Reviewed on the PS5 and PC
Here we are, the final week of Season of the Hunt – before I continue on my thoughts towards the season, check out my review of Destiny 2 Beyond Light to get some perspective.
Season of the Hunt launched alongside Beyond Light, giving players more content and new loot to chase. After you were done taking down a new threat and earning yourself some Darkness powers – knowledge of Osiris losing his light reaches you. You are then tasked to go to the moon to help Osiris uncover a new Hive threat – a magical device called The Cryptolith. After reaching Osiris, he is ambushed by a new Hive Knight, but was suddenly saved by a new ghost-weilding warrior….Uldren Sov!
OK, I may be a bit excited by the prospect of Uldren Sov, and just to recap, he was the guy that killed Cayde-6 back in Forsaken. He’s a jackass – but he was also possessed by a Taken energy-wielding magical dragon….it’s complicated. During the course of Forsaken, we avenged Cayde by…well killing Uldren. Soon after, a ghost by the name Pulled-Pork, then finally finds his Guardian….who happened to be Uldren Sov. Again, complicated.
Being risen by a Ghost also means losing your memory – since Forsaken, Uldren wandered around the solar system trying to figure out who he was. It took about 3 years to finally know what’s up – and that’s when The Spider hires Uldren. Spider, a smuggler in the Tangled Shore, knows of Uldren and decides to change his name to The Crow. All of this leads to the starting point of Season of the Hunt. Osiris sought help, The Crow intercepts and offers more help. The story is intriguing enough and is done well too – sort of organic throughout the 3 months since Beyond Light. But….well, I guess the development process of Beyond Light must’ve been daunting because Season of the Hunt is by far the smallest season yet.
The Grind
Season of the Hunt has you hunting Hive energy signals that resonates from Savathun, Witch Queen, sister of Oryx. She has her elite Hive warriors planting Cryptoliths all over the system for some reason, and we are to find out why. The Crow is our main point of contact and gives us a device that should help pinpoint these champions. It’s a relatively simple mechanic that borrows from the chalice during Season of the Opulence. You get these mods that empowers the device for specific loot, plant the device near a Cryptolith and damage a champion enough to follow it to a lair. You can definitely do this with a fireteam, but only the one who planted the device gets the loot. This is not a true shared activity. And honestly, this feels like a pseudo-gate to progression with friends.
That’s pretty much all you’ll be doing during Season of the Hunt. Of course there’s themed gear to chase, but overall the quality of the content feels bare bones. However, just like the previous season, there’s Exotic quest to complete and earn some dangerously delicious loot. And this time, the return of Hawkmoon! Alongside came the Harbinger, which is a…smaller scale Zero-Hour quest, which is not a bad thing.
The Elements and Verdict
Bungie did an excellent job bringing new lore into a beloved Destiny 1 exotic. The development of Crow through the quest is one of the best Bungie has done – the process in obtaining the weapon and ultimately freeing Crow from the Spider’s grasp is endearing – and one of the best elements in this season is how it’s not self-contained; previous season were entirely built on having a beginning, middle and end – but this time, it’s clearly a build up to upcoming expansions. Although this is a low season, it sets a foundation for something huge in the coming years.
To Be Continued
Its should be obvious by now – Season of the Hunt was bare bones at it’s core, and although the Harbinger, The Crow and Hawkmoon and overall story and theme is excellent and exciting, the content and the act of grinding it wasn’t enticing at the least for a Destiny Player like myself.
REVIEW SCORE: 6/10
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