Currently, there is an exciting calm before the big showcase storm for Destiny 2 about the new Season 18. It starts at the end of August, but Bungie is holding back on the exact details. Therefore, we have compiled all the confirmed information, announcements, dates, and leaks for you so that you know what to expect in the new Season 18.
When does the new season start? The Season 18 officially starts on August 23, 2022, during the regular weekly reset at 7 PM. However, historically, the Destiny 2 servers are often overloaded then, so players may experience downtime before the server comes back and with the download of new content, making it impossible to play for a longer period.
Players should also expect queues when logging in in the evening. However, it must be mentioned that Bungie has managed to bring Guardians into the game faster from season to season, and updates have also gone more smoothly.
When does the official showcase start? Before the new Season 18 begins, Guardians can look forward to a preview from Bungie. This will also take place on August 23, 2022.
The presentation starts shortly before the weekly reset at 7 PM on Bungie’s Twitch and YouTube channel. Through Twitch, you also have the option to experience the show with German subtitles.
- The preshow starts at 5:00 PM.
- And at 6:00 PM, the official showcase will start.
- Afterwards, Bungie will show a post-show livestream where staff will discuss the content shown with content creator D_Flawless.
In the showcase, Guardians can expect some exciting information:
- On one hand, the name of the legendary raid that returns from the content vault in Season 18. As with all returning raids, it will be free to play.
- At the same time, Bungie will likely announce the name of the new season and provide an electrifying first look at the final Light subclasses update, Arc 3.0.
- And since the announcement video for the showcase revealed retrospective story beats regarding the Darkness and the Witness, it suggests that there could finally be a first glimpse of the “Lightfall” DLC.
Is there already a trailer? Unfortunately, there is no trailer yet for Season 18. Bungie has only released the official announcement trailer for the showcase on August 23, which you can watch here.
These contents are guaranteed to come in Season 18
Even if we don’t know much yet, at least the upcoming season will feature the classic elements that you already know from previous seasons.
What is a season in Destiny 2?
Seasons in Bungie’s space shooter last three months and regularly bring new content into the game. They usually relate somewhat to the larger overarching story of Destiny 2. However, there can also be smaller side stories that are told, apart from the current DLC “The Witch Queen”.
The main difference from classic DLCs or expansions is that these seasons distribute their content over three months, often connecting to the next season’s brackets or epilogues through cliffhangers. Additionally, they feature time-limited quests. Seasons also bring seasonal or PvP events.
Thus, Season 18 will once again introduce a new season pass and a new exotic season weapon. Once again, there will be many rewards for all players of Destiny 2 up to level 100, as well as additional items for season pass buyers. This includes a completely new seasonal armor set, cosmetics, materials, and bonus XP.
- The price for the season pass will be 1,000 Silver – that’s about 10.00 Euros.
New legendary playlist ritual weapon
In Season 17, players could earn the machine gun “Command Chain” with its 3 playlist ornaments through the Vanguard, Crucible, and Gambit playlists. Season 18 will likely also introduce a new ritual weapon to the game. However, which one it will be remains a mystery, as there are no leaks yet.
These weapons will leave the loot pool in Season 18
Aside from the new weapons being introduced, Bungie has already stated that some of the obtainable weapons will be leaving the game in Season 18. These include:
- the legendary Iron Banner pistol “Peace Treaty”
- the legendary Iron Banner machine gun “Archon’s Thunder”
- the legendary Nightfall fusion rifle “PLUG ONE.1”
- the legendary Nightfall rocket launcher “Hothead”
- the legendary Trials sniper rifle “Sol’s Eye”
- as well as the legendary Trials auto rifle “The Summoner”
Weapons Master will be overhauled for Season 18
As Bungie mentioned in its blog post on July 21, they are not satisfied with the official Weapons Master Banshee-44 in the Tower. Therefore, in Season 18, he will first have his exo-hard drive formatted and will be updated.
- Firstly, starting from Season 18, you will receive 50 reputation points (previously 25) for completing daily Weapons Master bounties, totaling 200 reputation points per day.
- Secondly, and this is even more important for players, the reputation points gained through dismantling legendary or exotic weapons and armor will be increased to 5 each (instead of 3 previously). This drastically increases the rate at which Weapons Master reputation can be gained.
- The changes are intended to enable Guardians to reset their reputation with Banshee-44 at least once per season.
New seasonal story mission, activity, and weapons
If Bungie continues to follow its current season model, players in Season 18 will also be able to explore two new activities.
They can expect a weekly story mission, as well as a corresponding seasonal activity with level options and weapons. These could also include new blueprints for weapon crafting.
Where are we currently in the story? After Savathun is finally out of the way, Guardians have been pursuing the nightmares from the Moon Pyramid on the derelict Leviathan since May 24 in Season 17. They fought not only against Calus, the former raid boss, but also against the spreading Egregore contamination. Until both Calus and all nightmares were defeated.
A promotional image that Bungie released at the beginning of the season already showed a significantly larger contamination of the H.E.L.M. command center. This was meant to tease an epilogue for Season 17.
Before the last weekly reset before Season 18, a distress call came from the H.E.L.M., and the Guardians expected a final ominous message from Calus there.
As Guardians focus on seasonal activities, a new calamity looms on the horizon. The Witness and the Darkness are near, and Xivu Arath’s forces, Savathun’s last living sister, could attack the Vanguard and the Last City at any time. The future of Destiny 2 indeed looks grim, and the name of the upcoming DLC “Lightfall” also promises nothing good.
Legacy raid starts in Season 18 with Worlds First race
After Bungie monetized its dungeons, Guardians can expect either a new dungeon or a raid each season. After Season 17 brought the Bell Dungeon “Duality”, a raid is due for Season 18.
Which raid comes in Season 18? This time a legacy raid from the content vault returns, similar to the Glass Chamber once did. However, which one it will be will be officially revealed by Bungie at the showcase on August 23.
We have presented the available options to you and wanted to know which of these raids you would like to see return. Here are the results.
Light class updates: Arc 3.0
A central detail that will also be decisive for the Worlds First race of the legacy raid is the overhaul for Arc 3.0.
This means the Light class follows the Void 3.0 from Season 16 and Solar 3.0 from the current Season 17 and will also receive a more individual configuration in Season 18, providing more “build” options.
To achieve this, Bungie will introduce new aspects and fragments that will add new shine to the outdated focus. Additionally, old exotics could also become more important again.
This focus gets the new ability: Bungie already provided Guardians with the “Synaptic Spear” in Season 16. This was an initial preview of the upcoming Arc 3.0 update, which focuses on mobility and brings grand Arc chaining and movement advantages. Players will not only blind and disorient their opponents but also electrify and chain damage.
All information about the new abilities and what inspired Bungie can be found here:
By the way, it was Kevin Yanes, Bungie’s Sandbox Lead, who revealed the first exciting focus info to Guardians when he tweeted:
Speed is part of the Arc kit. So we gave the synaptic spear two blinks […], a super slide, and crazy jumps/movement speed.
Kevin Yanes, Sandbox Lead at Bungie
Unfortunately, we cannot link to his tweet anymore since Kevin Yanes decided to stop sharing anything about Destiny 2 with players due to disapproving comments from the community. Ironically, the ability he once excluded from the game is now returning, albeit in a slightly modified form.
What comes after Arc 3.0? After Arc 3.0, you should expect that Bungie’s ability team will take a break for a while. The next ability may only be expected by Guardians in the Lightfall DLC or even later. This is likely the next class of Darkness along with Stasis.
New content for PvP and Iron Banner event
Season 18 is expected to bring a breath of fresh air to the Crucible. At least a bit.
- That’s why another old PvP map from Destiny 1 is returning to the Crucible.
- In the PvP event Iron Banner, “Eruption” will replace the “Rift” mode.
- And to increase accessibility and fairness, skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) will be activated for the Control mode.
The Halloween event starts in Season 18
In Season 18, in addition to the two Iron Banner events, there will also be a seasonal event fitting the theme. This time it will be creepy again as Bungie invites to the “Festival of the Lost”. The event is also part of the new event pass and will help Guardians earn their “Swooper” title. To achieve this, they need to participate in all four events.
When does the Halloween event start? In 2022, players will start the Halloween event on October 18, as Bungie announced. It will likely be Eva again who provides everything needed for the event. This includes some really authentic paper masks of famous NPCs or funny community ideas like the Honk-Moon mask.
Planned sandbox changes for Season 18
Season 18 will bring some changes to the sandbox too. Noteworthy here are particularly the updates to the controversial air efficiency of weapons and the optimization of certain weapon types to still receive some minor adjustments in Season 18.
- There has been improved base accuracy in the air and a target assist for all primary weapons.
- Some existing weapon perks received a buff for static effectiveness in the air.
- And the AE base value of several exotic weapons has been increased.
With this, Bungie aimed to influence the PvP meta planning in the last month before the start of Season 18 a bit more. All the precise details and values regarding these changes can be found in Bungie’s “This Week at Bungie” blog post from June 30.
Leaks and rumors about Season 18 from the community
Lastly, we have uncovered some interesting opinions, leaks, and theories currently circulating in the Destiny community regarding the upcoming Season 18. Of course, none of this is officially confirmed content, and it could all turn out quite differently.
Secret player meeting at Bungie reveals: This week, several Destiny 2 streamers and content creators, such as ItsBobbySocks or Jarvenis, posted interesting Twitter posts about a secret Bungie summit.
Previously, the developer held something similar for the launch of the 30-Year Bungie package and the dungeon “Debt of Greed.” Even though the participating players were not allowed to reveal information about the meeting itself, their excitement about the upcoming content for Destiny 2 was palpable.
I know it was not recommended, but I am just too excited. I had the opportunity to attend a Bungie summit yesterday, and some cool stuff is coming to Destiny. I believe in Bungie 100%.
wrote ItsBobbySocks on August 6 via Twitter
This could come in Season 18: As always, leakers have shared their predictions for Season 18 in Destiny 2, and we have summarized the most interesting ones here. One refers to a possible change and the other to story leaks.
Destiny 2 removes the power level grind: The well-known Twitter account Destiny-Leaks suspects that the power level grind in Destiny 2 might be completely removed in Season 18.
Such a change has been requested by players because they find the grind in Destiny 2 too high. By removing the normal power level, players can focus exclusively on the seasonal grind without stress. Such changes would move the game more towards casual gamers and take away a piece of its hard grind mentality.
In fact, Bungie has already made small steps in this direction in the past.
- So the power level pressure was partially relieved with the introduction of the difficulty levels “Legend”, “Master” and “Grandmaster” in most endgame content.
- And through the automatic raise to an adjusted base power level, no one is left behind in Destiny 2. Returning or new Guardians can join back at any time even if they haven’t played for a long time.
Bungie employee allegedly leaked a new ability class: Two weeks before the start of Season 18, a leak regarding an alleged new ability class has also surfaced, showcasing a different super icon along with a new color. Bungie is said to have accidentally published this, and the icons could be placeholders.
Overall, the leak appears dubious to some players. From previous developments, we know that Bungie usually marks its placeholders in-game with a pink icon featuring the Bungie logo if there is no icon yet for it. However, we took a look at what to make of it:
What could the story of Season 18 bring?
Besides changes, the upcoming story is mainly the biggest topic in the community. Everyone wants to know how it continues. Furthermore, Season 17 did not really excite, with the returning Leviathan and Calus. Especially long-time players were left unimpressed, as they felt it was too much recycling and too little innovation.
Season 18 may do better if the contents meet player tastes. Regarding the new story, the major pastebin leak was at least partially right for Season 17. So let’s see what it reveals about Season 18 or whether an exo-mission in Destiny 2 has already predicted a potential future.
This is what the pastebin leak says: According to the leak from the website pastebin.com, players can expect the 14th holy, Mithrax, Crow, and Rasputin as main characters in Season 18. Allegedly, a major project is revealed that they undertake with the body of the Vex Hydra Quria. The goal is to extract the events that led to Savathun’s rise to power from her memory. Season 18 is supposed to end with Immaru, Savathun’s shard spirit, trying to resurrect the Witch Queen, but being killed in the process by Crow, formerly Uldren Sov.
Further, after Immaru’s defeat, the Leviathan, Mercury, Io, and Titan are also said to return to the system. In the first mission of Season 18, Guardians are to head back aboard the Leviathan to negotiate a deal with Calus. The rest of the season will then prepare Guardians for the Witness with Calus.
The last part of the pastebin leak sounds rather unlikely. The Leviathan has already returned in Season 17, and the manifestation of Calus together with the nightmares has met its end. It seems rather implausible for Guardians to have another season with Calus.
This is what Destiny 2 itself says about Season 18: Bungie has also brought in a mission that apparently can predict the future. It is called “Vox Obscura,” where players were able to earn the exotic “Dead Messenger”.
Those who picked up their loot there each week heard several voice lines. The last one reveals several predictions made by the Cabal Psions. The first of which, “The reborn Leviathan returns,” has already come true.
The second prediction states that the ship thief will be resurrected. This refers to Eramis, the main antagonist from the Beyond Light campaign. And it is known that she is not dead. She was only frozen on Europa. It is conceivable that, since Calus is out of the game, the Witness may need a new herald. One who has experience with the Darkness and would serve it.
All of this is, of course, only speculation about the new story. It could also turn out completely differently. Perhaps after today’s weekly reset at 7 PM, the first changes will be revealed to herald the epilogue of Season 17 to the new Season 18 and provide solid hints about the future.
What do you think? Is there still a big secret looming before Season 18 starts on August 23, 2022? And what do you think about the contents of Season 18? Does it already convince you, or are you counting on Bungie to reveal the biggest highlight at the big showcase on May 23? Feel free to share your hopes for Season 18 in the comments with other readers and us.
