For fans of Destiny’s core story, now is the time to return

Destiny 2’s Season of the Lost launched on Tuesday, and like many longtime fans of the franchise, that’s a time of renewal and excitement for me that merits more playtime and involvement. The full scope and story of that season has yet to be revealed, so it would be unfair to make too many direct judgments at this point. But no matter what else this season brings to the game, one thing is clear; After several side walks and setups throughout the past few seasons, the narrative scope has now returned to its core thrust. If you’ve been away from the game for a while, it’s a great time to get back in and catch up.

I certainly don’t want to sound dismissive of recent seasons, as I think the gameplay, reversal cycles, and storytelling have been in solid places for some time now. Season of the Hunt created some intriguing bowling with the return of a reborn Uldren Sov, Season of the Chosen drew a fun deep dive into the Cabal’s power structure, and the recent Season of the Splicer helped advance the story of The Last City, The Fallen and the changing alliances of humanity. These seasons also featured fun new activities and an engaging weekly cycle that invited even casual gamers to feel involved in a living story.

With all that said, whether they enjoyed those seasons or not, it was hard not to see the events as a preamble or an aside. For a few years now, Destiny 2 has established a narrative pathway to its great weather beats. Bungie has been open about the expansions to come in the next three years, which should wrap up the current Light and Darkness Saga that began with the original game’s release in 2014. If we think of Destiny 2 as a giant chess game, a lot of recent moves they have been about putting pawns, knights and bishops into play. With Season of the Lost, players are now moving two literal queens to the board. If you’ve been waiting for the story to revisit a central thread, now is the time.

The return of Queen Awoken, Mara Sov, was first significantly teased in the 2018 Forsaken expansion, while the arrival of the Witch Queen of Hive Savathûn could be traced back to 2015’s The Taken King, though it’s fair to say. that the last months have much more. he aggressively hinted at her presence. Regardless, both characters take center stage in Season of the Lost. Knowing his impending state of great evil in the upcoming 2022 Witch Queen expansion, it’s fun to see the first beats of this season’s story. After the reveal of who Savathûn has been hiding (I won’t spoil the off chance that you haven’t heard it yet), players are suddenly and inexplicably placed in the dubious position of helping her achieve her ends. It’s like watching a car accident in slow motion, or perhaps more accurately, a venus fly trap slowly closing around the fly; choose your metaphor, but in any case, our Guardians are the ones on whom disaster is collapsing.

The presence of these two divine queens accelerates the story and increases the tension. Bungie has taken the time to set up the characters and the conflicts, and those efforts are now starting to pay off. As a player, perhaps Saint-14’s gradual change from Fallen House of Light didn’t capture his interest. Or maybe he skipped Zavala’s reconciliation to aid the man who killed his friend Cayde. Even if it did, the conflict in question in Season of the Lost nullifies those earlier conflicts or, in some cases, takes advantage of them to bring the plot to a climax.

If you’ve been away for a while, the other great thing you’ll notice is the smooth cadence of play that Bungie has finally found. For the last year, Destiny 2’s seasonal content rewards the weekly commitment, but at the same time it doesn’t require dozens of hours to feel satisfied. For many weeks at the beginning of each season, multiple repeatable activities will help you navigate meaningful adventure and conflict. Revelations, cutscenes, and changes to the game world often accompany the experience. It’s an incredibly satisfying way to encourage player participation, and more than any endeavor in franchise history, this seasonal structure provides the feel of a living game world.

For this season, repeatable activities echo the structure of past seasons. First, a wildly chaotic and active paired activity, followed by a more curated mission structure that you can tackle alone or with a couple of friends. This season, the first is the fun Astral Alignment activity, which uses the visual backdrop of Dreaming City as a setting so you can battle your way through a variety of explosive battles. Like Override or three-person battlegrounds, the fights are big, featuring a ton of enemies, and providing just enough light targets to demand your attention. Meanwhile, the new Shattered Realm activity is more limited but no less enjoyable. Venturing into the gloomy place, you and your fire team line up beacons and track down the lost Awakened witches. Numerous currently inaccessible areas (unlockable through later updates during the season), as well as other chests and trucks, combine to provide a sense of discovery and mystery, even while shooting possessed enemies. It’s a good moment. And even in this first week, completing these activities begins to unravel the story about Mara Sov, Savathûn, and the looming sense of doom each brings to the table.

Beyond the story and new activities, there are other reasons to get excited about what Season of the Lost has to offer, especially for returning players. The most important is the long-awaited arrival of crossover play. Over the years, I can’t count the number of acquaintances and friends I’ve made in Destiny who eventually migrated platforms. In one fell swoop, the player base has been gathered into a massive pool of players, so the console (or PC) you choose should have little effect on who you face the Darkness. Bungie wisely chose to keep separate groups of console and PC players for combined competitive activities, such as Crucible and Gambit. But if you longed to strike, explore the world, and experience the rhythms of history with your friends, now is the time.

I also want to mention another specific quality of life change that feels especially welcome – primary ammo is now infinite. For weapons like most automatic rifles, hand cannons, bows, pulse rifles, handguns and everything in between, you can now go into battle with the confidence that you always have what you need to keep shooting. That’s especially important in challenging solo or small-group activities like Legend and Master Lost Sectors, but it’s a useful change across the board. Beyond just making sure you have ammo for your most basic weapons, it’s a move that simplifies the overall economics of the battlefield, eliminating the need to run over those little bricks of white ammo and focusing on tracking down the most valuable green and purple ones.

As is common in the early days of a new content patch, Destiny 2’s Season of the Lost still has a few issues to resolve. I’ve had late-career glitches twice in recent Astral Alignment activity. I have dealt with login issues once or twice. And while I like the new paired activities, I’m certainly ready for an injection of new content into long-standing activities like the Strike playlist, Gambit, and Crucible. Still, these first few days are a solid start to the next few months of play, and I’m especially excited to be able to enjoy the game with players outside of my main platform.

If you’ve been a Destiny fan in the past and have been waiting for the right time to get back in, I think that’s an easy recommendation right now. We’ve gotten used to a major new expansion every fall, and Season of the Lost certainly isn’t that. However, the importance of the story at hand and the culmination of last year’s hinted events are excellent reasons to take the leap. And with cross-play enabled, you can safely gather your friends, regardless of whether they have changed their main gaming platform in recent years. Destiny 2 has had its ups and downs since its launch, but I have no doubt that Bungie has a clear vision in mind on how to land this narrative. If you’re eager to see the final story take shape, now is the time to take on the role of guardian again.