Originally implemented during Destiny 2’s Season of the Witch in late 2023, Checkmate is a hardcore Crucible modifier that emphasizes gunplay over all of the space magic wielded by Guardians. While it hasn’t been active across all PVP modes in Season of the Wish, it had taken over some of them outright. So players had to either deal with the extreme modifier or abstain from some PVP modes entirely. Due to the ongoing backlash, developer Bungie announced on X (previously Twitter) Monday that the modifier would be dialed back considerably.
“Based on player feedback, we’re making some changes to Checkmate in tomorrow’s update,” the tweet said on January 8. “Due to the amount of tuning, Checkmate will be moved back to Labs.”
Crucible Labs is the PVP playlist where players essentially test out experimental game modes and modifiers. Some of those experiments get developed into new game modes based on feedback. The January 9 version 7.3.0.5 update moved Checkmate back into Crucible Labs, and the same update also removed the controversial Togetherness modifier for The Coil.
In its original iteration, Checkmate increased player health, lengthened ability cooldowns, and heavily reduced the amount of special ammo. The modifier also adjusted time-to-kill (TTK) rates across all weapon types, so combat emphasized primary weapon gunplay while minimizing abilities. Despite attempts at balancing the TTK of various weapon types, guns with high rate-of-fire like SMGs and sidearms still dominated. Checkmate (which is technically a modifier and not a game mode unto itself) drastically altered the way PVP was played. When it was part of core objective-based PVP game modes like Control, it made for a frustrating experience.
Moving Checkmate back into Crucible Labs is another smart move on Bungie’s part to keep player’s happy by listening to feedback. Some of the other Checkmate changes make it more palatable as well, namely a 16 percent increase to melee damage and shifting all ability recharge penalties from 30 to 15 percent. This inches Checkmate a bit closer to traditional Destiny 2 PVP while preserving what the modifier is intended to do.
It’s unclear if or when Checkmate will ever come back to take over specific game modes or if it’ll ever make it out of Labs again. It makes the most sense for something like Trials of Osiris, which is already an intense, skill-based PVP experience. Destiny 2 PVP at large has been struggling a bit lately, so much so that Bungie assembled a PVP Strike team in August 2023 to focus on revamping the Crucible. Time will tell how effective the team is at reinvigorating what is perhaps the weakest corner of Destiny 2 gameplay, but these changes to Checkmate are certainly a step in the right direction.
