February 20, 2023

Everything You Need to Know About Destiny 2 Lightfall

Every day we are getting closer and closer to the release of one of the biggest expansions for Destiny 2: Lightfall. Over the past few months, Bungie has revealed many details regarding the expansion and expected changes in the shooter. Thus, we decided to compile a convenient article for all of you. Here is everything we know so far and described really briefly. So, let’s dive in and see what is new in Destiny 2: Lightfall!

STORY

The starting point for Lightfall’s story is the final Cutscene in Season of the Seraph. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it immediately. But nevertheless, we will describe the essential points here. There will be spoilers ahead, but don’t worry. They are marked in gray.

SPOILERS ARE COMING NEXT

In the last cinematic, The Traveler decides to leave The Last City while Eramis prepares Warsets to destroy it. Rasputin sacrifices himself to prevent this, after which The Traveler stops in Earth’s orbit. At the end of the cinematic, we can see Witness, Black Fleet, and Calus is already near Saturn.

Obviously, the main antagonist in Lightfall will be our old friend Calus, who is now one of the Disciples. He travels with his Shadow Legion to a city on Neptune called Neomuna. This city disappeared from all Archives, but Rasputin and Osiris’ visions revealed it. We can only suspect why Calus went there, but we can safely assume that “The Veil” will play a vital role in this story. Rasputin also told us that this artifact is somehow connected with The Traveler. But what else is on Neomuna?

NEW LOCATION

With the revealed release date of Destiny 2 Lightfall, we were presented with a completely new location, Neomuna. Once hidden from prying eyes and forces, the city was discovered and is on Neptune. An entirely new race of Cloud Striders, suspiciously resembling ordinary people, fight for their home to protect it from the troops of Calus and Shadow Legion. One of the Cloud Striders, Nimbus, is Neomuna’s vendor and will delight many players with his budding enthusiasm.

The Wishing City itself will be filled with neon lights and fulfill the Guardians’ dream about walking through the people’s cities. Bungie already showed fans many cool mini-details about the city’s content: Lost Sector with arcade machines, a Calus ship and infinite battles around it, and conflicts on the roofs with vertical gameplay. Players will constantly feel like they are on an endless battlefield.

In addition, in Lightfall, we will get a new non-public event in the style of Escalation Protocol, which is designed for a minimum of six players to complete! In Neomuna, we will also meet a new type of enemy, Tormentors, which will become a real danger to the Guardians. They are capable of grabbing players and absorbing their life energy. Also, on March 5, a new Raid will be released. Still, there are no details about it. Of course, this is not the last thing hidden in this place because Guardians, given time, will discover a new power in it.

STRAND

With the announcement of the Lightfall release date in 2023, developers showed a completely new Strand subclass. Its main feature is high APM (actions per minute). Strand’s gameplay will noticeably change everything thanks to APM and become much more action-packed. Immediately the first thing that players see is a Grapple, which is most likely inspired by Halo Infinite. It will allow you to climb to such places and heights that ordinary Guardians cannot do. Strand will be an excellent refreshing ability for Destiny 2, significantly increasing the player’s mobility, and will be incredibly useful, especially in PvE due to Grapple Melee.

A legitimate question arises: “What subclasses will be presented for our Guardians?” We talked about this in more detail in a separate Strand article. Further, you can briefly understand what precisely this space-web class is capable of:

Berserker (Titan) is an unstoppable force machine, ready to tear their opponents to shreds, but they can assist the team at the right moment.
Broodweaver (Warlock) is a real summoner from various MMORPGs. Although any class can summon Threadlings in multiple ways, Warlock will work best with them. This class will conjure an entire army from these threads, creating even more chaos on the battlefield.
And finally, the elusive Threadrunner (Hunter) can quickly move around the arena while helping allies and destroying opponents in a matter of seconds.

NEW EQUIPMENT

Of course, with the addition, we are waiting for many different Legendaries and Exotics. After showing them to the public, many players started running around and asking Bungie how much Lightfall would cost. So the players liked them. But at the moment, only 5 Exotic Weapons and 3 Exotic Armors have been shown, so let’s quickly go through them.

Strand Sidearm Final Warning, capable of firing homing projectiles when fired from the hip.
Void Machine Gun Deterministic Chaos, which has every fourth shot weakens targets, and every sixteenth makes targets volatile.
Heavy slot Exotic Stasis Glaive Winterbite can shoot an orb that freezes nearby enemies.
Auto Rifle Quicksilver Storm, although available in the game with Season of Plunder, received Catalyst in Lightfall. Grenade creates Strand tangles after defeating the enemy, which will synergize nicely with the new Subclass.
Another new Exotic appeared in ViDoc, this time a seasonal one. Stasis Bow is named Verglas Curve, but more information has yet to be revealed.

Entirely made for Strand Exotic Armors to give you more options. Bungie has announced 6 Exotic gear pieces, but only three of them have shown so far, and none of them have made it into Destiny 2 Lightfall leaks yet:

Hunter’s helmet Cyrtarachne’s Façade allows to get the Woven Mail buff when Guardian grapples. In addition, this buff will give flinch resistance.
Titan’s leg armor Abeyant Leap spawns extra seeking projectiles that suspend enemies and give armor to its wielder when they use their Barricade.
Warlock’s leg armor Swarmers allows you to create Threadling after destroying a tangle.

SEASON 20

In the new Destiny 2 Lightfall trailer or ViDoc, developers told a lot of information about the plot of Season of Defiance. We are waiting for a clash with the Darkness on Earth, and Season will build the plot around rescuing the residents of the Last City. The authors describe it as more mundane and personal but no less critical against the backdrop of the Lightfall’s events. There will also be a lot of old characters that we last heard from a very long time ago, such as Devrim Kay, Petra Venj, Crow, Amanda Holiday, Mithrax, and, of course, Mara Sov.

We know a lot of changes will come with Season 20. For example, Umbral Engrams will completely disappear from the game. Bungie will replace them with Seasonal Engrams, which certain vendors will hold. You can use them to get random seasonal items or focus on desired gear. The vendors themselves will offer more valuable bonuses for Guardians. Bungie also decided to abandon the Season’s currency in favor of keys to open chests, increase the difficulty of seasonal activities for more fun gameplay, and nerf abilities and characteristics of heroes (but more on that in another category).

How effectively this will affect Destiny 2, only when Lightfall is released will we be able to find out.

PLAYLIST CHANGES

Bungie didn’t miss out on their core playlists, so let’s quickly go through each change. Vanguard will be getting a difficulty update in Vanguard’s Ops so this activity can be challenging. Furthermore, in addition to the new Strikes, Lake of Shadow and The Arms Dealer got remakes, and Heist Battleground: Mars is now on the Nightfalls list.

Crucible will receive two new modes at the release of Lightfall, as well as three maps later this year. The new modes are Countdown Rush, a reworked version of the old Countdown, and Checkmate Control, which will change the entire Sandbox of the game. Speaking of maps, Meltdown will return in Season of the Deep, a brand new map will come out at Vex Network in Season 22, and Citadel will return for this year’s final Season. As for Gambit, once again, still nothing.

LIGHTFALL REBALANCINGS

The meta has always been essential to Destiny 2, especially regarding PvP or Endgame PvE. In the new DLC, Bungie decided to take on the second category so that PvP fans would not feel the difference between their guns. So what will change in PvE?

Reduced damage of Linear Fusion Rifles vs. Champions, minibosses, bosses, and vehicles by 15%. (Sleeper Simulant and Queenbreaker are unaffected)
Machine Guns damage increased by 10% (Xenophage is unaffected) and increased reserve ammo (Xenophage and Grand Aventure are unaffected)
Increased the damage of Heavy Grenade Launchers vs. Champions, minibosses, bosses, and vehicles by 20% and minors by 40%. (Parasite is unaffected)
Increased the damage of Kinetic Primary weapons by 5%, Kinetic Special weapons by 10%. Reduced Stasis weapons damage by 5%.
Queenbreaker, Ruinous Effigy, The Leviathan’s Breath, One Thousand Voices, Sunshot, Polaris Lance, Two-Tailed Fox, Prometheus Lens, and Grand Overture received interactions with subclass verbs.
Veist Stinger now only reloads 25% of its magazine when it procs.

CRAFT AND BUILDCRAFTING

The main changes that will take effect with the release of the new D2 expansion will be a slight rework of Crafting and a wholly updated Buildcrafting.

Studio will slowly improve the craft throughout the year. The first change will be that players will only drop craftable weapons with red borders. Coming with Season 21, Adept Raid Weapons will have Enhanced perks, mementos, and other things on certain random rolled weapons.

The situation with Buildcraft will become more pleasing. It will now become more accessible and understandable to a wider range of players, not just those who have a deep understanding of its mechanics. According to the studio, Guardians can quickly get information about their set in the menu, and the armor itself will have a more fitting list of mods. It will be possible to save your best loadouts up to 10 sets for more convenient switching. The developers hope these changes will become one of the key changes in the next 2023 Destiny 2 expansion.

At the time of writing, that’s all we know about Lightfall, the new Season, and other upcoming changes in Destiny 2. Bungie is trying to make one of the largest expansions they’ve ever done, and we hope they will be able to pull this off. As information becomes available before the release of Lightfall, we will update the article. And if you don’t remember what time the Lightfall release is, there is very little time left until February 28th.

The most important thing to remember is that if you don’t have enough time to level up, then you can use our Destiny 2 Lightfall carry. WowVendor professionals will fulfill your order quickly and help you reach new heights in this shooter.

Thanks for reading! Owl is flying away.