Destiny 2's final season of Year 3, Season of Arrivals, has brought with it plenty of surprises—both good and bad. New loot and activities are to be expected, but the addition of a new dungeon and loot system called Umbral Engrams has given Season of Arrivals much praise from the community.
Unfortunately, this season has also revealed some of the game's more controversial changes such as content sunsetting and reissuing gear. It is by far Destiny 2's best season from Year 3, yet there are a few issues it has that prevent Arrivals from matching the success of Season of Opulence. Here are 5 reasons why Season of Arrivals is both great and somewhat of a flop.
10 Great: Weekly Story Missions
While Season of Arrivals is no stranger to bounties and upgrading a new device like past seasons, Bungie did mix it up somewhat by including a weekly quest that ends with a story mission.
These missions play similarly to ascendant challenges in the Dreaming City, taking players to a different dimension to defeat minions of Savathun. The dialogue and lore granting from each weekly completion are more than worth the weekly grind.
9 Flop: Beyond Light Delay
The Beyond Light delay from September to November is unfortunate but perfectly understandable. That said, this delay has knock-on effects on not just Season of Arrivals, but Bungie's entire pipeline for the next year.
Season of Arrivals was extended until Beyond Light's new launch date on November 10th, resulting in this season lasting for over 150 days! It's a sad consequence of external issues this year, but this massive setback is going to cause an exodus of fatigued players once this season's final Exotic launches.
8 Great: Farmable Raids
Raids in Destiny 2 will grant rewards on a player's first completion per character per week, meaning a hardcore player gets three shots at loot per encounter per week.
With the removal of most Year 1 and some of Year 2's content when Beyond Light launches, Bungie has removed the weekly restriction from every raid excluding Last Wish and Garden of Salvation. This has been a major blessing for those needing Anarchy, Tarrabah, or the completion of the Legend of Acrius quest. Farmable raids are also a great means of obtaining high stat armor, something that has not been possible in previous seasons.
7 Flop: Content Sunsetting
Despite the great atmosphere that Season of Arrivals presents, it isn't quite enough to remove the melancholy feeling that nearly half of Destiny 2's planets and overall content is about to go away.
Content sunsetting has been known for a while now, what came as a surprise was the announcement that the newly introduced Prophecy Dungeon would also be getting sunset when Beyond Light launches for one season as a consequence of how sunsetting has been planned. This lapse in planning on Bungie's end only further cements the player base's fears that any piece of content they cherish can be removed in a couple of months with little warning. As a result, many players have become apathetic about chasing titles or obtaining god rolls, something looter shooters need to encourage or they risk losing a large chunk of their player base.
6 Great: New Weapons
Even with sunsetting looming over the horizon in the most literal sense, the new selection of weapons and perks has done a great job at quelling fears of a boring weapon sandbox this fall.
Falling Guillotine, Whispering Slab, and Witherhoard are just a few examples of the incredible weapons added this season. New perks such as Killing Wind and Sympathetic Arsenal are mainly responsible for Season of Arrivals having such a strong loot pool, but bringing Dark-Drinker back as a Legendary Sword certainly doesn't hurt.
5 Flop: Solstice Of Heroes Microtransactions
Solstice of Heroes is notorious for its intense grind and flashy cosmetics. It's an event aimed at hardcore players, yet Bungie's focus towards pushing the Eververse store every event is starting to wear on the community.
New ships, emotes, and an Iron Banner-themed Finisher of all things has been included this Solstice for players to purchase. What is disappointing is the armor glows for each class are still a whopping 6,000 Bright Dust or 1,500 Silver per class! That's $40 to get the ornaments on all three classes, much less all of the event's cosmetics. When this is coupled with the fact that last year's Solstice gear was relevant for less than a month, it shouldn't surprise anyone that fans are infuriated with Bungie's business practices.
4 Great: Prophecy Dungeon
While the Prophecy dungeon will disappear at the end of this season, if only temporarily, it is nevertheless one of the best pieces of content Bungie has made in recent memory. It takes the mystery of the Shattered Throne dungeon and intertwines it with the intense combat sequences Pit of Heresy provided.
Many fans argue that it's the best dungeon in Destiny 2, and it's hard to argue against that claim. With the return of fan-favorite weapons such as Death Adder and the IKELOS guns, the Prophecy dungeon is easily the best piece of content released from any season in Year 3.
3 Flop: Reintroducing Weapons
Bungie's announcement of weapon sunsetting brought with it rampant arguments amongst the community as to whether it will be good or bad. Regardless of stance on the topic, players can't deny that the way Bungie handled the reimplementation of certain weapons was tone-deaf.
Gnawing Hunger, Bad Omens, Lonesome, Arsenic Bite-4b, and a few other weapons were added to the general loot pool, but with a Season of Arrivals Power cap. The issue is that this infusion cap increase was not retroactive, meaning players with god roll weapons would need to farm once more for the exact same weapons! No new perk combinations or different stats were included, either. These reissued weapons were the same as their older counterparts. If this doesn't spark concern over how gear will be reintroduced in the future, nothing will.
2 Great: Umbral Engrams
By far the best addition in Season of Arrivals is the Umbral Engram system. These unique engrams can be earned from doing virtually any activity and can be focused to grant specific items. Players can focus Umbral Engrams to provide only armor, one of two guns, or even bias the stats of armor they obtain.
It's a fantastic system that adds intentional farming to nearly every activity in Destiny 2. If Legendary Engrams were replaced with Umbral Engrams permanently, the game would be better for it.
1 Flop: Leveling
Leveling has seen few changes since Forsaken overhauled the system. Players are forced to play certain activities like clockwork to increase their Power level to the soft cap. Once players reach the soft cap, they must complete a small range of activities to reach the pinnacle cap.
Despite the Artifact granting Power account-wide, the constant cycle of playing three Strikes, four Gambit matches, four Crucible games, and completing planetary weeklies is the most fatiguing part of Destiny 2 currently. An exploit relating to Black Armory Forges allowed players to bypass this grind at the start of the season, but Bungie patched this exploit immediately yet refuse to address the core issue. Leveling feels closer to completing a laundry list of chores than exploring the content Destiny has to offer. If Year 4 needs one major improvement, it should go towards overhauling the leveling experience to help engage new players and prevent veteran fatigue.