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Destiny 2's Season Of Dawn has begun, returning to Mercury

Thanks, Osiris

Our old pal Osiris has once again done something daft in Destiny 2, so here we come to fix his time-travelling mess. Season Of Dawn, the second season since Shadowkeep, started today and it sends us to Mercury to deal with a giant weird Vex machine Osiris slapped together. He wanted to save his friend Saint-14 from the Infinite Forest, he accidentally gave the Cabal a time machine to win the war we ourselves won during the original campaign. Nice one, Osiris. Nailed it. Again. The fanciest parts of the new season are reserved for season pass owners, but newness is coming for everyone, even free-to-players.

A while back, Osiris built a machine he calls his Sundial, intended to help him scan the Vex's universe simulation to find where they trapped his mate Saint in a centuries-long battle to his death. When that didn't work, he just threw a tarp over it. Real smart. Now some Cabal psions found it and are now trying to find a timeline where they could win the Red War and crush humanity.

Cover image for YouTube video

The Sundial is the focus of a new six-player matchmade activity, which will be available only this season. Players pile in to fight a roulette wheel of encounters across the past, present, and future of Mercury, leading to a boss (new ones will rotate in across the season) and goodies. I'll need to play more to get a sense of how much it changes, but I sorely hope it's less repetitive than last season's Vex Offensive.

The Sundial is also tied into a series of Obelisks we unlock and charge on various planets to unlock bounties for the certain weapons, upgrade to give planet-wise bonuses, and... there's a lot going on. Plus, from December 17 we'll get a quest to go save Saint, which sounds nice.

Also new with the new season: new seasonal weapons and armour, a new seasonal Artifact with new seasonal mods to unlock, and a new battle pass. If you buy the Season Of Dawn pass, you'll get way more loot out that battle pass.

The specifics of what's free for everyone and what you need to own the season pass for get messy. Go see Bungie's Season Of Dawn page for more on the season and the calendar of content and events.

Oh goodness me there's still more to go over. A patch! A few things stand out to me:

  • Oh my god I can ride my spacebike around Mercury now.
  • Solar subclasses are mostly buffed, with some getting new abilities. Many changes.
  • A few other subclasses are tweaked too. They've even buffed Thundercrash, though not nearly enough.
  • The power caps is raised by 10, making the new Powerful cap 960 and the Pinnacle 970.
  • The Recluse's special perk no longer gives such a large boost to non-headshot damage. Please let its tedious reign over all modes end.
  • One-Eyed Mask no longer grants an overshield. Will this be the nerf that ends this absolute dick of a hat?
  • Linear fusion rifles get a 20% damage buff (except Sleeper, oh dear) and more target acquisition guiding shots at close-mid range.
  • Sidearms get a load more target acquisition.
  • Ammo Scavenger mods give less bonus ammo, though you can now stack scav mods.
  • The PvP Crucible added a new map, Rusted Lands (returning from the first game), and refreshed playlist map rotations.
  • Elimination is now a permanent fixture of the Crucible.
  • Escalation Protocol's final chest no longer needs a key so you can start farming that fancy Rasputin armour.
  • Anarchy, the Exotic grenade launcher from the Scourge of the Past raid, has its drop rate doubled from 5% to 10%. Good luck - it's fun.
  • You can add finisher animations to a playlist of favourites, then each kill will play a random one.
  • Clan lists are still busted and worse than they were on Battle.net.
  • You can no longer stand on sticky grenades. Apparently this was a bug? Boooo!

See the update 2.7.0 patch notes for more.

If you didn't get the year of season passes with Shadowkeep's Deluxe Edition, Season Of Dawn will cost you £8.49/€9.99/$9.99. If you don't play Destiny 2 at all, hey, the base game is free-to-play on Steam

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Alice O'Connor

Associate Editor

Alice has been playing video games since SkiFree and writing about them since 2009, with nine years at RPS. She enjoys immersive sims, roguelikelikes, chunky revolvers, weird little spooky indies, mods, walking simulators, and finding joy in details. Alice lives, swims, and cycles in Scotland.

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