Destiny 2’s newest Aspect makes Titans unstoppable

Having spent a good few hours with The First Descendant on PS5 — ahead of its open beta release later this month — we're happy to report that this free-to-play shooter seems to have a solid base to build upon. Very reminiscent of Destiny in terms of structure, we didn't quite have time to dig into finer details, but the gameplay clicked almost immediately thanks to buttery smooth controls and a near constant supply of loot (even if we did end up spending a touch too much time rummaging through equipment menus).

The weekend of September 15, 2023 may well go down as the most game-breaking period in Destiny 2's long and storied history of truly MMO-grade cheese. 

Destiny 2 developer Bungie has announced plans to temporarily disable players from using crafted weapons in a bid to get on top of an in-game glitch.

Put those Tractor Cannons away, Guardians. The Crota’s End contest mode has come to a close, and players can now go back to using the full extent of their abilities and armory. The 48-hour contest mode for the returning  Destiny Raid addressed Bungie’s former promise to bring difficult content back to Destiny 2 . And it didn’t disappoint. That said, with contest mode ended, players should once again have little trouble toppling the son of Oryx.

Expect weapons to be more than just DPS machines when The Final Shape expansion launches in 2024.

Recently, my Destiny 2 clanmates and I took the healthy and responsible decision not to participate in the next raid race. The way things work in Destiny 2 is that for the first 48 hours of any new or reprised raid a modifier called 'Contest Mode' is active, during which time player power is capped 20 levels under the enemies in each encounter. Result: you deal less damage and take much more. For those who don't have a well-drilled fireteam and meta loadouts, the experience is bracing—particularly as fatigue creeps in, and the tempers of old gamers with decaying thumb skill begin to fray. 

Though the reveal of Destiny 2: The Final Shape certainly could’ve done with an extra banger or two, Bungie is now seemingly on a bit of a path toward redemption with the Destiny community after the failures of the Lightfall DLC. The studio’s hype machine for the 2024 DLC is already ramping up, though, and an all-new interview held by the Game Director, Joe Blackburn, shed additional light on next year’s grand release.

The original Destiny storyline opened following the collapse of a vast Terran civilization at the hands of an invading, amorphous Darkness and its various alien accomplices - an advance stymied only by a benevolent Big Dumb Object known as the Traveller. It cast you as an ancient warrior, resurrected by a flying robot to reclaim humankind's old dominions together with their antique, storied weapons and gear. So much of its appeal for me, back in 2014, was the mystique of that reclamation process, bolstered by alternately zany, obnoxious, fragmentary and/or intriguing writing that expanded upon the viral mythological element in Halo.

Laying out Destiny 2's long-smoldering Crucible woes, game director Joe Blackburn says the studio was at one point unsure of the viability of PvP altogether because it hadn't "seen it move the needle."

It's been two weeks since the mood music in Destiny 2 got so bad that game director Joe Blackburn took to his personal Twitter to deliver a video message addressing various community complaints and concerns. For a studio that tends to deal in lengthy blog posts, such a personal approach only underlined the perceived urgency of the situation. Ironically, the latest meltdown had been triggered by one such 'State of the Game' post, which, rather than allaying concerns, had air-dropped petrol onto them. 

Bungie appears to have done something very, very right with Destiny 2: Season of the Witch, according to the community. After a number of fumbles stemming from Lightfall‘s release onwards, it looked like the studio just couldn’t catch a break with Destiny 2. Now, thankfully, things appear to have settled down, and players seem pretty happy with Season 22’s key novelties.

By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.