Just about every week brings something new to Destiny 2, whether it’s story beats, new activities, or interesting new combinations of elements that let players devastate each other in the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly look at what’s going on in the world of Destiny and a rundown of what’s drawing our attention across the solar system.
I have to say, I’m loving the way Destiny 2 has been telling stories this year. Weekly seasonal story beats coupled with new activities to explore has provided a great way to drop into the game, even just for an hour or two, and watch the world expand and unfold. This week, we got a new creepy conversation with Savathun, listened as Mara Sov let the mask slip as relates to her late brother Uldren, and wandered around an excellently fragmented new Shattered Realm area. But just as with the seasons before it, it’s the story that continues to enthrall me.
Queens’ Gambits
On a stream last week, Destiny 2’s new creative director, Joe Blackburn, described the Season of the Lost as being something like The Silence of the Lambs with the presence of scary Hive god Savathun just hanging around. Like the frighteningly calm Hannibal Lecter in that movie, Savathun is already working on us. This week, she said a lot of cryptic things about what’s really going on in Destiny’s story, hinting at there being something more frightening and more powerful over and above the game’s central conflict between Light and Darkness.
I particularly like this take on Savathun’s head games from developer and podcaster merritt k:
Destiny 2 has broken the fourth wall on a few occasions. The Emissary of the Nine has made comments like that before, and there’s lore on the Skull of Dire Ahamkara Exotic helmet that refers to the reader as “O Player mine.” There are a lot of theories as to what these things are all about, but generally, Savathun seems to, at least, have more knowledge about the inner workings of the universe than we’ve yet heard. Since we have some idea what we’re building toward with The Witch Queen expansion–Savathun and her Hive brood wielding the Light, a major twist–it really seems like things are about to get weird(er) in Destiny 2, both through the Season of the Lost and the next expansion.
I’ve had a lot of theories over the last year about where Destiny 2’s story is headed, a few of which seem to have been borne out, but it’s interactions like this that are my favorite, because they’re some pretty intense head-scratchers.
There was also some suggestion in the first week that helping Savathun fight the worm gods might draw the attention of some giant worm bosses, like Xol, who we fought in a Strike back in Warmind. But just because Savathun is anti-worm generally doesn’t mean she’s against all of the remaining worm gods. Saniya Ahmed dug into some old Savathun lore to explore the possibility that more worms are coming back, and that at least one might still be an ally to the Witch Queen. We might know where Savathun is headed thanks to Bungie’s Witch Queen expansion showcase, but there are still a whole lot of potential plans within plans going on right now.
Speaking of plans within plans, let’s talk about that Ahamkara egg in Mara Sov’s chamber. Theories are already floating around that Mara is going to use that egg, the Wall of Wishes, and the Techeuns we’re currently working on rescuing from around the Ascendant Realm, to bring back at least one Ahamkara for the sake of wishing Savathun free of that worm god she’s trying to ghost on. Personally, I’ve always found the concept of the Ahamkara–paracausal wish-granting shapeshifting monsters–to be super compelling, but they’ve never existed in the game the way they do in the lore. It seems like Mara is working to bring the Ahamkara back from extinction, partially as a means to defeat Savathun, but ultimately for her own ends.
Earlier this week, I speculated that the return of Ahamkara to the game could be a hint at what Destiny 2 could look like in a few years, after Bungie releases The Final Shape and we get the conclusion of the Light and Darkness saga, the current story arc. If the story of the conflict between the Light and Darkness has to end, that suggests that we’ll likely see Destiny 2 become a world without either the Traveler or the Darkness, or both. But since paracausal powers are so essential to Destiny 2 gameplay, it seems like the game will need ways for those forces to continue to exist, even without the gods responsible for them. Adding more paracausal creatures like the Ahamkara might provide a good story reason for some of the reality-bending video game things we can do in Destiny 2.
But even without making guesses that are years down the road, we can tell that both Mara and Savathun have a lot more going on than we realize. Both queens are executing larger plans, and neither has a single goal in mind. We know Mara works to consolidate her power all the time and that she ultimately has Awoken interests–and not necessarily ours–at heart. She also is, uh…meaner than I realized. Complete this week’s Tracing the Stars quest step to hear her talk shit about her dead brother Uldren, now risen as the Guardian Crow. Is Mara this season’s Lakshmi-2? I feel like we could be headed in that direction, discovering that the Awoken queen is actually a gossipy political maneuverer who sees us as pawns as much as Savathun does. Expect the Season of the Lost to reveal that maybe the machinations of Savathun, Xivu Arath, and the Black Fleet aren’t all we have to worry about.
Now, on to the goofy gameplay stuff that happened this week.
Dancing Is Banned
Last week was the first chance for Hunter players to snag Radiant Dance Machines, a reprised Destiny 1 Exotic that’s back in Season of the Lost–and they immediately discovered it was hopelessly, hilariously broken. When you use your Hunter dodge near enemies while wearing the Exotic, you get a short period where you can do a bunch of dodges in a row. Players immediately thought of the Dynamo mod that gives you Super energy when you dodge and the Stasis Aspect Winter’s Shroud, which slows enemies near you when you dodge. They slapped those things on their Hunter builds and went on ridiculous tears in the Crucible.
Bungie almost immediately responded by disabling Radiant Dance Machines in the Crucible and Gambit because that was obviously not what was supposed to be happening, and we’ve now gotten a nerf that ratchets back RDM’s power to keep you from exploiting it in different builds. It sounds like RDM won’t get multiple boosts off mods like Dynamo, even when you do multiple dodges in a row. From a practical standpoint, though, RDM is still a goofy cool Exotic even without the mod synergy it afforded. Dodging around a player is hilarious–even if it gets you killed a lot because if you’re too close, people can still just easily punch you in the face.
That, however, means that RDM is an Exotic may not have much use anymore. Apart from the meme opportunities of dashing around other players, and top-tier players who can use it to utterly confuse people before they take them out, RDM isn’t going to fit into many builds without some added benefits to all those dodges. I’m hoping Bungie takes another look at this Exotic and finds a fun middle ground in the future, creating a situation where, in specific cases, having those extra dodges lets you do something cool with a thoughtful build. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I like the idea of Exotics such as Radiant Dance Machines offering more weird, super-specific build benefits that go beyond just letting you annoy people in the Crucible.
Bungie also tweaked the new Exotic linear fusion rifle, Lorentz Driver, after some PvP complaints. The gun randomly targets and highlights a nearby enemy, marking them as a sort of “bounty” for you to take down; kill three of those enemies and collect the item that drops off them and the gun gets a sick power boost. The bounty part of Lorentz Driver wasn’t particularly useful in PvP, but the targeting was–it would briefly highlight a random nearby enemy even through walls, giving you a quick look at their location. Even with the randomness and the brevity of the highlight, though, a lot of players felt like that was a big advantage, especially against small teams. So Lorentz no longer gives you a brief wall hack in PvP. It’s another good change, really, although I hope Bungie lands on a slightly different solution in the future that makes the targeting system more active in PvP, maybe just adding the highlight when you actually aim at your targeting bounty and giving you a brief glimpse of their actions as they move behind walls. Other Exotics and abilities do something similar, and removing the highlighting sight altogether in PvP feels like Lorentz loses a bit of what makes it unique.
That said, the gun is extremely fun to use in PvP situations (and still works as it originally did in PvE), so even if this is the version we’re using from here on out, it’s a great gun you should be messing around with. The rifle is quick and snappy like The Queenbreaker in its heyday, and there is nothing more satisfying than hearing that satisfyingly deep “WOMP” sound and then snagging an extra kill or two from an unfortunate soul who was standing too close to your target, disintegrated by a Void explosion.
Banter About Banner
Before this gets too much longer, it’s worth a second to look at the new Iron Banner guns. The last few seasons have provided an impressive arsenal of Iron Banner weapons that make jumping into the event worth your time, even if you’re not usually a fan of PvP activities or of the generalized chaos of Iron Banner itself. I’ve been finding myself ripped apart by the fast-firing Forge’s Pledge pulse rifle, which really seems to slap if you can get it with high range and solid damage-boosting perks. It’s great for tearing through unsuspecting players at a distance they might not expect, and its fire rate is so fast that, if you’re landing headshots, you can often take people out before they have a chance to fight back. Forge’s Pledge will stand up pretty well against other pulse rifles generally, thanks to its rate of fire; I’ve lost the matchup while using an un-proc’d No Time To Explain a few times now.
Between Forge’s Pledge, the new bust-firing sidearm Peacebond, the stupidly good Multimach CCX submachine gun, and the reliable Riiswalker shotgun, you can put together quite an armory by dumping some tokens on Lord Saladin. The new armor isn’t too shabby either–now, wearing the new Iron Banner armor while playing Iron Banner gives you a chance at earning Enhancement Prisms at the end of matches. Anything that makes it easier to get Masterwork materials sounds good to me. I’m in debt up to my eyeballs with Spider trying to make new armor builds.
One last thing: Read the lore entries on the new Iron Banner gear, because it’ll give you an interesting perspective on what’s going on outside the Dreaming City. Mara Sov might have a plan, but nobody is happy about Savathun just chilling out in a big crystal in the middle of town. In one entry on some of the seasonal gear, you can read about how Caiatl considered just dropping a bunch of bombs on the Dreaming City, and even asked Zavala if he wanted to team up on that endeavor. Sure, it might start a war with the Awoken, but Caiatl was thinking that might still be worth it to have Savathun off the board. (For his part, Zavala decided it wasn’t okay to wipe out a bunch of innocent Awoken for a chance at dropping Savathun. Wonder if we’ll get some alternative views on that decision when The Witch Queen expansion rolls around.)
Lord Saladin, however, might not be so merciful. The Iron Banner guns suggest he’s meeting with Caiatl and putting his differences with the Cabal aside to broker further peace and face the greater threat. Saladin is pissed about the whole Savathun-is-Osiris thing–not to mention shaken by his inability to see through the deception–and it seems like he might be on a background path to revenge that could soon come to the forefront, much in the way we saw the faction coup develop in the lore in Season of the Splicer. Keep paying attention, because there’s a lot of story going on right now.
That’s it for our inaugural installment of Iron Banter, and there’s a whole lot we didn’t get to. If there’s other Destiny stuff you want to talk about, and if this column is something you’re enjoying, drop it in the comments below.
