Destiny 2’s latest season reintroduces us to many familiar faces as the Vanguard fights to save the Last City from an endless night. The Warlock Vanguard Ikora, Future War Cult leader Lakshmi-2 and our old Fallen (sorry, Eliksni) friend Mithrax are all here to help us on our journey through Season of the Splicer. Many of the improvements that Bungie have made to Destiny 2 in Season of the Chosen (Check Out My Review!) continue into Splicer with new additions such as Transmog, an iconic and fan favorite raid returning and more. But the question remains. Is the Season of the Splicer another season full of innovations and positive change like Season of the Chosen, or just another copy and pasted grindfest?
Season of the Holding Pattern?
Season of the Splicer’s core gameplay loop revolves around the new activity, Override. Override is a two-section activity, divided between a mob-slaying, mote depositing first half and a boss fight in the second. Override is exciting, not just because of the new loot, but also because it marks the return of 6 player matchmade activities since the Menagerie was removed in Beyond Light. 6 Guardians jumping around, bringing death and destruction, is great and I loved the chaos. Unfortunately, the number of enemies to kill did not increase alongside the number of players so I definitely felt the familiar feeling of competing for kills that is way too common in older activities. Besides the increased player count, Override as a mode is nothing to write home about. Bank motes, kill enemies, fight a boss. Repeat a million times until you get your god roll Gridskipper or until the season ends.
Unfortunately, the rest of the seasonal activities aren’t much different in terms of innovation. The upgrade screen in the H.E.L.M. is a familiar sight and the Umbral Engrams have been updated to include Engrams specific to the Season of the Splicer. When it comes to seasonal content, Bungie has clearly found a model that works, doesn’t receive significant backlash, and can be reused for subsequent seasons. It’s not to say that it’s bad. Like I said, this model isn’t particularly offensive and works perfectly in a game that wants players to spend hours grinding for upgrades or better weapons. However, if it weren’t for the unique dungeon-style Expunge missions or the excellent lore and storytelling from the Eliksni camp with Eido and her messages, this season would probably be a complete snooze for those of us who’ve stuck with Destiny through previous seasons.
Vault of Glass 2.0
Season of the Splicer’s other major content drop is the revamped classic Destiny 1 raid, the Vault of Glass. Vault of Glass, or VOG for short, is the very first raid in Destiny’s history and there were a lot of emotions, both negative and positive, about its return. Would it be too easy? Would Bungie change any of the encounters? Will Vex Mythoclast still be completely overpowered? No, yes and no, respectively. But of course, you’ll want me to go more in depth. And so, I shall.
Destiny 2’s VOG is not the same as Destiny 1’s version. The basic mechanics and many of the encounters are the same. Oracles need to be destroyed, the Relic is an important role and the Gorgons in the maze are unkillable despite how overpowered Guardians can be in Destiny 2. The changes to the Vault of Glass, on the surface, don’t seem like much, but change the way teams will need to approach their journey to Atheon. Oracles now must be killed in a specific order, rather than ASAP as in Destiny 1. This means teams must communicate even more, making sure they destroy Oracles in the correct order or risk a wipe. Enemy spawns have been updated with Wyverns and more challenging enemies, making combat more difficult than before. All in all, the new Vault of Glass has been updated to match Destiny 2’s power level and reflects the developers’ expectations for raid teams. The changes to Vault of Glass means those looking for a nostalgia trip can get it without pulling out their old PS4 or Xbox One copy of Destiny 1 but also means newbies to the Vault can get a challenging raid to tackle.
Everything Else
It’s difficult to cover all the aspects of Destiny 2 season by season. Oftentimes I simply have nothing to say except that they added a new gun to the loot pool. Gambit is still bad and unfun. Nothing there has changed. Bungie brought back Momentum Control and Team Scorched to Crucible, which are fun game modes, and have balanced Stasis with a round of heavy nerfs, but that doesn’t change the stale meta, cheaters in Trials and competitive and uninteresting grind. The new hand cannon, Survivor’s Epitaph, is surprisingly good though. Bungie clearly can add in a complete raid, but still no new PVP maps? Strikes are also unchanged. New weapons are cool, although Hung Jury is not as good as it used to be, but strikes easier than Legend or Master are unrewarding and tedious.
It’s a good thing that most of the game is still in the same spot then because the latest addition to the game, Armor Synthesis, has been game changing. The system itself has got to be one of the best things Bungie has added to Destiny. Shaders are now free; you can make whatever look you want, and you have access to your entire library of shaders without needing to pull them from collections. These are all great quality of life updates that unfortunately marred by a pretty horrendous grind.
Characters are capped at only 10 free, earnable Synthweaves a season and although the bounties needed to unlock the Synthweaves aren’t terrible, the drop rate for Synthstrand to buy the bounties has been discovered to be more upsetting. Synthstrand takes a long time to earn, and it’s been found that only one Synthstrand will drop per 2-3 minutes. That means it will take about 5 hours to earn the Synthstrands needed to earn a single Synthweave. That’s not 5 hours of just playing the game. That’s 5 hours of only killing enemies. Bungie obviously needs to make money and selling Armor Synthesis materials is an easy way of doing so but this system needs to be changed. For now, Armor Synthesis remains a 10/10 concept with a 4/10 execution. It’s a shame a highly demanded community feature would end up in the game like this.
Conclusion
Season of the Splicer serves as a good indicator that Bungie seems to have found their groove when it comes to seasonal content, especially after the rocky start to the year with Season of the Hunt. Plenty of new, desirable weapons and armor have been added, a new(ish) raid, excellent story telling through both in game cinematics and lore books and the addition of a transmog system means there is definitely plenty here to enjoy. The new exotic armor pieces and the seasonal mods are also fun, Breach and Clear being a community favorite.
However, the poor, and downright scummy implementation of Armor Synthesis, an uninspired seasonal upgrade menu and a slightly above average seasonal activity hold Season of the Splicer back from the receiving the same praise I gave to Season of the Chosen. In Season of the Chosen, the upgrade system was still sort of new, Battlegrounds was a fun, albeit mindless, shooting gallery and many of the improvements that Bungie has continued into Splicer started in Chosen. Is it fair to denigrate Season of the Splicer for not being Season of the Chosen? No, it isn’t but Season of the Splicer has also demonstrated that Bungie has found a seasonal model that they are comfortable with and are happy to continue to iterate on. Season of the Splicer isn’t Bungie in holding pattern, but it’s not as innovative as previous Bungie outings. Will this continue into the next season or the Witch Queen expansion? That remains to be seen. For now, though, I am content to continue playing but my patience is definitely starting to wear thin.
8/10
Check Out the Destiny 2 Season of the Splicer Trailer:
For more information, please visit: https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Seasons/SeasonOfTheSplicer
Related: DESTINY 2: Season of the Chosen Review
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My name is Matt Tran and I have been playing video games since I could remember holding a controller. I've always been a hardcore gamer growing up, from the hectic MW2 and Halo 3 lobbies, my many journeys through several Halo clans and my current exploits with my Destiny 2 clan. I love shooters and RPGs and overanalyzing every component of every game I've played, from weapon stats to ideal perks. When I have time to play other games, I currently play Genshin Impact and Star Wars Squadrons.
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