Bungie teases Destiny 2’s next season, recoil and bounty changes

In Bungie’s weekly blog, the studio wrote about some major changes coming to Destiny 2 in less than two weeks. When season 13 — likely called Season of the Chosen, according to some leaks — launches on Feb. 9, PC players will see some major recoil changes and all players will get new Seasonal Challenges. Bungie also gave a very small tease for season 13, and announced a reveal trailer coming Feb. 2.

The biggest announcement of the blog only affects a percentage of the player base. Currently, when using a mouse and keyboard, Destiny 2 players have next to no recoil when they fire a weapon. With season 13, Bungie will adjust the difference between controller and mouse and keyboard from 40% to 20%. Mouse players will still have a 20% advantage — as using a mouse is more difficult — but the difference shouldn’t be as stark.

This change specifically affects six weapon types:3333

• Auto rifle
• Hand cannon
• Machine gun
• Pulse rifle
• Scout rifle
• Submachine gun

For pulse rifles, submachine guns, and machine guns, Bungie is also reducing their recoil and/or camera movement across all platforms.

These changes seem designed to combat the “stability problem” on PC. The stability stat on weapons changes how much a weapon kicks when you fire it, and it’s been a completely useless stat for mouse and keyboard players since Destiny 2’s PC launch in 2017. While the weapons still won’t kick as hard while using a mouse and keyboard, this change should keep players from throwing away high stability rolls entirely.

The change is also a major cause of concern for PC players, as any change to the gun feel in Destiny can damage player enjoyment. But assistant game director Joe Blackburn assured Polygon the team is monitoring numbers and feedback to make sure the changes aren’t too extreme.

The other big announcement in this blog post is for Seasonal Challenges. Seasonal Challenges are replacing weekly bounties — long bounties that gave big rewards each week and forced players into specific playstyles. Unlike Bounties, Seasonal Challenges don’t require players to pick up an item from a vendor, and they’re located in the Triumph section in Destiny 2’s menu.

Every week, Bungie will give players between three and 10 Seasonal Challenges. These Challenges do not expire until the end of the season, and Bungie will only add them for the first 10 weeks — meaning that players who don’t login until week 10 will have a lot of built-up Seasonal Challenges to burn through. Their objectives are similar to weekly bounties, but less restrictive. Some seem aimed specifically at new seasonal activities, while others ask players to defeat Guardians in Mayhem or beat up some Fallen in Strikes.

Image: Bungie

In terms of rewards, these Seasonal Challenges offer XP for the Season Pass, Bright Dust to spend in the Eververse store, special seasonal currencies, or even “interesting items.” Players can only complete these once per account — meaning those with multiple characters can’t triple-dip their Seasonal Challenges. Players who complete most of the Seasonal Challenges will also earn 4,000 Bright Dust bonus each season.

Because of the new Seasonal Challenge system, Zavala, Drifter, and Shaxx will lose their weekly bounties, as will Banshee-44 and each season’s seasonal vendor. All of these vendors will still offer daily and repeatable bounties that offer XP. And in terms of free-to-play versus season pass holders, only about 60% of the Seasonal Challenges are available for free players.

But in the above teaser image, Bungie left in some clues about season 13. At the very top, we can see the seasonal art, which shows a helmet with pointy ears, some gold weapons, and gold pots. This suggests we’ll be dealing with the Cabal empire, as the aesthetic is very similar to both Season of Opulence and the Leviathan raid.

All the activities revolving around Emperor Calus were just put into the Destiny Content Vault with Beyond Light — meaning they’re no longer in-game. This leads players to believe we’ll be dealing with a different arm of the empire: Caiatl, Calus’ daughter. Of course, we should get a better idea of the season’s theme on Feb. 2, when Bungie launches the new trailer.