Destiny 2 Season of the Chosen just kicked off this week, once again bringing Guardians to war with the Cabal as Calus’ daughter, Empress Caiatl, seeks to build up a war council. New seasons of Destiny are always filled with great new content—lore, gear, activities, and quality of life changes. But perhaps one of the best subtle changes this season is in the new Seasonal Challenge system, which creates a better path to play than Destiny has ever had before.
It can’t be understated that there is a lot to do in Destiny 2, and at times, trying to figure out what to do within any given game session can be a bit of a daunting task. Do you chase the power grind? Play some Strikes? The seasonal activity? Gambit? Crucible? Assorted missions and objectives on a destination? Destiny 2’s always had a system of things to chase, but it’s often not the best at actually providing a cohesive roadmap through that content. It leaves it up to the player, which can be daunting and stressful.
Enter the new Seasonal Challenge system. When first revealed in the weeks leading up to Season of the Chosen’s release, I overlooked it. Seasonal Challenges simply seemed like more bounties or Triumphs, which already provide plenty of objectives and things to chase and tasks to accomplish. But the massively overwhelming list of things to do can get unwieldy at the best of times.
How Destiny 2 Seasonal Challenges Create a Guide for the Player
For someone like me, who loves Destiny, but has been burned out on the random and unguided assortment of things to do before—thanks, decision fatigue—the Seasonal Challenges provide a guided path for what to play each week. This week, for example, featured challenges that task you with undertaking the new Battlegrounds activity and learning to use the new items for focusing Umbral engrams. It also asks you to complete three of the weekly ritual playlist objectives, and has a few more tasks for Crucible, Gambit, and even exploring Europa.
A healthy mix of main activities and side grinds, the weekly challenges are the perfect tour guide for the world of Destiny. While I wish there’d perhaps been a bit more fanfare and guidance to the challenges at the outset—particularly with how they directly relate to ranking up the War Table in the H.E.L.M.—once I’d discovered them, I was thrilled by their addition.
Seasonal Challenges provide a great place for players who may not have a lot of time, or who simply want to play other games while still feeling like they are fully enjoying what Destiny has to offer. Too often I’ve loaded up Destiny 2 and aimlessly played for hours, perhaps completing a smattering of bounties and Triumphs here and there, but mostly just kind of not doing much. This week, however, I’ve been able to target the first ten Seasonal Challenges, which gave me a great overview of the Battlegrounds activity loop, and actually prompted me to want to play through Strikes and Gambit for the first time in… a very long time. I log in with a greater sense of direction and purpose. I log off feeling more accomplished. It’s a subtle thing that’s drastically shifted the way I not only play, but the way I think about playing Destiny 2.
What makes the Seasonal Challenges work so well is how they are layered into the rest of the experience, not stuck to the side. While completing Seasonal Challenges, I can also be working on bounties, leveling my season pass, and completing various Triumphs. I can be earning powerful rewards and enjoying the experience. I can do them solo or with friends. They act as a guide, but don’t keep me on rails. For example, there’s no specific Raid challenge this week, but if I were to run Deep Stone Crypt, I could simultaneously be knocking out some Europa-based challenges.
None of the challenges are too overbearing or grindy either. They don’t demand a lot of time, and many can be completed almost passively. And if you don’t finish them all in one week, or have to take some time off of Destiny 2? The Seasonal challenges will stick around until the end of the Season, allowing you to complete them at any time. New challenges will pop up weekly, ending a few weeks before the season concludes to give everyone a chance to finish them off and collect the rewards they offer. As a bonus? You can get a good amount of Bright Dust along the way to by yourself premium Eververse store items too.
Destiny 2’s Seasonal Challenges are a guide to playing Destiny. It’s still a fledgling system, built on the ideas of the preexisting bounty and Triumph systems, and I can’t wait to see how Bungie further evolves it to create a deliberate and systematic backbone for the Destiny 2 experience overall. So far, it’s one of my favorite updates with Season of the Chosen, and one of the best quality of life updates Destiny 2 has received so far.
