Destiny 2: Season of the Witch delivers key wins for Bungie

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.

Titans have never had a hard time in  Destiny 2 , per se, but it’s been a while since they’ve felt as good as a  new Strand Aspect  makes the class feel. Season 22 debuts the Banner of War Titan, and it’s a force to be reckoned with. Not only does the Aspect lock in a constant stream of healing and buffs, but it is also almost infinitely customizable. Players can easily combine the Banner of War effects alongside their favorite Exotic weapons and armor. And, best of all, it fulfills the Titan power fantasy, encouraging Guardians to get right in the face of their enemies. 

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. 

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.

Bungie officially revealed the details for its upcoming Destiny 2 DLC The Final Shape today, the conclusion of its “Light and Darkness” saga that started all the way back in 2014. The Final Shape will debut on Feb. 27.

At the 2023 Destiny Showcase on Tuesday, Bungie announced (and launched) a brand new season of the game.

Bungie just wrapped up a showcase in which it pulled the curtain back on The Final Shape, the concluding expansion in the saga that has been running since Destiny launched way back in 2014. Last week, game director Joe Blackburn was at pains to point out that this livestream was intended to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, but when you've got developers giddily dropping lines like: «The Witness wants to use the Pale Heart of The Traveller to enact the Final Shape», I think it's fair to say that there's still quite a lot to unpick, even for veteran players like me. Having watched the showcase, here's the stuff that stood out.