. The summer bash has always been about getting great-looking new armour, but this year we’re seeing plenty of changes including the introduction of the event card, the armour upgrades have been streamlined, plus we can re-roll and focus our armour in what looks like a beta test of a new armour system that could be coming to Destiny 2 in the future. Today I am going to round up everything we know so far about Solstice in Destiny 2 including currencies, rewards, and the new Bonfire Bash mode on the EAZ.

What is Solstice 2022 event in Destiny 2?

Solstice, formerly Solstice of Heroes, is an event in Destiny 2 where we celebrate Guardians and their accomplishments over the last year. The first was held in 2018, where we defeated Ghaul in the original Red War campaign and we celebrated the Traveler. This year we’ve been busy too, defeating Savathun and the Lucent Hive, although we have the Witness and the fleet of Pyramid ships on their way…

The event introduced a new area called The European Aerial Zone, which is a custom zone on the EDZ, although it’s only available during Solstice. Previously, we’d have to kill as many bosses as possible, then earn keys to open chests for loot.

A big motivation for the event is the armour. Solstice armour is some of the best-looking armour pieces in Destiny 2, as you can apply glows related to your subclass colour (purple for void, light blue for arc, orange for solar etc). Upgrading armour in previous years was laborious, and thankfully Bungie has streamlined that process this year, plus they are giving us the chance to re-roll our armour with selectable stats through various event currencies.

Solstice starts on July 19 and will run for about a month, which gives us all plenty of time to get the armour we want for our Guardians. Season of the Haunted ends on August 23rd, so I would expect the event to run until the 16th of August, although we’ll get confirmation from Bungie on their event page soon.

Rewards

We have new armour sets, which were shown off in the most recent TWAB. There’s also the Compass Rose Shotgun, plus we have a new yet-to-be-named Hand Cannon, which looks like it’s based on the Better Devils from original Destiny 2. It’s likely to come with its own new Origin Trait, but we haven’t yet seen that.

So we have one new weapon with the hand cannon, a returning shotgun, plus the armour and all the cosmetic upgrades we’ll be able to access through the event card.

Bonfire Bash mode

The European Aerial Zone or EAZ is changing this year. Bungie says about the mode:

“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.”

Rather than hunting down bosses, it sounds like we’ll be defending bases or fires. Hopefully, this is going to switch up the event given we’ve done the same activity for the past 3 years.

The Event Card

With the Solstice event, Bungie is 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 & 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.

  • Solstice is launching with the Event Card to organize objectives and help guide players on what they can do during the event
  • The Event Card is available for free for all players.
  • View your Event Card by: Interacting with Eva Levante in the Tower. Or via the Quests tab (right next to Seasonal Challenges).
  • The Event Card consists of Event Challenges, Event Seals and titles, and Upgraded Event Card Rewards. Note the free events you know and love will remain the same, and some of the free rewards are now claimed via the Event Card (upgrade not required).
  • Completing Event Challenges earns players event-related rewards and Event Tickets.
  • Players can upgrade their Event Card for 1000 Silver to unlock: An instant claimable reward bundle. The ability to spend Event Tickets for more rewards.
  • Not sure you’ll earn enough Event Tickets? No problem—Tickets are earned even if you haven’t upgraded your card, and the Event Card can be upgraded any time while the event is active. Note Event Tickets must be spent before Solstice ends on August 9!
  • Upgraded Event Card rewards will be exclusively obtained through their event in the year they launch but could be added to the Eververse store in the future.

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

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.

Here is a quick look at a few rewards that are instantly unlocked from the Upgraded Event Card.

  • Hot Dog Eating Champ
  • Sunny Exotic Ghost Shell

How armour upgrades work in Solstice 2022

We wanted to change the way you earn and upgrade armour with this update to Solstice. As part of that, we removed those pesky objectives from the armour and streamlined the upgrade process for all classes.

Here are some of our goals:

  • Focus on actively upgrading armour the entire event through new player actions.
  • Provide agency and choice with how you upgrade your armour.
  • Give players a chance to reasonably chase armour rolls for the duration of the event.
  • Tie together acquiring and upgrading armour with the theme of Solstice.
  • Lower the barrier to entry for players who haven’t engaged with armour stats.

If you’ve ever wanted to chase down specific armour rolls, Solstice is your time to shine! Want a 100 Resilience build? You got it. Need a new armour set for Nightfalls, Crucible, and Gambit? We’ve got you covered. And with a little luck, maybe you’ll get the god-roll you’ve been waiting for!

Upgrading your Solstice armour requires finding and spending new event currencies.

Silver Leaves

  • Earn Silver Leaves by completing activities throughout the game.

Silver Ash

  • Transform Silver Leaves into Silver Ash by completing the new activity: Bonfire Bash.
  • Spend Silver Ash to reroll armour stats from the armour mod screen.

Kindling

  • Earn Kindling by completing Solstice Event Challenges.
    Spend Kindling to upgrade your armour stat roll potential, each piece of armour can be upgraded three times (three tiers).
  • You only need to do this once per armour slot. Every time you upgrade a piece of Solstice armour, it is permanent and shared across all pieces for that slot. So, if you upgrade a helmet all the way to Tier 3, every Solstice helmet currently in your inventory and any future helmets you earn for that class can now access Tier 3 stat rerolls.

Here’s the breakdown:

  • Complete Event Challenges to earn Kindling.
  • Use Kindling to permanently upgrade your Solstice armour stat roll potential.
  • Complete a wide variety of activities throughout the game to earn Silver Leaves.
  • Complete the Solstice Activity, Bonfire Bash, to transform Silver Leaves into Silver Ash.
  • Use Silver Ash to reroll armour stats from the armour mod screen.
  • Keep earning and spending Silver Ash to reroll armour to get the stats you want.
  • Once you’ve fully rerolled stats on a piece of armour, pick up a new piece for the same slot to start rerolling stats again.

The new Solstice armour sets feature both free and paid glows like in previous years. And just like last year, fully upgrading a piece of armour, with kindling, will cause it to glow. Once your armour is all nice and shiny, you gain access to high-stat rolls focusing on a stat (or two) of your choice.

Let me know in the comments what you think of Solstice 2022 and the new event structure?

That’s it for this look at everything we know about Solstice 2022 in Destiny 2. For more Destiny 2 content like this check out This Week In Video Games on YouTube and subscribe today.