Beyond Light drops in a matter of days and after the longest season in Destiny 2 history, and boy have we felt it, Bungie are about to give us all what we want.
The expansion was announced back in June and a lot has been revealed over the past 5 months so we are here today to catch you up on it all so you don’t miss a thing!
Story
As Season of Arrivals comes to an end, the Darkness has arrived on our shores and we are summoned to Europa by a distress call. Our guardians reunite with The Exo Stranger, not seen since the vanilla Destiny campaign, and are introduced to new darkness powers, known as Stasis. More on that later.
She is there with Eris and the Drifter as a form of Anti-Vanguard after Zavala decided the actual Vanguard would not get involved. The Exo Stranger will be around for much longer this time than last and will be our guide through Beyond Light.
We then begin our battle with Eramis, The deadly Kell of Darkness who seeks to restore glory back to the Fallen and exact revenge on the Traveler for abandoning them. She has also been imbued with the power of Stasis, and is sharing it with her lieutenants. This sets the scene for Beyond Light and what we expect to face in the DLC but there will be more to find out November 10th.
Stasis
Once we get to Europa we get to claim our new stasis abilities. We are introduced to the Darkness in the form of Stasis and each class has a new Stasis subclass which is loosely based off of an existing light subclass.
Behemoth Titan’s are based on the Arc Striker subclasses. Your Titan’s super will see you slam into the ground with Stasis gauntlets sending shockwaves of Stasis crystals that freezes your enemies towards them. You also have the melee attack, Shiver Strike, where you summon your Stasis gauntlet, launch towards your enemy and smash.
Warlocks get the Shadebinder subclass based around Dawnblade. Their super, Winter’s Wrath, summons a Stasis staff that fires projectiles that freeze their targets. You can then detonate the crystals to destroy the frozen enemies. You can use a miniature version of your super via your Melee attack, Penumbral Blast.
Based off of Blade Barrage, Hunters get the Revenant subclass. With the super, Silence and Squall, Hunters will fire off two Stasis shards shaped like Kama blades. The first blade will freeze enemies and the second will shatter them on impact and create a Stasis storm that will kill off anyone remaining.
What’s better than new subclasses? Customisable subclasses! In Beyond Light Bungie are introducing a new form of subclass customisation through what they call Aspects and Fragments.
Aspects can be found in the world and when added you gain new abilities. You can mix and match these abilities as you see fit. Many Aspects can come with slots for Fragments. Fragments allow you to further customise your Guardians and can come with stat increases or even penalties depending on the ability. Aspects are specific to each class but fragments can be used across all three. Good example of how this all works is this: Warlock finds an Aspect called Frostpulse that freezes near by enemies when casting your rift. Warlock then slots in a Fragment, Whisper of Bonds, which grants Super energy when defeating frozen targets. It has a -10 penalty though for Intellect and Discipline if applied.
Europa
Europa is a brand new Destination, rumoured to have been coming to Destiny since the first game launched. It is a frozen, desolate wasteland and has a dynamic weather system, causing storms to appear and when they do everything around you starts to change. You will feel the resistance as you trudge through the snow and struggle to see enemies as blizzards rage on around you.
There are five major parts of Europa, Enventide Ruins, Cadmus Ridge, Asterion Abyss, Charon’s Crossing and Beyond. The secrets beyond the surface however are what we are most interested in and I am excited to get in there and find out more.
Season of the Hunt
At the same time as Beyond Light, we will also start Season 12, Season of the Hunt. We have only just had some of the content revealed but the breaking news here is, Uldren is back. Although he has been reborn as a Guardian, The Crow. This is finally bringing us back to the story threads of Forsaken where he was killed. Osiris has left the Infinite Forest as he understands Xivu Arath, sister to Oryx and Sathathun, is making moves to take advantage of the darkness. Xivu Arath is building up an army and Osiris has enlisted our help. It appears we meet The Crow through this journey and he has allied himself with the Spider.
That is about all we know about this coming season though but we will find out all come November 17th when the first story mission kick off.
Cosmodrome
Europa isn’t the only destination we are getting in Beyond Light. As part of the newly founded DCV (Destiny Content Vault), the Cosmodrome from the first Destiny is making a revamped return.
We aren’t getting full fat Cosmodrome, more, semi skimmed… But Bungie have said that over time, they will add more to it to return it to what it was by the end of Destiny 1 Year 1. We are also getting the Will of Crota strike back on November 10th, with The Devil’s Lair and Fallen S.A.B.E.R. strikes to come back in Season 13.
The returning space is also going to be used in the New Light experience, where KinderGuardians will be introduced to Shaw Han, who will guide them through the experience. However, us veteran Guardians can also play through the new experience too.
We’re also expecting Destiny’s original raid, Vault of Glass, to return at some point during Year 4 reworked and retooled for our Guardians to tackle. However, it’s worth mentioning on the flip side of all of this that Io, Titan, Mars, Mercury and all associated content on those planets are all being taken out of the game to make room for new shiny stuff!
Loot
Bungie have shown off a boat load of new exotics so far with each class getting two pieces of armour each and we know of 5 exotic weapons, two returning from Destiny 1 and three new.
No Time to Explain is the first exotic coming back and will be retuned. Now precision hits on enemies affected by Stasis will return ammo to the magazine. Stack this affect and it will also summon a portal that will fire additional bullets from alternate timelines of the weapon.
Cloudstrike is a new Exotic sniper rifle that generates lightning bolts when you land precision final blows. Rapid precision shots will summon an entire storm.
We have a new Exotic sword called The Lament. Block with the sword to rev up its engine and then use your heavy attack to shred through enemies and barrier shields. At its peak charge it will also heal you when you are damaging an enemy.
Salvations Grip is Stasis powered Grenade Launcher. You fire Stasis crystal projectiles that freeze enemies. Charge it to increase the amount of crystals created and freeze radius.
Hawkmoon, our other returning D1 exotic was revealed early on, and will be redesigned, although we don’t know how just yet.
Now on to the armour:
Titan’s start off with Icefall Mantle, Exotic gauntlets that swaps your barricade for an overshield.
They also get Precious Scars, a helmet that provides them and nearby allies with an overshield aura when getting a revive.
Hunter’s will get the helmet Mask of Bakris which will enable them to swap their dodge for a longer range shift ability, like a standing blink.
Athrys’s Embrace are the arms that will grant Hunter’s a second ricochet for their weighted throwing knife. Rapid precision hits gain a damage boost and can stagger enemies.
Finally, Warlock’s begin with Dawn Chorus, a helmet that allows them more damage from Dawnblade projectiles and cause enemies to burn on contact. You will also gain melee energy each time a burn damages a target.
We end on Necrotic Grip. Warlocks can use their melee ability to send out a wave of poison that corrupt enemies with increasing damage over time. Defeating a corrupted combatant spreads the corruption to nearby targets and restores melee energy.
On top of new exotics we also have new legendary weapons and armour coming from many different sources. Vendors have armour refreshes, although no weapons. Europa has its own set of armour and weapons to earn and the Season Pass usually has a unique set of armour as well to pick up.
PvP
PvP looks to be largely remaining the same. The meta changes will bring a fresh feel to your load outs at least but we’ve not heard or seen of any new or even reprised maps or modes.
What Bungie has told us about however are changes coming to Trials of Osiris loot. Guardians can now earn weapons with Adept mod slots which will allow for unique adept mods to be slotted in. These will add extra perks to the weapons and can be earned by going flawless in Trials. For the coming season, the loot will remain the same to give a chance to earn adept versions of the weapons but in Season 13 there will be an armour and weapon refresh coming our way.
Levelling
The level caps are as follows:
- Soft Cap: 1200
- Hard Cap: 1250
- Pinnacle Cap: 1260
All of our gear is being automatically bumped up to 1050 so you’ll be able to power up 210 levels if you are at 1050, or 200 if you reached last seasons pinnacle cap.
Bungie recently announced that they were changing how you could earn powerful rewards. You no longer are limited by how many you can earn each week in any one activity. Now you can keep playing your favourite mode and continue earning powerful rewards up until the hard cap of 1250. But as Bungie said in their latest TWAB, It will still be much quicker to continue to complete all the Powerful reward sources each week, but if you just want to play strikes or Crucible matches all day every day, you can continue to earn Powerful rewards.
Raid
The last thing I want to touch on is the new Deep Stone Crypt Raid. We don’t know much about it but it will be coming November 21st and will see us descend into the Deep Stone Crypt, the home of the Exo’s. We won’t touch on any spoilers floating around the internet but prepare for Day 1 if you fancy a chance at a shiny exclusive emblem!
Beyond, Beyond Light
Bungie also outlined the DLC’s for the next two years, The Witch Queen, where we will finally take on Savathun and Lightfall, which will begin the end of this story arc in the Destiny universe.
That is everything we thought was worth catching up on before Beyond Light launches on November 10th. There are other smaller system changes coming but these were the main points.
Are you excited for Year 4 of Destiny 2? Let us know in the comments below what you are excited for and if you’re picking up the expansion DLC!
