Since launching over five years ago, Bungie has continued to embrace the live service model for Destiny 2, establishing the title as one of the best in this genre over that time. Seasonal updates help keep the title feeling fresh and growing while fans wait for larger experiences such as the Witch Queen expansion this past February and then again in 2023 with Lightfall. In these five years, Bungie has continued to further improve the title, expanding Destiny 2 to platforms like Steam and Epic Games, while introducing cross-play and cross-save as well.
Even with big changes on the horizon for 2023, Destiny 2 continued to see rapid and important changes all this year. Part of that is to ensure the game keeps feeling fresh for both new and old players, making sure that fans continue to log in and enjoy their time defending the Solar System from threats like the Hive or Vex. This year even saw the game delve a bit deeper into some heavier topics, a narrative that could continue into 2023 as it is expected that the Darkness may finally gain the upper hand over the Guardians of Light.
As is usually the case each year, Destiny 2 has continued to see major growth in 2022 through the seasonal update model, including some massive reworks to longtime systems. While some of these changes certainly caused some controversy, here are the 10 biggest changes to Destiny 2 in 2022 in no particular order.
Witch Queen Legendary Campaign
For the first time in the franchise, Bungie created a dedicated Legendary Mode for the Witch Queen campaign. As the name suggests, players who select this option are presented with a more challenging version of the expansion campaign that continues to scale based on how many players are in the fireteam. During its reveal, Bungie cited sources of inspiration for this Destiny 2 mode including the likes of DOOM, Titanfall 2, and its old franchise, Halo.
Legendary Mode became a major hit with the community, not only for the balanced challenge it provided, but also for the rewards it doled out to those who were able to overcome it. For players looking to power-level their characters, Destiny 2's Legendary Mode was a great source of progression thanks to three extra chests, powerful gear, new emblems, triumphs, and much more. The mode became such a hit with fans that Bungie has already announced that the Lightfall expansion will have its own Legendary campaign as well.
New and Old Raids: Vow of the Disciple and King's Fall
Raids are a big part of the Destiny 2 experience for many, and in 2022, Bungie was able to add two more for players to check out. Vow of the Disciple launched inside of the Witch Queen expansion, tasking players with exploring a sunken Pyramid ship deep in Savathun's Throne World where a Disciple of the Witness threatens to seal the light using a doomsday device. As with more Raid-style experiences, Vow introduced a number of challenging elements through puzzle-solving mixed with traditional combat against enemies like Rhulk, who quickly went on to become a fan favorite thanks to the combat encounter and his kicking melee attack.
Later in 2022, King's Fall made its Destiny 2 debut, being brought back from Destiny: The Taken King. The raid is largely the same as longtime players remember it, complete with the massive Oryx fight at the end. However, for this new version, Bungie also managed to add a couple of new elements including taking a popular Destiny Easter egg and making it a reality on Oryx's basketball court.
For players who enjoy the loot chase, both Raids also introduced many new and exclusive weapons to obtain like Insidious, Deliverance, and Zaouli's Bane, as well as exotics like Collective Obligation, Touch of Malice, and Lubrae's Ruin. Bungie even opted to ease in players who perhaps weren't too familiar with Raids by adding a weekly mission known as Preservation, which took players into the Vow raid zone for a much shorter mission that introduced a few raid-like concepts.
Light Subclass Reworks
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By the end of 2021, fans were well aware of how outdated the 3 Light subclasses felt compared to the more customizable Stasis. Thankfully, Bungie was in agreement, and throughout 2022, the studio released reworked versions of Solar, Arc, and Void subclasses. Each class moved to the Fragments and Aspects system that Stasis enjoyed, while also gaining new effects like Radiant, Scorch, Weaken, Jolt, and more. This new system allowed players to get more creative with their choices, even gaining access to jumps and grenades their class normally wouldn't.
Weapons also received new traits that synchronized nicely with the reworked subclasses and their new abilities, many of which became popular with fans. Incandescent paired nicely with Solar subclasses for quickly applying scorch and eventually causing Ignite to happen faster. Repulsor Brace is a Void-specific trait that granted the player an Overshield after killing an enemy impacted by a Void debuff. Finally, Arc players got familiar with Voltshot which jolted a target after reloading the weapon following an enemy kill.
Weapon Crafting
With the announcement of weapon crafting, Bungie was essentially handing the keys to the weapon kingdom to players. The new feature, introduced as The Relic on Mars with the Witch Queen expansion, wasn't perfect out of the gate, bloating the resource system with even more items to keep track of. Thankfully, the system has continued to receive tweaks to smooth out the experience, with even more Crafting changes coming soon to further improve the feature.
Still, weapon crafting has continued to grow since it arrived back in February, allowing players to create their own versions of various weapons that they've unlocked through Deepsight Weapon patterns. As players level their crafted weapons, they gain access to more perks and enhanced versions as well. Some players have even managed to create their own god roll weapons through crafting, saving time and effort hunting for randomized drops out in the world.
Duality Dungeon
Dungeons in Destiny 2 offer some of the more unique experiences in a shorter package than the lengthier Raids. While there aren't a ton of dungeons in the game at the moment, 2022 saw the addition of a new one during the Season of the Haunted known as Duality. Eris Morn sent players into the Mindscape of Calus, the former Cabal Emperor, to steal knowledge, but ultimately found his consciousness overridden with nightmares.
From a lore perspective, fans can get some interesting insight into Calus including his plans for the Traveler and his relationship with the upcoming Witness. In addition to earning some great loot like the Heartshadow exotic sword, fans particularly enjoyed the overall gameplay mechanics, even if it does come across as one of the more challenging dungeon experiences. With interesting boss fight mechanics against some surprising enemies as well as shifting perspectives through glowing devices known as Bells, players were pushed to always stay on their toes or risk seeing the Game Over screen.
Epic Games Store Arrival
One of the most anticipated moments in 2022 for Destiny 2 players was the Digital Showcase event, where Bungie fully revealed the upcoming Lightfall expansion as well as the newest subclass known as Strand. However, the Showcase also contained more than a few surprises including the announcement that Destiny 2 was launching then and there on the Epic Games Store, giving PC players another option in addition to Steam.
As part of the celebration, players who downloaded Destiny 2 on Epic Games Store also got a number of bonuses including a free download of the fan-favorite Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack. However, that wasn't all as the announcement also confirmed previous rumors that Destiny 2 was collaborating with Fortnite and Fall Guys. As part of the announcement, Fortnite would be getting skins based on characters The Stranger, Zavala, and Ikora, while Destiny 2 would be getting Fortnite-specific subclass armor such as Drift, Black Knight, and Omega. Fall Guys even got skins of Titan, Hunter, and Warlock subclasses.
Bungie No Longer Sunsetting Expansions
Sunsetting has continued to be a hot-button issue for fans of Destiny 2. With Beyond Light, Bungie essentially retired a ton of legacy content including classic destinations like Mars and Io, as well as campaigns including Red War. Things continued to get worse for fans when the popular Forsaken expansion and Tangled Shore destination were also vaulted, leaving fans worried about the long-term future of the game.
Thankfully, Bungie put a lot of those fears to rest during its Destiny 2 Lightfall Showcase when General Manager Justin Truman confirmed that thanks to game engine improvements, no more expansions will be sunset. New and returning players will be able to play older content for years to come including the Dreaming City and Shadowfall, which currently represent some of the oldest content still in the game. Better yet, Bungie has slowly been repurposing legacy content in new ways, so it stands to reason that some currently vaulted content will be coming back in some form down the road.
New PvP Mode Eruption
For many fans, the popular PvP Crucible has been feeling a bit stale as content for this has certainly been dry over the past couple of years. While Bungie has promised more Crucible content in the coming seasons, Season 18 finally gave PvP fans something new. Iron Banner switched up its usual Control and Rift versions to give fans a brand new game mode called Eruption. At its core, Eruption is a team deathmatch style mode, though as players earn kills without dying, they start to glow and earn faster regeneration rates for their Super and abilities. In addition to earning more points, players become "Primed" at a kill streak of 5 which not only rapidly increases regeneration rates, but also adds a detonation timer that is reset after every kill; otherwise, the player explodes ending their streak.
This mode quickly became popular with players for its more frantic and fast gameplay style, providing a similar yet different experience to Mayhem. It also gave players who may not be as proficient in PvP combat a chance as primed teammates also extended the benefits to the entire team. While fans enjoyed the change of pace, it was unfortunately locked to Iron Banner, which meant it was only available for 2 weeks out of the entire season.
Season of the Haunted Story
Many characters currently in Destiny 2 have been around since the very beginning including the likes of Commander Zavala and Ikora Rey. However, for most of that time, their backstories were buried behind lore or teased through the flavor text of gear. For players that wanted more, Season of the Haunted aimed to do just that by taking the former Dark Prince turned Crow, Commander Zavala, and Cabal Empress Caiatl through an emotional story arc.
With the return of Calus and his corrupted Leviathan, players would experience these Destiny 2 NPC's struggle with their own personal traumas, made manifest through literal Nightmares. Throughout the seasonal Sever missions, players helped liberate them of their grief, self-doubt, and rage. These missions, not only important for players going through similar bouts of mental trauma, gave all fans a deeper look at some of these characters including the always stoic Zavala, who received a cinematic showcasing his life as a father and husband, ultimately losing them in the years between and feeling guilt over it.
Raid and Dungeon Weekly Rotation Farming
Season 17 attempted to give players more ways to earn great gear outside of the normal playlists. That answer was to add a weekly featured Raid and Dungeon playlist, which placed the spotlight on a particular experience that also granted a Pinnacle Reward for completing the weekly challenge. The nice side effect of this change is that it made Dungeon and Raid gear and weapons available for targeted farming each week. The added bonus of a new pinnacle reward also gave players another reason to revisit legacy content like Last Wish, Shattered Throne, and more.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
