Destiny 2’s Gambit getting major changes in March

In This Week at Bungie, Bungie’s regular blog update, the studio revealed new changes coming to Gambit with Destiny 2’s Season of the Drifter on March 5.

A third round tie-breaker will no longer occur when two teams go even in Gambit. Instead, the third round will be a “Primeval rush sudden death.” While not clear, Stevens declared this new change will speed up Gambit matches. It sounds like this final round will spawn in the Primeval at the start, letting players scramble to kill theirs first without having to go through the process of spawning it.

In another change, Invaders can now spawn in more locations around the map, and Bungie has updated how it chooses where invaders spawn. The idea is to allow invaders to start their attack more covertly in high-level play, without defenders camping their spawn locations.

Gambit’s blocker system is staying the same, but the enemies players send over will shift in Season of the Drifter. A small blocker will now spawn a Taken Goblin on the other side. This enemy has less health than the shield-wielding Phalanx, but can make allied enemies immune to damage. The medium blocker will be a Taken Captain, more powerful than the current Taken Knight. And the large blocker will be a Taken Knight, more powerful than the current Taken Ogre.

These changes should make players question how they want to deploy blockers in the future. Dropping in a pile of Phalanxes used to be a powerful strategy — as they were tanky enough that it took time and ammo to deal with them. But the Taken Goblin will act as a support to the other blockers. Players will have to communicate the order they want to spawn blockers in. Instead of all four players dumping five motes in, it may be better for one player to dump 15 for a large blocker, and another to drop five for the Goblin for shielding.

Bungie has also implemented a new idle protection system, which will take away player’s rewards if they are idle for too long in a match.

Season of the Drifter will also introduce a “new Gambit experience,” but the season won’t be entirely Gambit-centric. Players will receive some quests from the Drifter himself when the update goes live on March 5. It’s currently unclear if the paid Annual Pass offerings (frequently referred to as “Joker’s Wild”) will release on the same day, or a week later, as with previous seasons.