In its third year, Destiny 2 will continue to use Seasons – including a Season Pass. In a developer blog, Bungie introduced the Seasons and the Season Pass along with their associated contents. Here’s what’s included.
What are Seasons in Destiny 2? They are content packages, each thematically inspired and continuously providing the game with new content such as weapons, gear, lore, and activities within a defined period.
This model contrasts with previous DLCs like Curse of Osiris or War Mind. These DLCs represented larger content drops that were, in principle, released all at once.
What can we expect in Year 3 of Destiny 2? Year 3 will also be defined by Seasons. During a season, there will be content available for all players, such as the seasonal artifacts. However, those who want to fully enjoy a Season will have to purchase it – in the form of a Season Pass:
- There will be a total of 4 Seasons, each with its own pass. Year 2 had 3, and they could only be purchased as a bundle under the Annual Pass.
- Each Season Pass will cost around €10 and can be purchased individually.
- The pass for Season 8 is included with the purchase of Shadowkeep, but can also be purchased separately without the autumn expansion.
- All 4 Season Passes for Year 3 can be purchased as a package, for example with the Shadowkeep Digital Deluxe Edition. Whether there will be an affordable bundle just with the 4 Season Passes, like a kind of annual pass, is currently still unknown.
What’s included in the new Season Pass for the third year of Destiny 2
In his latest blog, Franchise Director Luke Smith has now showcased what a Season Pass from the third year of Destiny 2 includes, using Season 8 as an example. Included are among other things:
Standard content such as new activities like the Vex Offensive, new rewards, a new story line, and more. Basically, it’s what you already know from the Annual Pass for Year 2.
Season Pass Ranks: As a Season Pass holder, you will receive 100 seasonal ranks to climb within the season. To do this, you basically just need to do one thing: play Destiny 2 and earn XP. Bounties, Strikes, weekly challenges – everything you do in Destiny 2 contributes to your progress.
These ranks are part of the new reward philosophy and represent another way to earn loot alongside seasonal artifacts or RNG. This will allow players to specifically work towards certain rewards throughout a season and earn them directly.
One should no longer feel like they logged in, but achieved nothing in that session. However, the best weapons and armor will still only drop from boxes of the toughest enemies in the game.
After a season ends, the old ranks disappear, and the next season starts anew. However, Bungie does not want cool rewards to simply disappear. Therefore, all legendary and exotic rewards from a season will also be available in subsequent seasons – although perhaps not immediately afterward (but also not after 6 months).
By the way: Bungie has stated that there will be two paths for rewards: free and premium. The rewards in the upper row can be obtained by all players. The rewards in the lower “premium row” are only available to Season Pass holders.
Catch-up mechanic for ranks with monetary investment: According to Bungie, progress within the rank system should proceed quickly and not be artificially slowed down. In internal tests, players were able to rank up in less than an hour through casual play of the strike playlist including some bounties.
However, there are many players who can only spend a few hours per week fulfilling their Guardian tasks or who can only play irregularly. Not everyone will be able to reach all 100 ranks through playing. Therefore, Bungie will introduce the option to purchase ranks using real money. However, this catch-up mechanic will function differently than comparable systems from the competition.
Other games already allow players to purchase further levels starting from rank 1. Destiny 2 lets you play for a while by yourself as much as you can. The Season of the Undying is expected to last about 10 weeks. The use of the catch-up mechanic is only meant to be enabled during the last 2-4 weeks. By the way, the studio has not yet commented on the prices.
Seasonal rewards: What kind of rewards can Season Pass holders expect? Bungie exemplified this using the upcoming Season 8:
- A new seasonal activity – the Vex Offensive. This includes
- 4 legendary weapon drops
- Additional weekly and daily bounties
- Additional weekly challenges with powerful rewards
- A new weapon quest for the exotic bow “Leviathan’s Breath” (Season Pass exclusive)
- The new exotic hand cannon “Eriana’s Vow”
- Available at rank 35 on the free reward track
- Available at rank 1 on the premium reward track
- 3 seasonal legendary armor sets (one for each class)
- The complete set can be collected within the first 25 ranks of the free reward path
- On the premium path, you receive all 3 sets at rank 1
- The sets also drop in the new Vex Offensive activity. If you want these sets with higher stats, you’ll need to play the activity
- Additional premium path rewards:
- 3 sets of universal armor ornaments (one for each class)
- An exotic weapon ornament for Eriana’s Vow
- 2 weapon ornaments for legendary weapons
- A new finishing move
- An exotic emote
- An exotic ship
What do you think of the new Season Pass model? Let us know in the comments.
