Just about each week brings one thing new to Destiny 2, whether or not it is story beats, new actions, or fascinating new mixtures of components that permit gamers devastate one another within the Crucible. Iron Banter is our weekly have a look at what is going on on on this planet of Destiny and a rundown of what is drawing our consideration throughout the photo voltaic system.Solstice might be my least favourite of Destiny 2’s annual occasions. The summertime celebration initially kicked off alongside the Moments of Triumph, marking the tip of a Destiny 12 months and serving to gamers commemorate all of the cool stuff they’d executed with a pleasant set of glowing armor to boot–but it tended to be a closely grindy occasion that lacked the enjoyable persona of Halloween’s Festival of the Lost or The Dawning of the vacation season. Solstice additionally tends to be an intense grind, and if there’s one factor I’m not a fan of within the Destiny video games, it is grinding content material again and again.For 2022, Bungie made some vital adjustments to Solstice, nevertheless. It altered the best way its particular occasion armor works, adjusted the particular EAZ location and the occasions that happen there, and launched a brand new “Event Card” system, each for ticking off goals and for incomes premium rewards as a part of the occasion. Solstice appears to be like very completely different in 2022, and now that it is over, we will check out the three-week summertime celebration to run down what labored, what did not, and what we would anticipate from extra annual occasions as Destiny 2 goes ahead.The enhancementsOverall, my impression of this 12 months’s Solstice was that Bungie recognized some vital issues that maintain the occasion again and addressed them to make it higher. The greatest and most essential of them: Solstice armor.Armor earned throughout the Solstice occasion is all the time particular. It has its personal distinctive design and might tackle “glows” that give it a novel, incandescent look. The factor about Solstice armor, nevertheless, is that it takes numerous work to make. The total celebration occasion is normally about placing within the work to improve your Solstice armor from low-level, frequent gear to high-level Legendary stuff. Most of the time, that grind is in regards to the glow on the end–although typically, it’s a must to pay additional to realize the good appears to be like. This 12 months, nevertheless, Solstice armor was made lots higher by Bungie’s continued enhancements to gear-targeting methods.The capacity to tune your Solstice armor to your private specs nearly makes the grind value it.With the Candescent armor you might earn on this 12 months’s Solstice, ultimately, you might tune every gear piece with the precise stats you wished. The system allowed you to select one stat with a “spark” that assured it to have no less than 20 factors invested in it–a fairly vital quantity, since a single stat for legendary-type armor tops out at 30. In addition to that, with the Ghost mod system that permits you to typically goal armor towards a selected stat, you might additional tune your Solstice armor in a unique route, with the Ghost mod guaranteeing 10 factors in a unique stat out of your spark. That meant you might get a assure of 20 Resilience, together with a assure of 10 Discipline, as an illustration, with randomness contributing the remainder of your gear’s numbers to a attainable whole of 68. With a lot of Solstice armor dropping all through the occasion, that meant gamers had fairly good possibilities of making fairly shut to precisely the sort of armor they wished throughout Solstice.It’s not an exaggeration to say that the armor system this 12 months was a significant enchancment for Solstice. It made the entire occasion really feel very worthwhile by offering what’s principally the most effective gear-tuning alternative within the sport. Even for those who weren’t significantly eager on Solstice’s actions, it was value it to interact with the occasion for the cool armor. Worthwhile rewards are all the time a giant plus in Destiny 2, and Solstice dished them out.It did so equally by including a brand new weapon to the sport, the hand cannon Something New, which carried a brand new particular trait known as Dream Work that rewards you for working carefully with teammates. The trait was bugged for a bit, making it very particular, however even with out that add-on, Something New feels particular (as does Compass Rose, a shotgun that was reworked for this Solstice). Bungie is making excellent use of the brand new Origin Trait system, particularly as seen right here: Something New is a gun that comes from precisely one supply, with a novel aspect that makes it really feel particular. It’s one other good motive to leap into Solstice.Bungie did away with the outdated EAZ occasion, which had gamers chasing down hidden treasure chests after combating waves of enemies, in favor of a brand new exercise known as Bonfire Bash. Generally, I used to be a fan; it is not particularly completely different from the outdated EAZ, nonetheless requiring killing waves of enemies, however no less than it freshened issues up a bit and did not require working across the map to seek out these treasure chests on the finish. Overall, the EAZ nonetheless will get stale in a rush (extra on that in a bit), however Bonfire seems like a greater model of what we have performed within the house earlier than, on the very least.Adjustments to the EAZ make it extra enjoyable than previously, however it nonetheless will get stale in a rush.Finally, the Event Card system is a reasonably respectable one. It places all of your goals for the occasion in a single place, and if you wish to spend a couple of bucks to improve it, it dishes out some premium beauty rewards as well–without adjusting how Solstice performs in principally any manner. The Event Card system is an efficient one for conserving issues organized, though it would be good to see some higher rewards, as I’m unsure anybody actually cares about Ghost projections or transmat results, however possibly that is simply me. It’s a minor addition, however a helpful one, in any case.The drawbacksSolstice noticed numerous enhancements this 12 months, however its main downside remained: it is a grind, and never an particularly enjoyable one. As common, it takes numerous work to enhance your Solstice armor to its very best ranges. Not solely did it’s a must to play a lot of aggressive matches and a complete lot of Bonfire Bash, however you needed to fiddle with numerous public occasions and playlist actions. It wasn’t as grindy as in previous years, however it was nonetheless a big grind, when Destiny 2 has, in a basic sense, moved away from prolonged necessities for making numbers go as much as typically extra significant engagement (though the infernal grind persists, for positive).I’ll say that the work to get your armor as much as its greatest ranges wasn’t practically as annoying as in final years, which included necessities like raid or dungeon completions–which aren’t a excessive bar for some gamers, however which might be extraordinarily irritating for others. The worst of it this 12 months was in all probability the 25 aggressive matches performed requirement for both Crucible or Gambit. It did not assist that boosted progress for alternate characters was damaged for many of the occasion. Still, although, 25 matches is lots to ask of anybody, interval. I’d wish to see Bungie discover methods of creating these necessities really feel extra significant, possibly by tying some gentle story components to them so it feels such as you’re searching for out items of armor from across the Solar System, or doing one thing to pay homage to the triumphs Solstice is supposed to have a good time. Regardless, the armor grind is an annoying one, and as soon as I’d completed on my Titan character, which took me about half the occasion to finish, I gave up for the remainder of Solstice and deserted my alts to their non-glowy fates.Bonfire Bash, too, suffers the identical destiny as earlier EAZ occasions. It’s fantastic for a bit, however not terribly difficult or fascinating. Of course, we’ve to take note of that annual occasions like these are designed for extensive engagement among the many participant base, and are subsequently saved informal, and I feel the changes this 12 months made Bonfire Bash much less of an irritation than it had been in previous iterations. But you continue to find yourself taking part in it a ton, and it is principally the identical each time.The Event Card system is beneficial for conserving the occasion organized, however it might stand some higher rewards.There’s potential within the EAZ as a space–it’s extra vertical than possibly wherever else in Destiny 2, and navigating in three dimensions to finish the occasion is a cool thought. New environmental objects to launch you round are additionally actually helpful. But the occasion itself would not use the house in a manner that provides a lot to it. Mostly, the tall buildings and distant floating islands are simply annoyances in your manner as you attempt to race to the subsequent factor to kill, so you possibly can end the occasion as rapidly as attainable. That’s additionally a operate of the grind, actually, as a result of everybody needs to knock out Bonfire Bash as quick as they will, since they’ve to finish so lots of them. It makes the occasion really feel like a chore, however even for those who weren’t sprinting by it, as soon as you have executed 4 or 5 runs, they’re all just about the identical. And that makes it powerful to remain engaged with Solstice for your entire three weeks.The verdictI’m pro-Solstice 2022, no less than within the body of the opposite Solstice occasions. Generally, it was a significant enchancment. The points that make Solstice one of many weaker annual occasions persist, nevertheless. Though Bungie added some actually nice premium beauty objects to the occasion this 12 months, of which I purchased a number of, it nonetheless seems like Solstice lacks persona in comparison with the opposite occasions.The worst aspect, nevertheless, stays the grind. I’m glad Solstice armor was improved to the purpose that it felt prefer it was value chasing, however it nonetheless required a excessive diploma of effort to earn–and not the enjoyable sort of effort, like taking over a problem and defeating it, however the annoying sort of effort, like working 25 Gambit matches simply to get them executed. For me, I feel the reply is both to lower the grind, which seems like a basic mandate for Destiny 2 general lately, or to reinforce Solstice armor much more, in order that the reward feels commensurate to the work concerned in incomes it. Solstice 2022 undoubtedly obtained nearer to that steadiness, however it’s nonetheless not sufficient to raise Solstice amongst Destiny’s different annual occasions.What’d you consider Solstice this 12 months? Did you just like the adjustments? What would you wish to see Bungie do with it sooner or later? Am I fully improper about it? Let me know what you suppose within the feedback beneath.
The merchandise mentioned right here have been independently chosen by our editors.
GameSpot could get a share of the income for those who purchase something featured on our web site.