The weapons that didn’t make it into Destiny 2: Into the Light

Bungie’s streams about Destiny 2: Into the Light have made some waves as of late. Much of the attention is centered around the return of several iconic weapons via the Brave Arsenal. However, Bungie recently noted that the 12 featured weapons were whittled down from a whopping 40 or so options.

Into the Light is a content update for Destiny 2, due out on April 9. To familiarize players with the incoming content, Bungie arranged three livestreams over three weeks on Twitch. The first stream introduced players to the new Onslaught horde mode, while the second outlined rewards and the new Hall of Champions social space. Though Bungie showed off a respectable 12 Brave Arsenal weapons, one developer recently confirmed that the team had a much bigger list to start, and worked their way down from there.

What happened to the other 28 weapons?

On PvE: Podcast Versus Enemies, the hosts spoke with Bungie Combat Area Design Lead Chris Proctor. After some questions regarding balancing and design philosophy, the podcast positioned the million-dollar question. “There is some controversy. Some people wondering why X weapon didn’t make the cut. You did mention that you had a pretty large list at the start of this when you were deciding what’s gonna actually go into Into the Light. Can you give us the selection of weapons that didn’t meet the final cut for whatever reason?”

Proctor’s response outlined that Bungie had first spent some time trying to figure out which weapons to bring back. To that end, suggestions were gathered internally from team members, in addition to combing through player requests over the years. From there, the studio had to figure out what was realistic.

Proctor commented, “We ended up with 40 weapons or so that we really wanted to bring in. And then we had to figure out how many we could actually reasonably make. And it ended up being 12, which is a surprisingly small number. Like 12 is a large number of weapons, but when you’re looking at the kind of legacy we’ve got here, it was pretty tough.”

What were the lost Brave Arsenal weapons?

Proctor was a good sport about the ordeal, following up the disappointing news with, “Yeah, I can drop some of the weapons that we had to cut pretty painfully.” From there, the Combat Area Design Lead didn’t outline all 40 mentioned weapons, but he recounted a few off the top of his head. The Brave Arsenal weapons that didn’t make the cut included:

• Chroma Rush auto rifle
• First In, Last Out shotgun
• Dust Rock Blues shotgun
• 21% Delirium machine gun
• Fatebringer hand cannon
• Dire Promise hand cannon
• Wastelander M5 shotgun
• Antiope-D submachine gun
• Trophy Hunter sniper rifle
• Erentil FR4 fusion rifle

Proctor listed various reasons why weapons weren’t included in Into the Light. He mentioned that while all 40 were great, many were just “not quite iconic enough.” On top of this, Proctor also positioned that the older the weapon is, the more difficult it is for the team to bring it forward into the current Destiny 2 sandbox.

While it may be sad to hear that a favored weapon from Destiny‘s past was considered and passed on, Proctor hinted that these weapons may not be absent forever. While listing off the unchosen weapons, like Trophy Hunter and Antiope-D, Proctor said, “Hopefully we’ll see that come back again as well.” Maybe these beloved weapons aren’t lost forever, but for now, Guardians have 12 weapons from across Destiny history to focus on.