Bungie has been vigilant about continuously revealing new information regarding Destiny 2’s upcoming Forsaken expansion, including how it will drastically raise the game’s Guardian level cap and introduce a new Collections system. Now, as part of Game Informer’s recent Forsaken-themed cover story, Bungie has pulled back the curtain on yet another facet of Destiny 2 that will be tweaked when Forsaken launches: weekly activity resets.
Currently, one of the biggest criticisms that can be leveled at Destiny 2 is that, for endgame players, it feels less like a game and more like a checklist of chores. Each week, after the weekly activity reset goes into effect on Tuesdays, most endgame players log in and proceed to complete weekly milestones such as the Flashpoint (finishing a certain number of public events on a given planet), Call to Arms (completing a number of Crucible PvP matches), and Nightfall Strike. Completing these weekly milestones awards ‘Powerful Gear’ engrams that are all but guaranteed to be an upgrade over the player’s current gear, and in some cases may even yield a coveted Exotic item.
However, because many of Destiny 2’s other endgame activities offer such paltry rewards in comparison to the weekly milestones, most casual endgame players wind up following a routine whereby they log on after the weekly reset, complete their milestones, and then log off until the next weekly reset. With Forsaken, Bungie is hoping to encourage a more consistent long-term engagement model for Destiny 2, and part of that plan includes refreshing certain weekly activities more frequently. Once Forsaken is live, milestone activities such as the Flashpoint, Call to Arms, Nightfall, Gambit, and Heroic Strike completions will reset every four days instead of every seven. Other aspects of Destiny 2, such as Raid modifiers and the rotating Eververse item stock, will remain on the weekly Tuesday reset schedule.
Bungie is hoping that the more frequent reset cadence combined with the new activities that Forsaken is bringing to the table (activities such as daily heroic story missions and the new Gambit mode) will inspire players to log in and play more consistently. We’ll find out just how well Bungie nailed that desired execution when Forsaken launches in just a few months on September 4.