Destiny 2 Lightfall will feature huge seasonal changes as Bungie tackles “predictability”

Destiny 2 Lightfall will see big changes to its seasonal content as outlined in a massive State of Play article published by game director Joe Blackburn. Included are details about all the upcoming seasons over the next year.

In a blog post that weighs in at over 5000 words, Blackburn goes over the state of the live service game. This includes issues it is facing and solutions the development team is implementing, detailing information about the four seasons that will be coming throughout 2023.

Blackburn outlines that he believes seasons have become too predictable, and rigid in their structure.

They said: “It is clear that too much predictability has created a lack of surprise and delight by the time some of our major game updates get into your hands.”

Destiny 2 Lightfall’s first four seasons all get details

First off, the season that will launch alongside Lightfall is called Season of Defiance. While no story beats have been confirmed, it does suggest that Guardians will be rebuffing some kind of attack.

It’s noted in the State of Play that while this season largely missed the deadline to have broader changes to the traditional seasonal structure, it will have some quality-of-life improvements. That includes Umbral Engrams going away in favor of Seasonal Engrams (which will not be kept on your person, so your engrams won’t fill up so much). Instead, you’ll focus weapons with Glimmer and said Seasonal Engrams.

On top of that, Blackburn revealed that while it will feature a vendor upgrade path, it will require fewer upgrades compared to Witch Queen’s seasons. The upgrades will be “more potent and some upgrades even offering a variance on the way you interact with the seasonal activity”.

The second season of Lightfall also received a name, titled Season of the Deep. Again, while no story insight was offered in the post, the Deep generally refers to The Darkness and The Witness in Destiny lore.

The blog outlines that the season will start to see more of the core seasonal changes, as it’ll not feature a vendor upgrade system. The team is also trying “to create more fresh activity experiences”, like Shattered Realm in Season of the Lost and Battlegrounds in Season of the Chosen.

Further into the future

Past that, while we don’t get names, Season 22 and Season 23 have some extra details. In Season 22, it’s been confirmed that a raid will be returning, and an Exotic Mission Rotator will be added to the game, featuring Presage, Vox Obscura, and Operation: Seraph’s Shield. The Citadel Crucible map will also be returning.

Season 23 looks like it will be quite different from the regular structure of Destiny 2 as well. Blackburn notes that while there will be a new seasonal story and activity, the development team will be “dedicating a significant amount of development time toward a more core ritual-focused season”. Ritual activities consist of Crucible, Vanguard Ops, and Gambit (which was absent entirely from this update). While it’s clear that new content is coming in this season, it seems to be a dedicated release for the health of the core activities of the game. It brings memories of Rainbow Six: Siege’s Operation: Health, which forewent new operators and maps and instead focused on the stability of the game.

It’s also noted that the game’s in-game LFG feature has been delayed into this season, but it will launch alongside a new dungeon.

This is a change of pace for how Destiny has dealt with seasons in recent years. Many previous seasons, including their names, have been kept secret until a week before they launched. In Season of the Haunted’s case, Bungie kept a wrap on the season right up until its release. In the post, Blackburn suggests that strategy will be changing going forward, and Bungie will be more forthcoming with what is in each season.

He said: “while some of our releases this year will still be kept secret until they hit players’ machines, others, like Season of the Deep, we’ll preview and share key details ahead of time.”