Destiny 2 Season of the Deep Review

Season of the Deep is coming to an end, which is the second season in the Lightfall expansion. So how was it for you? Today I am going to take a closer look at the latest season from Bungie, plus rate it against other seasons we’ve seen in Destiny 2.

Without further delay, let’s dive right in.

Story

Much of the story this season was focused on Sloane returning and communicating with the creature under the methane sea of Titan called Ahsa. We learned the origin of The Witness, in one of the most important cut scenes we’ve had in Destiny 2, with many calling for it to be a part of Lightfall. That was a reocurring theme this season, anytime anything good happened there were calls to put this in the Lightfall campaign, which is fair given Lightfall was an incomplete story. Sloane and Zavala had a memorable cutscene where Sloane momentarily held a sword to Zavala’s throat, in a moment where Xivu Arath appeared to be speaking through Sloane. The ‘return of Titan’ was a part of the story this season, although Titan didn’t return as a location we could explore, it was purely in specific missions. We could access parts of Titan through the H.E.L.M. but it wasn’t like the Leviathan.

Another key part of the seasonal story was Veil Containment. This appears to be Bungie’s experiment to help explain the Veil, given the audience feedback that Bungie failed to explain the Veil in the Lightfall campaign. Much of the year so far has been making up for the shortcomings of Lightfall, and the current community sentiment reflects that. Veil Containment is a location on Neomuna, where we’d load into each week and get a new recorded message. This told the story of Chioma Esi and Maya Sundaresh, with Chioma’s weekly audio logs describing losing her wife Maya to her dedication of understanding the Veil. It was revealed Lakshmi-2 was a copy of Maya, who would return to earth to lead the Future War Cult, and ultimately get killed in Season of the Splicer. Even though Veil Containment was drip fed over weeks, I enjoyed the story, even if the deliver method could have been better. It feels like once we have gotten past The Final Shape, The Vex could be our next enemy in waiting, and we may yet hear more about Maya Sundaresh.

Seasonal Activities

We had a few seasonal activities this season including the forgettable Salvage, which I hope I don’t have to do again, and the much more compelling Deep Dives. Salvage wasn’t a lot of fun, where as Deep Dives were much more engaging. Fishing was introduced to Destiny this season, which was entertaining for the first week and then quickly became a shore. Fishing was a viable way of getting loot, but even Reckoning weapons couldn’t make this activity fun.

Hidden inside Deep Dives was an exotic mission called Whetstone. We had to catch 3 exotic fish throughout the season, then go into Deep Dives and activate 3 torches to open a secret door with a timed mission to take down a very aggressive Tormentor. Wikid Implement was the exotic reward here. I actually haven’t managed to get a team together to get Wikid Implement yet, but I’ve done the mission plenty of times, getting very close on quite a few occasions. Wikid Implement is a Stasis Scout Rifle, which is getting a buff next season given Bungie was fairly conservative with it out of the gate.

Dungeon

One of the highlights of the season was the Ghosts of the Deep Dungeon. This was focused around the Lucent Hive trying to revive Oryx. Savathun did say “The Taken King would rise again… “, so that may well still come true. The Dungeon itself had many underwater sections, and replayability suffered from the health of the final boss. Other than that, very enjoyable dungeon. The story was the stand out component of the dungeon for me, which probably tells its own story. Also, not easily soloable for those wanting to go for solo challenges.

Loot

We had two sets of weapons this season; Taken themed weapons and Reckoning weapons. Spare Rations returned, and was very dissapointing. Last Rite was the ritual weapon for the season and was a reskin of a legendary scout rifle from Spire of the Watcher Dungeon a few seasons ago. The Last Wish raid weapons were made into craftable weapons, which had many players grinding that raid once again, plus Loaded question made a return as a Nightfall weapon. There’s a lot of returning weapons here, which tells me Bungie is heads down working on The Final Shape.

More Strand weapons were introduced with the new Strand rocket launcher, Crowning Duologue, the Thin Precipise Sword and the Laser Painter Linear Fusion Rifle to name a few. The Dungeon weapons were OK, nothing really to write home about. Positive Outlook was a good introduction into Vanguard Ops, but otherwise the loot this season was fairly homoganised… there are just so many weapons in Destiny 2 right now, it’s hard to stand out.

Events

Solstice was out main summer event this season. I enjoyed Solstice and this was probably the most I played in the season, having a clear set of goals for me worked really well. While the events are repetitive, I did strangely enjoy this one.

Where does this rank with other seasons?

This season is definitely in the middle somewhere. It’s not the worst season we’ve had, but it’s far from the best. Pros and cons for me are:

Pros

Dungeon
Veil containment story
Deep Dives
Exotic Mission
Solstice
Xivu Arath voice work

Cons

Lackslustre weapons
Veil containment delivery
Salvage
No Titan
Poor state of the game

Overall, I’d give it a six out of ten.

Community sentiment

Community Sentiment appears to be at an all time low. High profile players are vocal about the lack of PVP support, and many are being vocal about not supporting or preordering The Final Shape. This reflects the overall negative opinion of Ligthfall and the way that campaign unfolded, and kicking off the penultimate year of Destiny 2’s light vs darkness saga with a dud campaign sowed the seeds of discontent in the community. A lacklustre state of the game followed, which had Joe Blackburn come out and basically apologise, saying a PVP map pack is coming, plus a formation of a PVP strike team. Where was this Strike team before Joe? Oh, and he’s going to stream Destiny 2 and take feedback. Good luck to this brave man for doing that.

Personally, I’m feeling good about Destiny 2. I haven’t been playing as hard as I normally would since the release of Lightfall. One, it hasn’t been as engaging for me this year, plus I’ve been playing other games like Tears of the Kingdom, Baldur’s Gate 3, Street Fighter 6 and Diablo IV. I play Destiny 2 when I want to, and when it’s not enaging I take a break. I still enjoy nightfalls, dungeons and raids, plus the occassional PVP match.

Let me know what you think about Season of the Deep in the comments.