SO. Beyond Light. This year’s big autumn expansion will launch September 22nd. It will introduce the new area of Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter. There we’ll find an ancient facility of Clovis Bray, where the morally dubious megacorp created the Exos, Destiny 2’s race of robopeople. Darkness, Exos, mysterious Clovis Bray connections? This calls for a group of superfriends: Eris Morn, the Drifter, and the ‘Exo Stranger’ not seen since the first game (the “I don’t even have time to explain why I don’t have time to explain” lady). The expansion’s story revolves around Eramis, who has united the scattered houses of the Fallen as the Kell of Darkness. “Abandoned by the Traveler and left by the Light, Eramis is on her own journey into the Darkness, and towards a collision course with Guardians,” Bungie say. We’ll dabble in Darkness too. We’ll get a new subclass, Stasis, which Bungie say is Stasis is “rooted in Darkness”. As well as a subclass with new abilities, Stasis will be a whole new regular damage type, joining Arc, Solar, and Void. It’s no surprise we’ll get a little Dark. A lot of stories, particularly the Drifter’s, have suggested hey maybe it might be real handy to use the Darkness - if we can avoid being consumed by it. Beyond Light’s new six-player raid will venture into the Deep Stone Crypt, where Exos were made - and which no one has ever suggested was remotely pleasant. I’m well up for that. The expansion will also start Year 4, which Bungie have some long-awaited plans for. They swear blind we’ll see less FOMO-inducing content, and they’re working on a proper transmogrifcation system for fashionistas like me. Before then, Season Of Arrivals is due to start at 6pm today. Those big nasty Pyramid ships have been creeping closer since their discovery in Shadowkeep, and now one has come to casually hang out over Io, no big deal. A new seasonal public event, named Contact, will have us fight baddies it summons. The season also brings new Exotic items, new seasonal armour sets, and new weekly missions. Arrivals does also introduce a new dungeon for the season, named Prophecy. We’ll head into the spooky realm of The Nine to fight Taken, and it looks proper mint. The new Daito Foundry armour set will be earned through it, and Bungie say some old Trials Of The Nine armour is reprised for it too. Arrivals also brings the new system of ‘Focusing’ Engrams, which will let us spend seasonal currency to influence the drops in the new Umbral Engrams or legacy Engrams. Bungie went into more details on this in May. You could, they said, ultimately Focus an Umbral Engram to only contain high-stat rolls of Arrivals armour. This is all going off what Bungie have said before launch, mind. I’ll be cranking Destiny to see the full extent of everything tonight. The season started at 6pm, and the update is 3.3GB on Steam. You can buy a Season of Arrivals pass in-game for 1000 Silver (£8.49). If you bought the Deluxe Edition of Shadowkeep with its year of season passes, you already have it. More info on what’s free to everyone and what you need to pay for will be on the season page and see Update 2.9.0 patch notes for loads more changes. Looking way into the future, Bungie also announced a further two expansions: The Witch Queen for 2021 and Lightfall for 2022. The Witch Queen presumably will finally pit us against Savathûn, the Hive sister who’s pulled the strings behind events including corrupting Riven, cursing the Dreaming City, and giving Calus the cursed hat which led to the Crown Of Sorrow raid. Then Lightfall will, director Luke Smith said, “drive this all to a moment.” But while a lot of newness is coming, some of the old will need to go. Bungie have said for a while that they can’t keep adding to Destiny forever, lest it become so sprawling they can’t keep it in good nick or simply fit it on hard drives. “The fact is, the game is too large to efficiently update and maintain,” Destiny 2 general manager Mark Noseworthy said today on the stream. “We’re on track to be 115GB on PlayStation alone, and our updates to the game are huge, and we’re starting to reach the limit of our ability to patch.” They say it’s slowing development too. So they’re launching a plan named the ‘Destiny Content Vault’, where they’ll remove older, less-played content to make way for the new. But they’ll also use the Vault to bring back older content, including bits from Destiny 1. Bungie confirm in a blog post that Mars, Io, Mercury, the Leviathan, and god damn it, Titan will cycle out when Beyond Light launches. However, Destiny 1’s Cosmodrome will return as a regular destination area when Beyond Light launches, and the Vault Of Glass raid will return later in Year 4. Other areas and activities will be able to return too. Oh sure, I’ll trade Titan for VoG. It is weird that this will explicitly break and outright remove parts of the story. But if it’s a choose between this and Destiny 2 bloating so much that Bungie need to make a separate sequel, ah, yeah, this is the better option. And considering Destiny 1 never came to PC, I’m eager to see some of what I missed. I am glad to know for certain that Bungie have a years-long commitment to this game. Season Of The Worthy effectively wrapped up on Saturday with the destruction of the Almighty, Destiny 2’s first live in-game event. It was slow, but I quite liked that. Fingers crossed for some livelier live events in future. Here’s the archived stream for all of the everything today:
