A Guide To Understanding Monetization In Destiny 2: Shadowkeep New Light

Destiny 2: Shadowkeep takes the idea of Forsaken’s Annual Pass and splits it up into different chunks. Year 3 of Destiny 2 is spread across four Seasons that players must purchase to enjoy Seasonal Activities, exclusive cosmetics and special Exotic quests. Each season will set you back $9.99, though the first season, Season of the Undying, is free for everyone who purchases Shadowkeep.

"Our plan is to use these new items to bolster the service provided by our live team for another full year, as they grow and create more robust and engaging events that we’ll announce later this year. It has been, and continues to be, our goal to deliver updates to the game. Going forward, our live team is also looking to grow beyond vital updates and improvements to focus on world events, experiences, and feature requests."


For damage, Precision Instrument bumps the damage up to 25% with enough hits. The gun isn't by any means a must-have, but high-end players will want one of these around for when Void Surge is active, where it really pushes past the competit


High-ranking Chieftains are nothing to sneeze at in Destiny 2 . In the case of the Scorn Chieftains, the fallen undead captains have the ability to bolster the strength of their surrounding fleet of enemy ranks. Scorn Chieftains also come equipped with high-powered weapo

With Monster Hunter World in particular, every update, event and addition has been given to players 100 percent free of charge and they’ve been implemented at a pace that Bungie can only dream of matching. What’s more, the game is a massive success. It’s lead Capcom, a developer/publisher that’s been around since the days of the NES, into its single most profitable period in the company’s entire history. With a contemporary example like that on the market, it’s hard to see how anyone can defend the business choices Bungie continues to make with Destiny 2 player housing.

Let’s not mince words here, the Destiny community was in this exact situation three years ago in the months leading up the release of The Taken King. It was to be sold for a price of $40 and required the installation of all previous DLC, even though House of Wolves did not require the Dark Below. Players at the time were outraged at both the price tag and the need to purchase a DLC that was seemingly only required because Bungie said so. One would think the developer would learn a lesson from this, and they did; it was just the wrong one. We are now approaching the second year of Destiny 2 and Bungie is showing us exactly what they’ve learned: that they can get away with it. Curse of Osiris is almost universally panned as being unworthy of players’ time and money. It isn’t required to play Warmind, offers hardly any mechanical changes and yet Bungie, without offering any explanation, says it will be required for Forsaken all the same. This would be bad enough by itself, but Bungie isn’t content to stop there; no, they’ve decided that they need to milk their players even more than they already are, and they’re going to do it with the "Annual Pass."

You don't even need to own Shadowkeep to enjoy a lot of the expansion's content. The opening mission, the Moon patrol space, the new two new Strikes and the three Crucible maps are available as part of Destiny 2: New Light, the free-to-play version of the game. While the Raid and campaign are sectioned off, there's a lot you can do without owning Shadowkeep (the Seasonal Activities require you own the Season Pass).

Critical Anomaly arguably brings more utility than any sniper rifle before it. Not only is this a great weapon for dealing damage — with just about every boss damage perk one could want — but it is also the first of Destiny 2’s Sniper Rifles to roll with Chill Clip. This allows players to stun Overload Champions in a single shot by applying Slow to them, and stun Unstoppable Champions in at least two shots of the sniper by applying Freeze, which will stun them and deal outgoing damage when Shattered by any other wea

There’s no justification for this other than Bungie thinking they can get away with it and they most certainly will. When Forsaken launches in September, Destiny fans will have been waiting for about a year for the game to finally become what it should have been in the first place. If Forsaken turns out to be as good as it looks, then Bungie deserves to be rewarded for it. There’s no excuse for all the scumminess surrounding it, though, especially when there are similar games like Monster Hunter World, Warframe and Rainbow Six: Siege that are all enjoying massive success without dipping into any exploitative business practices.

Updated August 29th, 2024, by Nathan Halsey: Snipers have been given a significant boost in Destiny 2 with the release of The Final Shape, and this list has been updated to reflect that. Not only do many of these new weapons push the envelope in terms of damage, but Bungie has also increased the utility of the weapon type with a particular entry. As a result, Snipers are seeing increased use across the PvE landscape, from Grandmaster Strikes and Raid Encounters to Dungeons and basic Strikes. While they aren't the easiest weapon to use, and often require good intuition with regard to enemy movement, many of these weapons are well worth practice, and won't skimp out on resu