Summary
Destiny 2’s seasonal events have been in a rough spot for a while because of the lack of new content and the power creep grind reaching its limits in the game’s current iterations, to the point that features like rerolling armor in Solstice is not as valuable as it would have been years ago. Between the fact that seasonal events become available typically after the main story of that season has wrapped already and the fact that the grind for them is not always rewarding or meaningful the longer one has played, it seemed a breath of fresh air thatDestiny 2’s Festival of the Lost is adding a new feature, but it’s also a step back from recent changes in a good direction.
Destiny 2’s new features for Festival of the Lost 2023all sound great if the intent is to make events more relevant and rewarding. Including a new game mode in the form of Legend Haunted Sectors and the Eerie Engrams as a reward for any Festival of the Lost activity are both good, healthy changes that will make this specific event more fun in the long run and possibly also provide Bungie with a new blueprint for all the other events. However, adding an event-specific Memento is not necessarily an excellent idea.
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Why Destiny 2’s New Festival of the Lost Memento is Problematic
Mementos inDestiny 2were a good idea when they first came out, as they were essentially rare drops to chase in core activities, such as Gambit, GM Nightfalls, and Trials of Osiris - with the latter being the toughest to get a Memento from. The main problem was that they were only applicable to crafted weapons and that they came with a hard cap of one per type, with players being unable to obtain more if they had one in their inventory.
Much like theGlimmer cap inDestiny 2, this made no sense on this feature’s launch, and it still has to see any changes. According to the most recent TWID post, Festival of the Lost’s 2023 edition will feature a new Memento players can obtain from the event’s signature Eerie Engrams, meaning that only playing the event will award this rare drop, and only for a short period of time. In fact, it’s likely that Festival of the Lost will only last three weeks, meaning that players will have to hurry to get all the loot they want out of it.
This is a problem because not only this Memento will most likely end up being limited to one per inventory without further drops until that unit is consumed, but also because it promotes once againDestiny 2’s FOMO, which Bungie has been trying to fight for a while. Having only three weeks to get Mementos and having to spend them immediately to get more, this Festival of the Lost addition is looking to be a controversy waiting to happen more than a boon to make the event more enjoyable - all that unless Bungie actually increases the Memento cap.
To add insult to injury,Destiny 2’s Festival of the Lostis heavily focused on wearing FotL Masks when completing activities in order to receive their associated loot - something that is appalling for those who value buildcrafting. Not only that, but with Eerie Engrams being the only source of the event’s Memento, and with said Engrams dropping more frequently from Legend Haunted Sectors, players are going to have to spend more time doing harder activities with underwhelming gear, all while feeling like they’ll miss out if they don’t do it fast. What follows is that the new FotL Memento is a good addition, but one that takes the game two steps back.
Destiny 2is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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