Destiny 2 Season of Plunder: Release time, raid, Arc 3.0 & all we know about Season 18

Destiny 2’s Season 18 release date is coming soon. Here’s everything we know so far about Destiny 2 Season of Plunder, including when it starts, all we know about the next raid, and all of the Crucible changes.

Destiny 2 Season 18 is finally here, signaling the end of Season of the Haunted (Season 17) and kicking off Destiny 2: Season of Plunder.

While many of the Season 18 details are kept under wraps until the season starts, we do know that there’s plenty to be excited about; Arc 3.0 will make its debut following the successful deployment of Solar 3.0 and Void 3.0, while the Disjunction map will be added to the general Crucible rotation pool.

As the game starts building momentum toward Lightfall (expected in 2023) and then The Final Shape, Destiny 2 Season 18 could be absolutely pivotal for the future of Bungie’s loot shooter. Here’s everything we know about Destiny 2 Season of the Plunder so far.

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Contents

• Start Date
• Content
  • New Raid
  • Crucible
  • Sandbox changes
• New weapons and gear
• Arc 3.0
• Gunsmith reputation changes
• Story and Characters
• Price

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Destiny 2 Season of Plunder release date & start time

Season of the Haunted will run until August 23. That’s the same date as Bungie’s big unveiling of what’s coming next.

The Destiny 2 Season 18 release date will be on that day at weekly reset (6 PM BST/10 AM PT/1 PM ET), meaning you’ve got plenty of time to level up your Season Pass and Seasonal Artifact.

Destiny 2 Season of Plunder content roadmap

Here’s everything confirmed so far:

• Friday, August 26: Raid launch for King’s Fall
• Tuesday, September 6: Week 1 of Iron Banner
• Friday, September 16: Trials of Osiris
• Tuesday, October 4: Grandmaster Nightfalls
• Tuesday, October 18: Festival of the Lost
• Tuesday, November 15: Week 2 of Iron Banner

New Raid

While Season of the Haunted added the new Duality dungeon, Season 18 will add a ‘new’ Raid to Destiny 2 on August 26.

This six-player, endgame activity is likely to be released during the season to allow players to grind power levels, but some players suspected Bungie may reach into the Destiny Content Vault to repurpose an old Destiny raid.

That’s now been confirmed, with Bungie bringing King’s Fall from the Taken King expansion to Destiny 2.

A Bungie blog post says the raid, whatever it’ll be, will go live at 10 AM Pacific on August 26, with the following conditions:

• The raid will launch with Contest Mode enabled for 24 hours.
  • • You will need to be at 1560 Power to be at the cap for all of the encounters.
• Clearing the raid with Contest Mode active is the first step to accessing the new Challenge Mode in the Director and the special Triumph for completing all of the challenge Triumphs for each encounter.
• Completing the secret Triumph, a curated list of challenges in this newly unlocked Challenge Mode, will be how a fireteam crosses the World First finish line and claims their prize.
• To enforce the Triumph requirements in the Challenge Mode, your team will wipe if you fail the success conditions during any encounter.

Season 19 will introduce another new dungeon.

World’s First Raid race

While Bungie has traditionally kicked off World’s First Raid races on Saturdays, this time it’ll start on August 26 at 10 AM PT — just a few days after the Destiny 2 Season 18 release date.

Here’s Bungie’s rundown:

• The raid will launch with Contest Mode enabled for 24 hours.
  • • You will need to be at 1560 Power to be at the cap for all of the encounters.
• Clearing the raid with Contest Mode active is the first step to accessing the new Challenge Mode in the Director and the special Triumph for completing all of the challenge Triumphs for each encounter.
• Completing the secret Triumph, a curated list of challenges in this newly unlocked Challenge Mode, will be how a fireteam crosses the World First finish line and claims their prize.
• To enforce the Triumph requirements in the Challenge Mode, your team will wipe if you fail the success conditions during any encounter.

Crucible

Disjunction, which is set on Savathun’s Throne World, was added in Season of the Haunted but only for Iron Banner: Rift.

Season 18 will add Rift, and the map, to the general Crucible pool, meaning you’ll be able to play it more often and in other modes.

Iron Banner will also swap to a different mode, Eruption. Bungie says racking up kills will cause players to start ‘Surging’, increasing the points scored and reducing cooldowns with kills. Hitting five kills without dying triggers a ‘Primed’ state that puts your team on The Hunt, buffs everyone’s cooldowns, and more — until after fifteen seconds your Guardian explodes unless you get another kill to keep going.

Still, the biggest change for the Crucible will come in matchmaking. Bungie’s recent blog post explained that the developer is working to implement a loose form of skill-based matchmaking where after connection quality is assessed, the game will begin to identify closely ranked players in terms of skill. This process will continue through Season 19.

Sandbox changes

Bungie has promised a midseason weapons update in its weekly blog post, but interestingly some of the changes are being pulled forward from Season 18.

The big changes include updates to the controversial airborne effectiveness stat, as well as tweaking certain weapon types.

We’ve collected all of the early patch notes for Destiny 2 Season 18, with Bungie numbering the patch as 6.2.0.

Destiny 2 Season of Plunder weapons

As is always the case with Destiny 2 seasons, we’re expecting a new Ritual Weapon for the season that offers unique decals for Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit.

There will also be an exotic weapon tied to the season pass, but as for what it could be it’s hard to say. The Grand Overture is a machine gun/rocket launcher hybrid, while the Trespasser is a lethal, Robocop-style sidearm we didn’t think we’d see again after Destiny 1.

While Bungie hasn’t confirmed what weapons are being added to activities, we know of some that are being removed. As per Bungie, you can expect these to leave the game in Season 18:

Destiny 2 Arc 3.0

Sandbox Lead Kevin Yanes has suggested that many of the Synaptic Spear attacks found back in Season of the Risen are actually a testing ground for Arc 3.0.

Solar 3.0 and Void 3.0 both introduced a series of buffs and debuffs to apply to enemies, bringing them closer to Stasis, and Arc 3.0 will do the same — check out our full guide here.

Bungie had previously said that Arc 3.0 will focus on chain-lightning, which means it could be great fun for clearing large groups of enemies. Arc 3.0 will be free for all players.

Gunsmith reputation changes

In a recent blog post, Bungie confirmed that The Tower’s gunsmith, Banshee-44, will be getting another overhaul in Season 18.

Daily Gunsmith bounties will now award 50 reputation, instead of 25, meaning players can earn 200 reputation each day. Rep earned from dismantling Legendary or Exotic gear will also climb from 3 to 5, too, meaning players can earn a lot more in a shorter space of time to help players rank up more quickly.

Destiny 2 Season of Plunder story and characters

We’re still hopeful of a SIVA-focused season one day, but whatever happens in Season 18 is likely to start building story momentum toward Lightfall – especially with a reveal event on the same day.

Eramis is free from her icy prison, and she’s built a crew of pirates. Thankfully, you’re building one of your own with Drifter, Mithrax, and Spider.

Players will be able to hunt down pirate treasure, and roam the Solar system in their own Ketch ship.

Destiny 2 Season 18 price

Season 18 will continue with the Season Pass model, meaning you can buy it for around £10/$12 per season.

If you have Witch Queen’s Deluxe Edition, you’re already covered for seasons 18 and 19.

With new premium event rewards coming with Solstice of Heroes, could it be time for Destiny 2 to move to a subscription model?

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