This Tuesday, March 5th marks early stages of the new season of Destiny 2 called “Season of the Drifter”. This is the second installment of the Destiny 2 annual pass 6th season and if you watched the ViDoc that Bungie released not too long ago then you’ll see that Bungie has made some significant changes to the game mostly as it pertains to the Gambit game mode.
The Season of the Drifter is not exclusive to the Drifter and Gambit however. It’s all a part of a larger narrative that is supposed to answer some questions about some of Destiny’s most mysterious characters (The Drifter included) that floated around in the game since the first game. The Emissary if you can remember is the strange character from the Nine that gave you weapons when you did a run in the trials of the nine when it was reinstated in Destiny 2. We went from Xur to the Emissary and we don’t know sh*t about either character. The idea in the Season of the Drifter is that some of these questions if not answered completely will be explained a bit better. The ViDoc also hints that some backstory on Xur will also be clarified.
There seems to be a great deal of new additions that are going to be added to the new with this content. What can you expect? A lot and it makes for a reason to play Destiny 2 and grind it out for that loot and backstory. Here’s what to expect with the Season of the Drifter.
WEAPONS
The reason to play Destiny at all is for the shitload of weapons at your disposal when you play this game. Some weapons are better than others of course but the reason most of us who play/played Destiny at all is for the weapons. Yeah, armor is cool but your weapons will get you through every and all events. What kind of weapons exotic and legendary alike can we expect?
Thorn – This is the gun that every Destiny player had a love hate relationship with. Either you hated it because in the Crucible everyone had it and it would drain your energy annoyingly with its poison bullets or you loved because now you were on the other end you got to piss people off by killing them with it. Well, the quest for the gun has returned and I’m quite sure everyone is going after this gun. It remains to be seen how Bungie will handle the power of the thorn and the degeneration rate of the poison once you get hit with it otherwise it’s going to be a case of the Thorn being the most hated gun in the game again.
New Gambit weapons – If you play gambit then you then are some cool weapons that you can get as legendary drops if you play it enough. There are going to some good loot drops from the new Gambit Prime mode as well as the original Gambit.
Pinnacle weapons – There are new Pinnacle weapons this go round. One for the Vanguard, Crucible and Gambit. The Vanguard get the Oxygen SR3 solar scout rifle with dragonfly. The Crucible sub-machine gun is The Recluse is void and has the master of arms perk which increases damage over time with kills from any equipped weapon. Lastly, the Gambit heavy machine gun 21% Delirium which is an arc rapid fire machine gun with the killing tally perk which increases damage with each kill and when the gun is reloaded. These are the guns that most players are going to go after from the onset of the update.
GAMBIT
Gambit in the Season of the Drifter isn’t undergoing a complete overhaul as much it’s being subjected to refinements that it needed. You can still expect the same anxiety driven fast paced action of Gambit that made it the best PvP mode in Destiny 2 (In my opinion). There are going to be some changes in the way that Gambit is played in it’s original mode.
First of the changes will be the addition of a sudden death Primeval mode. If both teams each won a match then the third match would illicit a sudden death rubber match with the Primeval without collecting motes. It’s on with killing the boss from the start of the round.
Second part of the changes has to do with the blockers. Not only will they get a buff they’ll be different taken altogether. The small blocker taken phalanx is being replaced by a taken goblin. The taken captain now becomes the medium blocker and the large blocker is now a taken knight
Invaders now have more opportunity to be bigger pricks than before as if they weren’t annoying enough. The spawns for invaders are going to be far more random allowing for them to have an opportunity to kill the opposing team players much easier and in a much more covert way. Opposing players will no longer be able to kill invaders at their spawn point so easily.
Players who sit around and are basically idle will not reap any rewards. Lastly, light vs light is much easier for those trying to obtain the Dredgen title. Instead of having to kill Invaders who are using a super, you can now kill any guardian who is using a super whether your killing an invader with a super or if you’re invading and an opposing player is using a super. It all counts as points towards the Dredgen.
GAMBIT PRIME
Gambit Prime is the biggest change to Gambit. What is Gambit Prime? It’s a one round go all out shootout. The goal is the same. Be the first to kill the Primeval but this time there is heavy emphasis on teamwork as killing the Primeval is not just about shooting your weapon at the boss. According to the ViDoc teams will have to use raid style mechanics to perform a task before you can begin to dps the boss.
Players will have to choose a role or job to perform when they play Gambit Prime. There are four in total. The Reaper is the kill everything clear out the map kind of player. Tank style players will love this role. The Sentry is one of the more skilled tasks as it’s their job to take out incoming invaders not knowing what weapons the invader is using or how skilled the invader is. The Collector does exactly what it sounds like. Collects motes. That’s it. That’s not to make light of that job. After all, nothing happens in Gambit without motes so respect to the Collector. Last, is the Invader and it’s also self explanatory. The most skilled job of all. The Invader has to be covert, skilled at a variety of weapons and has to have an understanding of how to make the best use of 30 seconds to kill opposing players. Don’t take on this role if you’re not an effective killer.
The way that we’ll know which players is taking on which role is by the armor sets that carry the snake logo of the Drifter and the glowing color it shows off. It’ll be red for Invader, Yellow for Sentry, Green for Reaper and a white glow for the Collector. These armor sets can only be obtained by winning Gambit Prime matches and passing The Recknoning task afterwards (We’ll get to that in a second). Gambit Prime will be a challenge and you can be sure that there will be plenty of loot to go with that challenge. Players will be grinding the hell out of this mode
THE RECKONING
The Reckoning is the mission you’re thrust into after you win a Gambit Prime match. This is where the conversation with the Emissary and the Drifter sort of come into play. Did the Emissary and the Drifter make some sort of deal as to why the Guardians are thrown in to this intense challenge that is the Reckoning? Who knows? What we do know is that it’s going to be frustratingly difficult and once again teamwork is a must as ads are going to be coming from all sides non-stop. If you’ve ever played the first part of the Crota raid then you can just picture what the Reckoning is going to be like. The worst part? This is a timed event. There’s no mapping out a strategy here. It’s go time. If you don’t beat the time limit and make it to the end then you basically won a Gambit Prime match for nothing. This is going to be an event I can’t wait to play and I’m sure the Destiny community is looking forward to it as well.
WILL I PLAY SoTD?
I’m so ready to play SoTD. Gambit is a PvP mode that I think has become entertaining than the Crucible. We can agree to disagree on that but now more so than ever I’ve found that the Crucible is for the more hardcore PvP player and the player that favors using certain types of weapons only. It’s not fun anymore. Gambit makes PvP and team play much more entertaining and for Bungie to do this and add a new element to the story overall is a plus. We’ll see the beginning of SoTD tomorrow March 5th and then the second installment of the SoTD will take place on March 12th. I’ll be playing. I’m a Guardian. Will you be playing?
