Destiny 2 Season of The Seraph End of Season Review
Season of The Splicer has finally come to a close and, unlike its predecessor, it failed to disappoint and has gone above and beyond any of our expectations. From story to character interactions to even the subtle drops of lore coming into the game without us even knowing. This season is, without a shadow of a doubt, the best seasons Destiny 2 has ever had and that bungie has ever released.
Game World / World Building
With every new season in Desitny 2 comes a new list of activities for the community to do, but not every activity will always be fun. This would serve as Destiny 2’s curse since they started to follow the seasonal format, where the season’s primary or main activity become the most tedious and repetitive. However, there will always be those that go beyond our expectations and provide an amazing and immersive experience to its community. From the map design to the method of completing the objective, Season of The Seraph’s activities are the best example of this.
The Heist Battlegrounds drops the player into reprised areas of the Moon, Europa and Mars with small changes added to them. One of many that players would notice are Xivu Arath’s cryptoliths scattered across the map. These cryptoliths, unfortunately, look as if they were copy and pasted from the Season of The Hunt as they function essentially in the same way. Spawning waves of enemies and are made to burrow or retract once all enemies have been eliminated. New Seraph towers were also added into the Heist Battlegrounds activity, beaming down the player and instilling fear through a 15 second timer as it slowly counts down till the player is under cover. A mechanic that forces players to side peak and make them feel like they are actually under a bigger threat than what’s in front of them.
Other than a reissued map in the seasonal activity, each of the 3 destinations used in the battlegrounds also brings back the new and improved seraph bunkers. In a completely un-bungie move, these seraph bunkers almost look nothing like they used to back when they were first introduced back in Season of The Worthy. Each bunker and path looking completely different and unique from one another.
Operation: Seraph’s Shield, unlike its sister activity, provides players a new area for them to explore while making a creative use of the Deep Stone Crypt raid mechanic that would definitely give veteran raiders a tingle down their spines. From a rough, snowy terrain littered with seraph towers to an all-new satellite station area that really makes the player feel smaller than they already are. Operation Seraph’s Shield is nothing short of a breath of fresh air, not only when it comes to its new maps, but also in terms of difficulty and puzzle mechanics.
While this activity is not considered a dungeon, for some odd reason, it definitely has the difficulty and feel of one. Enemies are tougher to kill, can easily overwhelm anyone and really makes the player think about their next move while getting bombarded.
Every two seasons, Bungie gives the community a new dungeon to go through and this season’s dungeon, Spire of The Watcher, is one I hold in very high regard. You can read my dungeon review here so you can understand why this is one of the best dungeons and activity added this season.
But if you want a short TLDR of the Dungeon Review, all I have to say is that the Spire isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty damn close.
Despite the seasonal quest following the same format of the player going through the same seasonal activity with a different name and rehashed area. I can’t deny that Bungie’s world design, even if there are usually minimal changes to the maps, is astonishing.
Characters and Story
Even if a season would happen to fall flat, fail to give a good community event or has too much down time, one thing the community can collectively agree on is that Destiny 2’s storytelling is nothing if not astounding. However, Season of The Seraph has now set a new standard for Bungie’s way of progressing the game’s overall story.
I was afraid at first of being let down once more after being lured in by the nostalgia hype that this season provided. But I was surprised to see how well the story progressed and how much the story didn’t rely heavily on it. Season of The Seraph is far different from the past seasons such as Season of the Dawn, Worthy and Hunt; it does not bank most of its hype on the return of certain characters. Instead, it maintained the hype that Lightfall was already generated beforehand through its narrative and through the character interactions with each other and the player, their development and growth and (unfortunately) through the loss of a friend.
The entire year from the Witch Queen campaign all the way to the end of Season of The Seraph, has shown us loss, its effects and beloved characters from the franchise attempting to unify amidst the chaos. With the mountain of events pilling up on the vanguard’s back, instead of depending on the traveler to actually do something to aid them; they turn to each other for support. Especially towards the player and learn to cope with the situation and make the best of it.
Season of The Risen showed Saladin’s “sacrifice” for Crow and keep the peace between the vanguard and cabal. It was also him trying to teach the new light while not all decisions are always going to be humane or good, but when in a war you do what you can to survive and understand the enemy.
Season of The Haunted was not just about facing the past and accepting it, but it was also a humbling moment for crow. Making him face his past and try his best to make up for it. At the same time, making the community ask the question: “Is Crow still Uldren and is he still accountable for his past sins?” Zavala and Caiatl confined in one other after learning about each other’s respective pasts, strengthening their bond.
Season of The Plunder, as bad as the season was, showed us the past of Mithrax and how much he tries to cover it up and eventually make up for what he has done after the events of the whirlwind. He knows what he has done, but still does what he can to support the survivors of house light and as a parent make sure his daughter doesn’t make the same mistakes.
Season of The Worthy, a powerhouse returns in the form of an incomplete exo. Knowing that the Warmind has returned to us and how stretched out our resources are, we go back to a state of dependence on Rasputin. Ana doing whatever she can to repair him, Osiris using Rasputin to confirm his visions and the rest of the Bray family at each other’s throats. Ultimately, at the end, when the traveler leaves and Rasputin sacrifices himself, Ana is comforted by her sister, Elsie Bray, Osiris is by Saint-14’s side and the vanguard is ready to throw down against whatever threat is coming next, with or without the traveler flying above the city.
Weapons and Combat
Not much can be said about the new legendary weapons other than design. Nothing new was actually added other than the origin perks, and even those are nothing to write home about. As amazing as they look, the guns are especially lackluster and are no different from the other weapons we got from past seasons.
The exotic weapons on the other hand, are down right, jaw dropping, monsters on the battlefield for both casual and sweaty players alike.
Starting off with the battle pass exotic: The Manticore. This weapon grants the player the ability to levitate while shooting hostiles below. Allowing titans and hunters to fly like a warlock and warlocks to finally glide straight instead of slowly descending to their deaths.
Its catalyst can be obtained from banshee after obtaining the gun at level 1 or level 35. After completing the objectives of the quest and officially completing the catalyst, players now receive damage resistance as they gun down enemies from above.
The Manticore is great for casual play or basic traversal in the overworld, strikes and lower end content. However, should you ever bring this weapon to a grandmaster nightfall, master raid or even basic PVP, you might as well just dig your grave before you even land in the activity.
Moving on the Hierarchy of Needs. This weapon is precision based and, very much like the exotic previously mentioned, also makes use of a bar that requires charging through headshots and kills. Once the bar is filled, fire from the hip and a doctor strange portal looking ring will appear in front of you. Shooting through this guidance ring allows the arrows of this weapon to be accompanied by tracking projectiles that will go for any enemy that is unfortunate enough to be in your sights.
You can get this weapon by chance at the end of the Spire of The Watcher dungeon on any difficulty. Getting the catalyst, however, can only be obtained through the master version of the dungeon.
The catalyst of the Hierarchy of Needs decreases draw time and reload speed after deploying the guidance ring or by killing an enemy.
The Hierarchy of Needs is a great weapon to bring around with you in the 3 core playlist activities, dungeons, nightfalls and raids. The weapon becomes even more fun when at least 1 other fireteam member also has the weapon equipped. As long as a guidance ring is on the battlefield, any Hierarchy of Needs projectile that goes through it will still proc the tracking projectiles regardless of if the ring was yours or your teammate’s.
Now, to the best exotic this season has to offer: The Revision Zero. This pulse rifle can be obtained by going through the previously mentioned Operation: Seraph Shield and crafting the weapon in the enclave after it.
Still following the theme of a charging bar, this weapon requires hits and kills to charge it up, but precision damage or kills charge the bar faster. Once fully charged, hold R and watch the weapon go from a pulse rifle to a 4-shot sniper rifle. It also intrinsically has anti-barrier rounds which makes it perfect for grandmaster nightfalls.
Unlike any exotic before Revision, this weapon offers 4 possible catalysts to the player once it reaches level 10. The base catalyst that can be placed on the weapon gives Feeding Frenzy at level 1. At level 4, the next catalyst gave the weapon Under Pressure and Outlaw at level 7. And at level 10, The Revision Zero catalyst adds Fourth Time’s The Charm.
With the weapon being craftable at the enclave and if the weapon is high enough for the player to place the desired catalyst, you can now make your first official god rolled exotic weapon. A favorite perk combo that I like is Vorpal with Fourth Time’s The Charm, an excellent DPS weapon in high end content and great to use against champions.
Looking at all these exotics, each of them have their own strengths and weaknesses. But regardless of how good or bad they may be in certain activities, these weapons are a step in the right direction when it comes to exotics, and it gives me high hopes and expectations for of exotic weaponry going forward into lightfall.
Conclusion
Season of The Seraph is arguably the best closer for Destiny 2’s year 5. This season boasts an amazing seasonal story and character development that will draw both new light and veteran players’ attention to the Light and Dark saga and how it will conclude.
With great exotics and world design to match the breath of fresh air that is Season of The Seraph, Destiny 2’s future is looking bright with lightfall only a few days away, our end drawing ever closer and hype at an all-time high.
