The Case For 2021 Being Destiny 2’s Best Year To Date

Give that it’s almost 2022, here on Christmas Eve I thought I’d take a look back at the game I’ve spent the most time with over the past year. The same game I’ve spent the most time with the three years before that, Destiny 2.

The more I reflect on the year of content, the more I come to a conclusion that on its face, seems sort of odd. Somehow, I think 2021 managed to be the best year of Destiny 2 we’ve seen so far. And that is, miraculously, a year that does not actually contain a large expansion, given that Beyond Light was late 2020, and The Witch Queen doesn’t get here until February 2022.

In my estimation, the closest competitor here was 2018, the year Forsaken came out in the fall, which was after Warmind in spring 2018. Or you could say maybe it was 2019, which brought Season of the Forge which carried into early winter 2019, then we had the beloved Season of Opulence in summer 2019 before Shadowkeep in the fall.

But for me personally, the seasonal content and additions found in 2021 surpass them, overall. A huge reason for this is the dramatic improvements in storytelling we saw this year, but bolstered by high quality loot and activities as well. Let’s go through it.

Season of the Hunt – I know, I know, Hunts were bad. It’s a season attached to an expansion (Beyond Light) so it was never going to have a ton of content with it. And yet, by the end, this is a season that gave us the beginning of Crow’s redemption arc which would carry through the entire year. While Hunts were not good, we got Harbinger, a great mission that secured us Hawkmoon, and showed how Crow has attracted special interest from the Traveler. And also Osiris, a looming sign of things to come.

Season of the Chosen – This is when things really kicked into gear, and began the whole “maybe we don’t always have to murder all the aliens” concept that carried through the year. I loved Battlegrounds, one of my favorite seasonal activities so far, jam packed with enemies. Their only problem was the awkward Hammer Charge system, but the loot was good, and I’m still using much of it to this day. The storyline with Caital, Zavala, Crow and Osiris was top notch, and Caiatl was one of my favorite new characters introduced to Destiny in several years. Chosen also gave us the Presage “ghost ship” mission, and I think you could make the argument that it might be one of Destiny’s best missions…ever, no exaggeration. The exotic you got from it, Dead Man’s Tale, was fantastic as well.

Season of the Splicer – Again, another fantastic new character exploration with Mithrax, and Saint coming to terms with his role as a “monster” to the Fallen was touching, and one of the best story beats we’ve seen in Destiny (that one cutscene still haunts me). Expunge was a creative type of mission reliant on agility over combat. Override was okay, but gave us some pretty great loot. Splicer also marked the return of Vault of Glass, which I think pretty much everyone agreed was a great reprisal, again, including quality loot, and the eventually buffed Mythoclast that’s about as strong as it’s ever been. Drop rates are…another story.

Season of the Lost – The past three seasons culminated in the grand reveal of Osiris as Savathun, the seeds having been planted a full year ago with his arrival to mentor Crow. This has been far and away the best plot turn Destiny has executed since its inception, better than anything we saw in a full expansion, and this is how live service storylines should feel. For as much as everyone liked aspects of Season of the Forge or Opulence, we were lucky to get a lore book or two out of them, nothing like we’ve seen here. Lost has continued the trend of introducing new weapons with interesting perks, which we keep getting every three months, and in general, I think this is the best loot and rewards have felt in the game’s history. They’re doing a lot of creative things with perks and builds over this entire year in a way we haven’t seen to the same extent in previous years.

30th Anniversary – This content just hit and practically feels like an entire season all to itself. Extracting itself from the year-long storyline ahead of Witch Queen, this was more than anyone expected to see from an event like this. Dares of Eternity is a blast and the Halo/Marathon tribute loot is more than just a gimmick, it’s genuinely great. The Grasp of Avarice dungeon is incredible and the return of Gjallarhorn has somehow lived up to the original without entirely breaking the game.

Over the entire year, there’s almost too much to cover. Massive balance patches that have created probably the best sandbox we’ve seen in years, with stasis in particular finally being brought in line. Countless new perks on armor and weapons to make for the most creative builds we’ve seen. Beautiful armor sets and finally, a transmog system, at last (with annoying limits, of course). Simply put, despite there not being a large expansion in 2021, I think Bungie has done a tremendous amount here. Perhaps most on the storytelling front, but loot, activities, quality of life features, the sandbox, all of it has been handled incredibly well, and I think the game is genuinely in the best state it’s ever been.

Here’s to 2022, when hopefully we can surpass it.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.