Here's What I Think of DESTINY 2: SEASON OF DAWN So Far

The newest season of Destiny 2 dropped last Tuesday, December 10th. I am an avid Destiny 2 player, I may not be a day one raid completionist, but I chase Titles, and I’ve spent more time on Destiny 2 than any other game in the last two years. So these are my personal opinions and thoughts, but it comes with a lot of experience as I’ve been playing this and Destiny 1 for a long time and have played a pretty wide variety of other games and genres. Anyway! Onto the review, I’m going to break it down in four major subjects of the season’s content: story, loot, activities, and Eververse.

Story

With the underwhelming ending of the Season of the Undying earlier this month, players were fairly worried about the upcoming season. However, in just this first week, we got a bunch of cool lore and interactions with Osiris and an amazing mission that is easily one of Destiny 2’s best (I’ll avoid spoiling why it was so good, but trust me, it was worth it). In our second week of the Season, we got a little less lore from Osiris, but we got another fantastic mission and progression of the story. I am sure Bungie wanted to start the season with a bang and more story will be coming throughout the season, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it slowed down a lot and had a more chill ending like Season of the Undying with a lot of the story being told to us by vendors, but that’s okay. We’ll have to see how the story plays out, but so far, things have been great.

Loot

The new guns are great. We have a lot of non-meta guns given to us: Sidearms, Linear Fusion Rifles, Scout Rifles, and Auto Rifles. It is refreshing to not be bombarded with Snipers, Hand Cannons, and Machine Guns to be honest. But not only do the new guns shake up the meta, they are also very good looking. The Saint-14 themes look great and give players some fancy new guns to flash around. This also includes the new exotics. We only have the Symmetry Scout Rifle right now, but looks amazing and feels like a real exotic with the two firing types and way it encourages players to play. Lastly, the ritual weapons are about the same level or uniqueness and utility as last season’s weapons. In other words, they are good, but not great. The major improvement this season though is the grind and quest for the Season of Dawn’s ritual weapons are far more reasonable and on par with the guns performance. Also, the general grind and accumulation of the new weapons come in many ways and give players many opportunities to find the perfect roll for whichever weapon they are looking for.

The new armor and perks are pretty good. As of now, we really only have the Season of Dawn armor that comes from the Season Pass and doing seasonal content. We also have the Seasonal Pass Ornaments, the Eververse Ornaments, and the Dawning Ornaments (no word about Crimson Days armor). The main armor looks great for all three classes, and the new armor perks aren’t as unique and interesting as I was hoping, but overall the actual content is great here and generously given to the players. The fact that the other three ornaments are all paid content (two of them only purchasable with real money or Bright Dust) may upset some people, but it is really fine. If you don’t pay for anything, you get one set of new armor, if you pay $10 also you get a new (really nice) ornamentation set along with a huge amount of other cosmetics, emotes, experience boosters and other great things. I’m pretty happy with the armor overall, but it would have been nice if we could slot in Nightmare Mods to the new gear, but that is for another discussion about season to season changes.

Activities

Even though there is only one activity advertised, the Sundial, we also have the Obelisks and setting them upthat I honestly count as a new activity too. But first, let’s talk Sundial. This is like a slightly less intense Menagerie, which is great. It is a lot of fun, it’s challenging, new bosses are on their way for the first few weeks and it ties in fairly well into the story. The Sundial’s way of getting loot is also really nice, we get to choose one (or more with upgrades) weapons from whichever Obelisks we have set up at the moment. This allows farming for weapons and rolls a pretty reasonable and reward task. With all this said, I’m loving the different timelines and enemies having to be fought in the Sundial and the way the loot drops are coming, overall a great activity.

Now, onto the Obelisks. At first, things were very confusing, which is good and bad. It was hard to know what to do, but it was also fun to figure out what all the parts are, the new bounties and the Time Lost weapons and currency. Farming for the new currency, Polarized Fractaline, can be a little tedious for sure. It’s slow moving at first, but reasonable. But I was mostly impressed with the added way to get new weapons and armor through them. By leveling up any of the four Obelisks, players get a new armor piece, they get more and more access to new mods and mini quests/bounties that give players exactly the weapon they want. I’ve already gotten some crazy good rolls for some of the new and old guns available at the Obelisks. I find the grind to be intense and pretty lengthy to get into the higher level Obelisks, but it is great to reward players who play a lot with more options and ways to obtain exactly what they want, while still giving casual players a solid breadth of gear.

Eververse

The main reason why I bring this into the general thoughts and review of Season of the Dawn is because Bungie is shifting its business model to more micro transactions. We see them invest a lot of time and money into these armor sets, ornament, finishers, and emotes. So is the Eververse too expansive and is not enough going to the players who have paid for season passes and/or play lots of hours? I will outright say no. Bungie is an independent company now. They need money somehow! We also get a lot of things just for $10. A new activity, a slew of new weapons, gear, updated crucible maps, exotic quests, a continuing storyline and other things. All in all, having an expensive and expansive Eververse is so that players who really want the $8 emote can splurge while others can just focus on straight gameplay and enjoy the various other rewards Bungie offers in the Season Pass and for free. Also, Bungie has come out, per request from the community, and let players know what in the store will be available for Bright Dust eventually and what can only be bought with Silver (real money). This allows players to plan out how much Bright Dust they need over the season if they don’t want to spend any more cash.

Semi Verdict

I could reiterate everything I said above, but I’ll get to the point. I think that if the upcoming seasons are like Season of Dawn in quantity and quality of content, then $10 is a steal and a great value for players. If I were to score Season of Dawn right now, I would give it a 9 out of 10, between the great exotics (with two more on the way), an awesome campaign so far, solid loot and entertaining activities, this season is just as bright as the dawn itself.