Highlights

  • The Final Shape, Destiny 2's upcoming expansion, needs to change the current design of the seasonal artifact to prevent the meta from becoming stale and limit player options.
  • The current approach to seasonal artifact mods focuses on a few elements, leaving others neglected and less powerful, which hampers buildcrafting and limits replayability.
  • Destiny 2 should either remove the seasonal artifact or introduce mods for every subclass, or even go back to weapon-based perks, to improve buildcrafting and player retention.

Destiny 2's Lightfall may have been designed as a "bridge" expansion, in the sense that it wasn't meant to be the end of the Light and Darkness saga just yet, but it also came with a new subclass and interesting seasons. On the other hand, The Final Shape has a lot riding on its shoulders precisely because it is supposed to be the epic conclusion of a 10-year saga, but also the start of a new chapter that has enough juice to keep players engaged for another year before a new saga begins. With Destiny 2's seasons being replaced with episodes, it's apparent that The Final Shape will be a huge change - and if this is the case, then one seasonal artifact feature has to go.

One of the fun parts of new releases in Destiny 2 has become buildcrafting, as players get plenty of new options to get creative with builds and tackle more and more content with their favorite ones. This often takes the form of Bungie introducing new Exotics for each class with new seasons, but also just regular Exotic overhauls in Season of the Wish and other releases where new armor pieces were not included. However, a big part of the meta shake-up in Destiny 2 seasons is often the seasonal artifact, which features several mods for players to choose from.

destiny 2 season of the wish seasonal mod dragon's breath breaking shields elements light darkness hard light
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One Destiny 2 Season of the Wish Mod Should Become a New Feature With The Final Shape

Destiny 2 is adding a few new mods with Season of the Wish, and one of them brings an interesting concept that should become a permanent feature.

Destiny 2's Final Shape Episodes Need New Seasonal Mods

The Problem With Destiny 2's Seasonal Artifact

The current approach to designing seasonal artifact mods in Destiny 2 is to pick a few elements and focus on those to get strong, game-shaping mods that influence buildcrafting heavily, but feature nothing impactful for the remaining ones. This has been the trend for a while now, whereas in the past seasonal mods were more attached to specific gun families rather than subclasses - and this is something that should change with The Final Shape.

Why Destiny 2's Seasonal Mods Need a Big Change

There are a few reasons why Destiny 2's The Final Shape should move away from the current design of the seasonal artifact, assuming it stays as a gimmick with the new upcoming episodes. One of the biggest reasons is that episodes will now last for four months instead of three like for most seasons, which means the meta will either change more slowly or Bungie will have to introduce middle-episode patches every two months, which seems very unlikely. As a result, having four-month releases will make the meta more stale in the long run if players have to focus on two or three elements at a time instead of all five.

This approach also comes with another big issue, which is that the seasonal artifact mods typically dictate what's good in a given season and what isn't. The fact that, for example, Season of the Wish has mods for Solar, Strand, and Stasis but nothing for Arc and Void doesn't mean that players can't or shouldn't use builds for the neglected elements, but it does make them inherently less powerful and desirable for at least three months. Those who would like to run Arc or Void builds now should instead hope that the first episode for The Final Shape features mods for those elements, and in this very specific case, mods won't change for over six months.

Destiny 2's seasonal artifact should either be removed entirely, with a new gimmick taking its place, or Bungie should start placing mods in it for every subclass. Another option would be to go back to weapon-based perks, instead.

This approach would help a great deal with buildcrafting in Destiny 2. The seasonal artifact would no longer hamper some builds and enhance a select few, but it could be accessible and interesting to use for all builds and all subclasses, which would in turn help with the game's replayability in longer releases as well as player retention, as they would have more options to try before the episode ends.