Destiny 2’s Season of the Haunted has been live for a little over 24 hours, and there are many reasons why it has the potential to be one of the best seasonal releases in a while. For starters, Seasons generally don’t add a new patrol zone, which is instead something that’s reserved for big yearly expansions. An example is howDestiny 2’s The Witch Queen introduced Savathun’s Throne World for players to explore and complete various quests, alongside the new campaign. Season of the Haunted does that as well, and it also brings on theSolar 3.0 update.
Season of the Haunted technically takes place on the Moon, the location that was added to the game with the Shadowkeep DLC, but instead of having players explore the lunar grounds over and over, Bungie gave new life to theold Leviathan spaces from vanillaDestiny 2. This fact alone was enough to stir some controversies among fans due to the Leviathan being now considered a reused asset to give players the impression that new original content was added, instead. While Season of the Haunted does make use of some recycled assets, Bungie is not recycling content to reduce the workload on the team, but rather because it makes sense story-wise.
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Why Recycling Content in Season of the Haunted is Good
Recycling existing assets is a common thing to do in game development because it allows companies to create new environments and even enemies just by giving new life to parts and features that are already there. This is not something lazy to do, but rather it’s often a necessity to steer clear of the crunch culture. On top of that, it also means that the team is still going to rework those assets in different ways, which does take away a substantial amount of development time, especially in titles as big asDestiny 2.
As such, Season of the Haunted shouldn’t be criticized for having many reused assets, but rather, fans should see the potential in it and what Bungie is trying to achieve withDestiny 2’s overarching stories. The Moon’s Nightmares already were under the spotlight for the same reasons when Shadowkeep launched, as they are recreations of existing enemies that are often used to make for boss fights, and Season of the Haunted does that as well. However, again, it makes sense story-wise and advances the plot of the Cabal and the fight against the Darkness.
As forthe Leviathanitself, it is one of the most iconic locations in the entirety ofDestiny 2, and if Bungie wasn’t going to bring it back to allow players to experience past Raids again, it would have been gone for good. Instead, reprising the ship’s halls and rooms as a patrol zone that also ties into the seasonal events of Season of the Haunted makes perfect sense. New players get to see these legendary areas first-hand, whereas veterans will still feel nostalgia when facing new enemies in the derelict ship of days gone.
Lastly, Season of the Haunted also brings back various weapons that were sunset long ago, and this too was frowned upon by some players. The concept of sunsetting was not ideal, particularly in a looter shooter where collecting all the various guns is part of the gameplay loop, and Bungie eventually stopped doing it. Unfortunately, weapons that were removed stayed that way. Thus, reintroducing those same weapons, but this time with different perks and also allowing players to craft them for the first time ever is not a bad thing. Overall, there are various pros to recycling content in video games, andDestiny 2’s new Seasonis doing it the right way.
Destiny 2is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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