Destiny 2 is one of the most successful live-service games of all time, but not without a cost. To that effect, the game has sunset so much of its content that keeping up with the story has gotten really hard, and I aim to summarize its broadest strokes right here.
Below, you’ll find a short but to-the-point explanation of what’s gone down in each and every one of Destiny 2‘s sunset seasons: all 20 of them in total, for now. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so no dawdling: let’s get to it.
Destiny 2’s seasonal stories: all sunset content, summarized
Our story here begins with the second year of Destiny 2 content: the Forsaken-era goodies. These weren’t technically seasonal pieces of content as they stuck around for a few years before being fully removed out of the game, but they’re still unavailable at this time, which makes them fair game.
Year 2 (Forsaken) – Season of the Forge
The Season of the Forge introduced the Black Armory and Ada-1 to Destiny‘s lore, leading to the introduction of one of the most beloved aesthetic gear styles in the entire franchise. Generally, the impact of Black Armory stuff on the grander lore of the game is fairly minuscule, although Bungie did end up using some of the narrative seeds featured here later down the line. Forge’s biggest contribution to Destiny 2, broadly, was the awesome Scourge of the Past raid, though it, too, is unavailable at the time of writing this article.
Year 2 (Forsaken) – Season of the Drifter
The Season of the Drifter, on the other hand, came out swinging with the third (alleged) gameplay pillar of Destiny 2: the Gambit. This PvPvE game mode was a total novelty for the game back in the day, and though Bungie has been overlooking it in favour of the Vanguard playlist and Crucible combat, it’s still a pretty big deal. Story-wise, the Season of the Drifter was all about the Nine and their strange workings, and we also enjoyed the Reckoning activity to keep things spicy.
Year 2 (Forsaken) – Season of the Opulence
The most popular of the three “original” seasons, Opulence was the highlight of Forsaken‘s post-launch content for sure. The story of Calus’ appeals to the Guardians was fun, for sure, but the Menagerie activity was the real deal. Featuring the downtrodden Leviathan aesthetic, now focusing on dull metals and dark, grimy marble, this was a striking departure from the usual gold-and-purple of the Leviathan proper, and the whole thing was just a stellar way to end the year with.
Year 3 (Shadowkeep) – Season of the Undying
Season of the Undying was the first of a new breed of seasons: featuring a pointed narrative slant and a new seasonal progression system, this set the stage of what we’d be playing for… well, for years afterwards. It wasn’t an excellent season, though. Undying was plagued by excessive repetition (thanks to its Vex Offensive activity), questionable loot, and a story that kind of went nowhere. Players helped Ikora build a fancy new Vex Gate to mount a final assault on the seasonal boss, and that was it.
Year 3 (Shadowkeep) – Season of the Dawn
Season of the Dawn, however, was a much better offering in comparison. Heck, even today, it remains a high mark for Destiny 2, as we got to bring back Saint-14 through not only an excellent Sundial activity (brimming with awesome time-defying loot) but also some standout story missions. Another highlight worth mentioning here is the mysterious reveal waiting for us at the end of the Corridors of Time: the death of the Guardian themselves, which remains unresolved to this day. All in all, Dawn showed us what Bungie could do with Seasons, and left the players wanting more.
Year 3 (Shadowkeep) – Season of the Worthy
Sadly, Worthy couldn’t keep up with the sheer moxie of Dawn. A Warmind-focused story, Season of the Worthy sent Guardians on a mad dash to recover and secure secret Rasputin facilities strewn across the existing Patrol Zones. Some of them, in fact, are still visible if you go out to patrol on, say, the Moon, though you obviously cannot enter the bunker proper. Story-wise, Season of the Worthy focused mainly on Ana and Zavala as they set aside their differences to work for the betterment of humanity. Worthy’s biggest mistake was its heavy reliance on bunker clearing, which got very repetitive as time went on. Its biggest win, though, were the massive, ominous tracker displays showing that something pyramid-shaped was fast-approaching the galaxy. It was a hoot, I can tell you that much.
Year 3 (Shadowkeep) – Season of the Arrivals
Season of the Arrivals is one of the best seasons Destiny 2 has ever had, without the faintest sliver of a doubt. Building onto the content introduced in Worthy, Arrivals made players go back to one of Rasputin’s bunkers to delivered on the terrifying promise of Worthy by actually showing off the Darkness pyramids as they invaded our planets. Immense, unknowable (at the time), and deeply terrifying in-lore, they brought about huge changes to various patrol zones and Guardians worked alongside the Drifter and Eris Morn to stifle their progress. At the same time, the forces of Savathun attempted to do the same, leading to a wild ménage à trois that kept you busy no matter where you went. Sadly, it all kind of fell apart in the next season.
Year 4 (Beyond Light) – Season of the Hunt
After the events of Beyond Light played out, the Season of the Hunt had no hope of substituting what was lost. We lost huge chunks of the game here as the sunsetting played out, and in return, we got a few crummy boss hunts and questionably useful gear. Still, Hunt had a compelling story focusing on the return of a certain prince, which in turn set the stage for The Final Shape years down the line. At the time, though, this was a very poor follow-up to Arrivals, with its narrative being a rare highlight.
Year 4 (Beyond Light) – Season of the Chosen
In comparison to Hunt, Chosen was awesome. Featuring some new core content, the introduction of Cabal Empress Caiatl, and the concept of Strike-adjacent Battleground missions, Chosen showed us that something nice was cooking in the background still. Its narrative was centered around the plight of the Cabal as they run from Xivu Arath’s Hive, helping explain the species’ behavior against the wider backdrop of the Destiny universe.
Year 4 (Beyond Light) – Season of the Splicer
Season of the Splicer was to Eliksni/Fallen what Chosen was to Cabal, but with a more striking aesthetic plastered on top. As the Last City is beset by a Vex-incurred endless night anomaly, Mithrax joins forces with the Guardians to resolve this problem and, perhaps, integrate his House of Light with humanity proper. Splicer’s neon-laden activities were fun, its gear was extremely potent, and its story – dealing with immigration and integration – showed up as a high note for the year. All in all, an excellent chapter in Destiny‘s history.
Year 4 (Beyond Light) – Season of the Lost
Mara Sov made a less-than-triumphant return in the Season of the Lost, which opened up a pretty hefty can of worms now that her brother was kind-of-sort-of-dead but also working with the Vanguard. Lost began the long process of the pair resolving their problems, and activity-wise, it tasked the Guardians with the six-player Astral Alignment to stop Xivu Arath’s Hive from emerging from the space between spaces. This was good fun, to be sure, but the highlight of the season was the Shattered Realm, riffing on Metroidvania and Roguelite gameplay tropes to deliver a surprisingly replayable activity.
Year 5 (Witch Queen) – Season of the Risen
Season of the Risen built on top of Witch Queen in a remarkably engaging way: even though Savathun was now taken out of the picture, her Lucent Hive were still a serious threat. To that end, the Vanguard joins forces with Caiatl’s Cabal to deal with them. Enter a whole host of new Battlegrounds, and a side-story of the Crow trying to do a good thing, only to very nearly ruin the Vanguard/Cabal agreement along the way.
Year 5 (Witch Queen) – Season of the Haunted
Haunted, too, was rather great when all was said and done. Featuring the grand return of the downtrodden Leviathan, now fully overtaken by Nightmare growths and Scorn enemies, Eris Morn sets up a small expeditionary force to try to retake it once and for all and purge Calus from its halls. Those of us who remembered the Leviathan from years passed got a hefty dose of nostalgia here, and we got to enjoy it as an impromptu patrol zone for the whole year, too.
Year 5 (Witch Queen) – Season of the Plunder
Plunder was yet another solid offering in the year of Witch Queen. This season went all-in on the Eliksni’s pirate-inspired past, tasking Guardians with completing six-player Ketchcrash missions, three-player Expedition operations, and separate Pirate Hideout boss hunts. Great fun one and all, and with a story to match: Guardians were chasing down the body parts of Nezarec himself, which nobody saw coming at the time.
Year 5 (Witch Queen) – Season of the Seraph
There wasn’t much to complain about in the Season of Seraph either, if we’re being honest. This would be the grand finale of Rasputin’s wider story, pitting him against Clovis Bray himself in an unexpected turn of events. Seraph was a stark, dramatic tale that wrapped up with Rasputin sacrificing himself to stop a catastrophe in the making and, coincidentally, reveal the truth of Nefele Stronghold: Neomuna.
Year 6 (Lightfall) – Season of Defiance
Season of Defiance was a surprisingly by-the-number seasonal offering, which didn’t work in the game’s favor following the questionable state of the Ligthfall DLC on day one. Defiance brought with it a new batch of Battlegrounds, this time dealing with the Cabal’s kidnappings of human and Eliksni civilians… for some reason. It was good fun, though it wasn’t touched upon in future lore. We did get a lovely callback to Splicer, though, with the hard-as-nails AVALON Exotic quest!
Year 6 (Lightfall) – Season of the Deep
A long-anticipated return to the oceans of Titan, Season of the Deep was a visually striking chapter of Destiny history that brought with it a huge list of lore reveals thanks to the presence of Ahsa, the leviathan space-whale. The Salvage and Deep Dive missions were neat, Fishing was a solid change of pace, and the story kept things interesting for way longer than you’d expect.
Year 6 (Lightfall) – Season of the Witch
In the Season of the Witch, Guardians helped facilitate Eris Morn’s ascension to Hive godhood. Yup, that’s right: Eris became the Hive God of Vengeance for a little while, fancy chitin and all, and it was about as horrific as you’d expect. It was a great season though, with the Altars of Summoning and Savathun’s Spire missions playing into the grander anti-Hive efforts of the Vanguard.
Year 6 (Lightfall) – Season of the Wish
Finally, in the Season of the Wish, Bungie resolved one of the most annoyingly persistent mysteries of Destiny 2: the 15th Wish. This Season resolved a great many different stories, from Riven and Ahamkara lore all the way to the relationship between Crow and Mara, this was a satisfying end-cap before The Final Shape hit. The Riven’s Lair was solid, but the roguelite The Coil activity was a real joy to play, showing us that Bungie could do something truly special with the game on a long enough timeline. All in all, then, an excellent send-off for the year and a solid kick-off for The Final Shape.
Published: Jul 29, 2024 11:15 am