Destiny 2 players want to know why Episode Echoes hasn’t reprised a popular auto rifle

Hot off the heels of Destiny 2’s best expansion to date, Episode Echoes, Bungie’s replacement for Seasons, has entered full swing.

What sets the former apart from its predecessor remains to be seen, but already, fans have taken issue with one component of the content on offer.

Bungie frequently reprises weapons from previous Seasons for Guardians who missed out on them the first time around. In Episode Echoes, the studio has pulled five guns from the Destiny Content Vault first introduced in Season of Dawn and put them back on loot tables.

The problem? One of the most popular weapons from that era, Steelfeather Repeater, has been left behind to continue gathering dust.

In its original form, the auto rifle was a Kinetic, rapid-fire archetype and proved to be a popular choice in PvE due to its access to a strong Perk pool. Had it been reintroduced in Episode Echoes, it would have followed suit with all current Legendary primaries and adopted Stasis or Strand as a damage type.

Alas, it wasn’t to be, though nobody is quite sure why Bungie opted to omit the fan favorite. Responses on a Reddit thread trying to suss an answer to that question range from seriously speculative to humorously irreverant.

“So Atheon’s Epilogue won’t be lonely”, came one response, referencing the Vault of Glass auto rifle from Destiny 1 not being reprised when the Raid was added to Destiny 2. “They didn’t want it to outshine the new 720 Comp AR,” came one response, referencing The Riposte, a new AR added to Crucible’s Competitive playlist in The Final Shape.

Likewise, Veiled Threat, another rapid-fire frame available from Breach Executable, likely factored in Bungie’s decision not to oversaturate the sandbox with so many weapons of the same archetype.

Whatever the reason, five of the seven weapons originally added in Season of Dawn are back. Check out our Episode Echoes summary for the full list.