Some of Destiny 2: Into the Light’s weapon choices are confusing

When it comes to dealing with Destiny 2‘s sunset gear and re-releasing it as part of a new content drop, Bungie’s an iffy track record. It’s exceedingly rare, for one, that a full weapon set returns, and that’s what prompted me to think about Into the Light’s weapon choices, too.

To set the stage, we now have a pretty firm grip on Destiny 2‘s upcoming Into the Light content drop. It’s a kinda-sorta celebration of Destiny‘s history, drawing upon key elements that veteran players may (or may not) recall to deliver something new. And, truly, in that sense we’re looking at something very interesting indeed. Besides, when Bungie pulls out the ol’ Superblack Shader, you know the team needs this content drop to succeed.

And look, I’m not being cheeky here: everything points to Into The Light being fairly awesome in its own right. The things I’m confused about are the specific weapon choices, their elemental affinities, and their respective archetypes. As per Bungie’s official developer livestream, the team had to be extremely picky about weapons, as they had a hard 12-item limit to keep in mind. This makes sense, of course, even if only due to budgetary constraints, but why settle on two 140 RPM hand cannons, then?

Before we move on, here are all the revealed Destiny 2: Into the Light weapons:

• The Mountaintop break-action grenade launcher
• The Recluse SMG
• Hammerhead LMG
• Blast Furnace pulse rifle
• Edge Transit heavy grenade launcher
• Luna’s Howl hand cannon
• Forbearance break-action grenade launcher
• Succession sniper rifle
• Midnight Coup hand cannon
• Hung Jury SR4 scout rifle
• Falling Guillotine sword
• Elsie’s Rifle pulse rifle

This alone should drive home the point I’m making: we’ve got repeats upon repeats, when it might’ve been better to deliver more variety, instead.

It’s all well and good that Bungie’s throwing a bone to Black Armory fans at last with the Hammerhead and the Blast Furnace (though this is a prime example of Bungie’s delightfully selective un-sunsetting, considering how many people want Black Armory to return in full), but why did Bungie choose to do two pulse rifles, two hand cannons, three grenade launchers, and the Hung Jury, of all things?

We’ve got absolutely no doubt that all twelve Brave weapons will be excellent, from the Recluse to Succession. But, as Bungie’s Senior Design Lead Chris Proctor stated, a grand total of 40 weapons was being considered for Into the Light at one point. As per Proctor’s statement, Bungie was trying to cover a wide variety of weapons and archetypes. No auto rifles, sidearms, fusion rifles, bows, or shotguns have made their way on the list, however. Further, a non-insignificant chunk of the all-new Brave weapon set is already available in the game at this time, fully up-to-date and mostly viable!

More specifically, both the Succession and the Forbearance are available via the Deep Stone Crypt and Vow of the Disciple raids, respectively. The Hung Jury, too, has been reprised several times now as a Vanguard weapon. And, once again, this relatively short list of a dozen weapons has multiple repeats, and ten of these armaments come with either Void or Kinetic affinity. No Solar, Arc, Strand, or Stasis at all. Weapons such as the Luna’s Howl and Blast Furnace are extremely exciting and I’m definitely not complaining, but if variety and niche coverage were the goal, this doesn’t seem like a phenomenal way to achieve it.

In select instances with weapons that you can farm for right now, an elemental affinity shift or a frame retrofit could’ve been enough to balance between harkening back to Destiny 2‘s history and delivering something new and niche-defining, it feels like.

Now, of course, I’m not taking into account the potential difficulty of turning Succession into, say, a Stasis Aggressive Frame sniper rifle. A part of the weapon’s core identity would’ve been lost in doing so, which is the second obvious concern when discussing these matters.

On the flip side of things, the Brave weapons’ respective perk lists are being massively revised. Doing so was no mean feat, and judging by what Proctor has been saying, Bungie has tried its best to deliver an exciting, interesting, and enjoyable arsenal of new weapons to use before The Final Shape comes out later this year. It just feels like the team’s weapon choices stand in opposition to this idea, almost to the point of working against the developers with how many weapon types and element repeats we’re getting.

Now, it’s worth highlighting that the aforementioned list of 40 weapons is still on the docket for potential future release, as per Proctor’s comments in the developer stream. We may get a re-released version of the Trophy Hunter yet! There’s no telling when that might happen, though, and given the team’s apparent constraints in getting the Brave weapon set across the finish line, the development cost of reproducing old kit is non-trivial at best.

Once again, none of what I’ve discussed above is bad news in and of itself. All of the featured weapons are important to the franchise in this way or the other, and it’s excellent to see them back in full force. And, heck, Bungie’s already backed down from its original drip-feeding plans for the Brave weapon set, which is great. It’s just that I can’t help but wonder whether the objective of delivering a wide array of unique weapon archetypes was just lip service for the community, in the grand scheme of things.

I’d like to argue that the mechanics of Brave weapons and their re-issuing are the really exciting bits here. I’m not thrilled with Bungie’s choices, as it stands, but I will be able to re-farm the Blast Furnace and even get a cool shiny version of it for a limited time, with enhanced perks installed to boot. Sure, it’s FOMO, but Destiny‘s never had a problem with that, and since the Limited Edition variants of Brave weapons aren’t that much better than the permanently available baseline, this isn’t too big of an issue.

In summary, then, it does feel like Bungie may have been a fair bit too conservative in choosing which weapons to return for Into The Light. Even so, there’s a lot to look forward to here, and if Brave kit sets the stage for what’s to come down the line, it’s good news for the Destiny community for sure.