Destiny 2’s Season of the Haunted is almost over, with a little over three weeks until the launch of Season 18 and the showcase Bungie planned for August 23. In yesterday’s TWAB, Bungie discussed several changescoming toDestiny 2, such as the skill-based matchmakingreturning to the crucible, as well as the release date of the upcoming Season 18 Raid. Bungie did plan for Year 5 to have two new Raids and two Dungeons, with Season of the Risen including Vow of the Disciple and Season of the Haunted launching Duality. Season 18 will reprise an old Raid fromDestiny, whereas Season 19 will have a brand-new Dungeon.
As per the TWAB,Season 18’s legacy reprised Raid will launch on August 26– a Friday. AlthoughDestiny 2is not new to Raids launching on Fridays, the community has been vocal over the years about Saturdays being the best bet for all Raid launches due to it being usually a day off for most workers and those who go to school, allowing everyone to participate in the launch experience. As such, this change of date may set a new precedent for Bungie – one that has both pros and cons.
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What Destiny 2 Season 18’s Raid Releasing on a Friday Implies
For a while now,Destiny 2Raidswere being released on Saturdays, which made sense from a community engagement perspective due to overall higher concurrent player numbers across all platforms. This time, the Season 18 Raid is coming on Friday, which does have huge implications in terms of how many people will be able to engage with the Contest Mode and Challenge Mode for the World’s First race, a popular event that registers huge viewership numbers on streaming platforms. For this reprised Raid, Bungie will keep the Contest Mode open for 24 hours, allowing every team that successfully completes the activity within that time frame to enter Challenge Mode for the World’s First race.
This is a different approach toVow of the Disciple, for example, which had Contest Mode and Challenge Mode active simultaneously, meaning that only one full clear was required for entering the race and potentially winning it. Not only that, but the Raid is also coming three days into the new Season, which is weird because players will have very little time to try out the Arc 3.0 subclasses and new things from Season 18, which is still a mystery. Bungie also chose not to reveal the newDestiny 2Raid at this stage, with the reveal probably happening during the August showcase.
With such a small window to get contest mode and challenge mode done, knowing what the Raid is beforehand would be beneficial, while instead, the reveal is happening only three days before launch. Bungie stated that this return to Friday release dates is due to the many problems that popped up with Vow of the Disciple in Season 16, which the company couldn’t fix because it was over the weekend, thus why launching the Raid on a Friday now makes sense.Destiny 2is a complex game, and having all hands on deck for emergencies is going to be crucial to guarantee a smoother launch.
This could probably be the new norm moving forward unless Bungie manages to have a dedicated team on weekends for future releases, but the core team does work Monday through Friday on a regular basis, and Bungie already fought hard to overcome crunch culture. This is a healthy change for the developers, first and foremost. The fact that the Raid is launching only three days into the Season might be a good thing because there isn’t enough time to have a meta come up, and thus the race could benefit from this compared to past releases where unlocking all seasonal mods was required beforehand. Overall, while this release date change will undoubtedlyaffect manyDestiny 2players, the reasons for it are understandable, and further feedback may help Bungie adjust accordingly in the future.
Destiny 2is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
