Summary
Destiny 2is arguably in one of its darkest times, which is the byproduct of Lightfall not meeting players' expectations in 2023, controversies surrounding microtransactions and Eververse prices, the layoffs at Bungie, and The Final Shape being delayed. As of now, February has the lowest concurrent player number forDestiny 2since its launch, and while this is understandable given the fact that Season of the Wish is basically over but has to stick around for another four months, it is still quite concerning seeing where it may come from. There are good things about the game that are either coming or have already been added, such asfree cosmetics with theMass Effectcrossover, and now Bungie is adding a newDestiny 2weapon type in March - but that’s the wrong place, at the wrong time.
It doesn’t happen often that Bungie makes the decision to add newDestiny 2weapon types, and while archetypes are even rarer, with only bows and glaives being added respectively in Forsaken and The Witch Queen since launch, this is still a big deal. New weapon types can be anything from the reworked Warden’s Law to first-time weapon/element combinations, and they are good because they can reshape the meta in big ways. However, the new gun coming in early March is likely to be a controversial one.
Destiny 2’s New Weapon Type Shouldn’t Be Time-Gated
As it stands, there are still severalweapon and damage type combos missing inDestiny 2, such as Strand glaives or non-Void Exotic pulse rifles, and one of these was wave frame grenade launchers that deal Strand damage. Luckily, this is changing with the 7.3.5Destiny 2update in March, as Bungie is adding the first-ever Strand wave frame grenade launcher to the loot pool - but with a massive catch.
The 7.3.5 Destiny 2 update is also adding the second-ever double-fire frame breech-loaded grenade launcher and the second-ever Stasis sword.
The problem is that this one-of-a-kind weapon is being tied exclusively to Iron Banner loot, which is not the most populargame mode inDestiny 2, and it is also time-limited by huge margins when compared to anything else. In fact, Iron Banner only typically drops a few times per season, and from now to the release of The Final Shape it appears that there will only be two Iron Banner weeks starting on April 2 and April 30, respectively. With this grenade launcher likely becoming a very sought-after gun that cannot be obtained otherwise, limiting it to Iron Banner is not a great move on Bungie’s part.
Destiny 2’s First-Ever Strand Wave Frame Grenade Launcher Should be Widely Available
Destiny 2’s Iron Banner Is Too FOMO-Adjacent
Iron Banner is one of those live-service elements inDestiny 2that is still actively causing FOMO (the fear of missing out), as it’s only ever available on a handful of given weeks per season, meaning that players either need to be there or they don’t get another chance at it for quite some time. This has caused issues in the past, especially seeing how grindyDestiny 2’s Iron Bannercan be, especially without all the positive score modifiers available - something that can be obscure to casual players and also unattainable for various reasons.
As such, having a first-ever kind ofDestiny 2endgame weapon tied to this event is a case of bad place, and the bad time comes from the fact that these are the “dead” months of the game where players are mainly waiting for the next expansion to launch. Season of the Wish is already the longestDestiny 2season ever, with Bungie needing to fill the void with more content drops for the game to stay afloat, so having a new weapon type available randomly from an activity that only lasts for two weeks out of the four months untilThe Final Shape releasescan feel like adding insult to injury.
