Here we are in week six of the Season of Defiance, and Destiny 2 has already hit its midseason slump. With the seasonal story seemingly over, ending with the death of Amanda Holliday and no real closure, we’re now onto our second Iron Banner week. What have we got to look forward to as the Season of Defiance stretches on? The Guardian Games. How bleak is that.
Of course, every season of Destiny 2 inevitably enters a dry period at some point. When the seasonal story wraps up and new weekly activities stop being rolled out, there’s often not much to do besides work on Seasonal Challenges, go for the ritual weapon, or stop playing for a while. But it feels like it’s happened earlier than ever this season. Maybe that’s because the Season of Defiance launched alongside Lightfall, which as a yearly expansion can be expected to pick up a bit of the slack for the season.
Except that Lightfall didn’t have much going for it either. While Strand is cool, the narrative fell totally flat. Bungie promised that the story of the expansion would be told over the course of the next year of seasonal content, but what have we gotten so far? All that’s really happened in the Season of Defiance is Amanda Holliday’s death. We still have no idea what’s going on with the Witness, the Veil, or anything on Neptune.
Well, we do have the Guardian Games coming up, so that’s something. Despite historically being the least popular of the four annual events, this one may have higher participation than usual due it being the last event needed for those who have been working on their Reveler title. There will probably be some kind of small story beat about it bringing Guardians together after our losses, but until we actually find out why the Pyramids were taking prisoners, what Crow is planning on doing to avenge Amanda, or where Xivu Arath is, who cares?
So there’s no new story mission, but hey, Iron Banner is back this week. We get three instances of it a season now instead of just two, which is nice for those looking to get the Iron Lord title or acquire gear. That said, it does feel like something Bungie can point to as content in lieu of actual season storytelling or missions.
What’s the solution here? Short of simply having more meaningful story beats doled out in a more regular way, we’re not sure. Maybe the annual expansion plus seasonal content model isn’t working anymore. With Bungie working on another project now, it seems that they simply don’t have the capacity to produce Destiny 2 content to the same degree that they used to. Maybe we’ve simply come to expect too much. But one thing’s for sure: it’s going to be a long few weeks until May 22, when Season of Defiance wraps up.
