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15 December 2022
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This Week At Bungie - 12/15/2022

This week at Bungie, we celebrate lots of stuff! The Dawning! New partnerships! A year that is about to end and a new one that's about to begin! Also, activities that are coming very soon! And I'm going to celebrate that this is my first time writing a TWAB. ¡Hola, mundo! (Hello, World!).

This is also the last TWAB until next year. That sounds like a long time, but worry not, we'll be back with tons of new topics to tackle starting on January 12. We will use this time off to rest, so we recommend you try and do that, too!

But for now, let's focus on the present. Here's a brief summary of what we're talking about today:

  • Did you watch that amazing TGA trailer we dropped?
  • The Dawning is here! Eva Levante is back in the Tower with cookies and gifts.
  • Celebrate your Moments of Triumph.
  • Saladin and his Iron Banner are coming back in early January with new rewards.
  • We will talk a bit about secrets.
  • We have the winners of our Ubisoft partnership community contest!
  • You chose your favorite Arbalest ornament.
  • We look back to a few highlights of 2022.
  • And last, we say goodbye to a member of the team.

Let's get on with it.

A very re-awarding trailer

Last Thursday, we launched a new Destiny 2: Lightfall gameplay trailer during The Game Awards. We hope you enjoyed it, and that it serves as a little tease of what's coming on February 28. So, how about we watch it one more time?

Yummy, yummy, I got cookies in my tummy

Do you have your Exotic oven mitts at hand? Because the Dawning is here, and we need to cook, Guardian. We recommend you invest a bit in Resilience to handle the oven heat, maybe some Strength to carry the ingredients, and even some Intellect to remember the preferred recipes of everyone around the Tower and beyond.

If you want more information about this heartwarming, cookie-eating, and not-asking-questions-about-the-ingredients Seasonal event, we have a wonderful article with all the information you might need.

There's a new quest to complete, a new recipe for a certain cheeky Ghost, snowballs to throw, and, of course, some wonderful rewards. Old favorites are coming back with new perks and an Origin Trait, and we also have a new Stasis Omolon Lightweight Pulse Rifle called Stay Frosty PR7.

Go talk to Abuelita (Granny) Eva in the Tower to start. The Dawning will run until January 3, 2023.

And now, check out some of the fancy new things you'll find during the event this year. There are also exclusive unlockable items linked to the upgraded Event Card available for Silver.








This was a triumph

We're making a note here: Go complete your personal Moments of Triumph, Guardians! There's a new Ghost and a Sparrow waiting for you. We are sure you already have some unlocked since these Triumphs are based on some of your greatest successes during the year. Once you have unlocked 28 of the 30, you can equip the MMXXII emblem and Title and, if you feel like it, acquire the real-life Seal, the patch, and/or the T-Shirt available at the Bungie Store!

Not one, nor two, but Fortress

Valus Forge also has a gift for you! And by that, we mean a new Iron Banner week with new loot and a new game mode to get the hang of. The Titan previously known as Lord Saladin might be an old wolf, but he can still learn a few new tricks.

Iron Banner returns on January 3 with a new game mode called Fortress where you capture and hold zones while defeating opponents, but there's a twist. A Cabal twist! The objectives will change once Caiatl and her troops get involved, but we are not revealing the exact details of how Fortress works because we want you to run up that hill yourselves.

During Season of the Seraph, players will have a chance to earn two returning Iron Banner weapons, the Dark Decider Auto Rifle and the Gunnora's Axe Slug Shotgun, both with new perks and the Iron Banner Origin Trait. For the complete list of weapons in the loot pool, check the TWAB from December 1.

And, of course, there's an Iron Banner armor refresh. Wolf cloak? Mohawk helmet? The best robes on this side of the Nessus Radiolaria lake? You got it.

Keep those donations coming!

As Game2Give 2022 enters its second week, we have an exciting announcement to make. A Ghost of Dawning past has appeared for a limited time. Resurrected from 2019, the Gilded Shell is now available alongside the Ghost of Dawning present, the new Tenderhearted Shell, for all donations $60 or more!

For those of you who have already donated $60 or more to this year's campaign, your Gilded Shell is waiting for you back at your redemption portal to redeem to your Bungie.net account.


We have already raised more than $500,000 through the community's generous support! Game2Game runs until December 22 and there is plenty of time to get involved:

  • Donate to earn both exclusive Game2Give Ghost Shells.
  • Register to fundraise and join the Light Keepers Guild.
  • Tune in to our Featured Streamer marathon.

Head over to www.game2give.com to learn about Little Lights, donate, or fundraise—all while earning some incredible in-game incentives.

A new child receives care through the Little Lights program every 8.4 minutes, all thanks to your generosity and support of our mission.

It's a secret to everybody

There were some rumors swirling around that Bungie was done making secrets forever. While the record was corrected, we wanted to talk a bit about this subject and the feedback we have been seeing from players hungry for surprise content. Here is Assistant Game Director Robbie Stevens to share some of our thoughts.

Robbie Stevens: We wanted to take a moment to address the community's feedback around secrets in Destiny 2. But before we get started, if you take one thing away from this communication, let it be that the people working on Destiny 2 believe that secrets are an important part of this franchise, and we're dedicated to delivering secret experiences, both small and large, throughout the coming year.

First and foremost, let's address the Reddit AMA about the difficulty of encrypting content that brought this conversation to a head. Datamining and leaks are not  unique problems to Destiny 2. Every live game deals with this issue because it's one of the most challenging engineering problems in games today. That said, our communication was misinterpreted to mean that we were no longer building secret experiences, which is false. We've delivered hidden and secret story beats and content this year and will continue to do so next year.

For some in the community, 'secrets' have come to mean either a secret mission or a puzzle. It's understandable that the community is hungry for more of this content and is interpreting any hidden thing we do as a signpost of something bigger to come. Just understand that we'll never openly reveal a secret mission or puzzle before it goes live and that, although we're intentionally hiding things for you to discover in every release, not every secret can be something as big as a mission or puzzle.

Looking back on the past year, The Witch Queen was a release containing a fair share of secrets, and the experiences on the Throne World were directly influenced by content like secret missions and dungeons. Additionally, as many of you have noticed, we've been layering teases and secrets about future content throughout our stories, lore entries, and world-building leading up to Lightfall. However, we know that you want more. We know that we haven't released a secret mission that scratches the same itch as Presage, Zero Hour, or The Whisper this year. Those missions were some of the most challenging content for our teams to build, which is why we've only released at most one secret mission within a twelve-month period. But as we've developed our plans leading to Lightfall and beyond, I want to reassure you that the community's feedback is heard loud and clear, and "putting more secrets into Destiny 2" is an initiative our teams have been working on for months before this conversation recently came to a head. Some secrets will be small, some will be large, some will come next year, and some are right around the corner, but I promise you that we've got a talented group of people who love this type of content and who know what it means for the community to discover and experience it.

Fashion accessory of the Season: the hidden blade

Last week, we asked you to create cool and imaginative versions of Destiny 2 and Ubisoft characters, and you certainly delivered. Whether it was as an art submission, a fun short movie, or a nice outfit made out of cloaks and hidden blades, all your creations were amazing, and we loved checking them out in the #LeapIntotheLight hashtag.

Choosing the winners was not easy, but I think we've managed to make a great assortment so far. This is just the first few and we will show more during the coming weeks, so please, keep sending us your amazing creations using the #LeapIntotheLight hashtag and tagging a Destiny social media account.

Leap of faith

  • Hunter
  • Warlock
  • Titan

Fashion

  • Hunter
  • Warlock
  • Titan

Art crossover

And the winning ornament is...

Remember when we told you back in August that you would have the chance to vote for a weapon to get a new ornament designed by a community artist? Time flies! Long story short, Arbalest won, the community artist StellarStateLogic drafted three options for you to vote for, and today is the day we tell you which one was the fan favorite. We counted the votes, we checked the numbers against each other, and the winner with 55.5% of the votes is...

Design #3: Synthwave

We are always excited to see what the community votes for. Now, please be a bit patient while the team implements the design on our beloved Linear Fusion Rifle. And thanks one more time to StellarStateLogic for their awesome work.

Remembering 2022

And now, a moment to reflect. We are approaching the end of the year and we couldn't miss the opportunity to highlight some of our favorite moments of 2022. Some things might seem small from the outside, like changing the number of our patch notes (RIP 4.2.0) or messing around with a weapon gone rogue. Others are as big as launching the official Destiny 2 TikTok account, showcasing Destiny 2's next expansion or, you know, joining Sony Interactive Entertainment.

But if we are honoring this whole year, we have to start with you, the Destiny 2 community. The community managers at Bungie always have a great time writing Community Focus articles. We talked to content creators like GamerGirlGrey, artists like Caseyroo, cosplayers like Lily Bean... and the list goes on and on. So many beloved names out there, it's hard to pick just a few. Getting to know their personal stories is a pivotal tool to better connect with the community.

During 2022, we have widened our reach with more international support and showcased some creators for countries like Spain, Poland, Brazil and many other places. And speaking of Brazil, we launched new social media channels in Portuguese in October. Oba! Getting even closer to players all over the world is something we'll continue to work on in 2023!

Then there are the community artists. Not even a million words would equal the talents of our beloved creators of videos, fan art, and fashion statements. You have examples of their genius in every TWAB, so please, keep sharing your amazing work on social media with the #AOTW and #MOTW hashtags so we can keep featuring them.

Zavala loves cookies, but...

"Cute"

Just Petra

Ra-Ra-Rasputin

Some impossible snipes

An amazing Dawning diorama

We also have amazing cosplayers that can make Savathûn's chitin look totally real and make her look as scary as... well, she really is. We also have very funny and ingenious ones like the ones we showed on the Shreds of Light costume contest. Feel free to create your own take on your favorite character, we totally support it.

Another way of honoring the community we set up was the Random Acts of Kindness. No matter how small you think a good deed might be, it will always leave ripples in the Destiny universe. We intend to keep giving out a certain very special emblem to the nicest people in the community, so don't stop being nice to each other.

And we even had some community gatherings the old way, you know: in person. In October, hundreds of Guardians had an amazing time in Melbourne, Australia during a community event where even Savathûn dropped by. The very next month, more than 300 Italian community members had an amazing day during the Milan Games Week, where emblems were given, creators shared their views about the game, and Savathûn was there as well. Isn't she lovely? And tomorrow we will have another one in the United Kingdom, in London. The tickets sold out just after 90 minutes of going live. Thank you for your enthusiasm!

What else... Oh, how about some amazing developer spotlights and tech blogs? We are incredibly proud of the work Bungie artists do and how they shape the way Destiny 2 looks and feels, something that wouldn't be possible without engineers creating the code that makes everything work, or storytellers that build the most intriguing lore and the most touching moments of every Season, and musicians and audio designers filling each room with touching melodies and unforgettable sound effects.

We love Destiny 2 as much as anyone else, and we always aim to improve the player experience, even if sometimes that means acknowledging what went wrong. Explaining what worked and what didn't with the launch of Iron Banner: Rift, even if it left us in a very vulnerable place, was totally worth it.

And finally, Bungie as a game studio has supported multiple charities through the Bungie Foundation in 2022, and we are committed as always to all the causes worth fighting for. It's also a privilege to celebrate and honor dates like the National Coming Out Day, to support essential healthcare rights for everyone in the US, to raise awareness on the conflicts around the world, and to stand against hate.

Destiny Player Support

Here's the lastest report from our amazing support team.

Known Issues List | Help Forums | Bungie Help Twitter

DAWNING QUESTS

With the launch of the Dawning, we have learned of some potential inconsistencies with Eva's inventory and quest steps. Players can review the following information if they have difficulty locating their quests or ovens:
  • Players who want to obtain the Dawning quest on multiple characters may need to view all pages of Eva's inventory to find the quest.
  • The Dawning quest can only be completed once per account.
  • If one character has already obtained the Cookie Delivery Helper quest step, alternate characters will need to obtain the quest step from the Quest Archive in the Tower, not from Eva.

KNOWN ISSUES

While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help forum:
  • The Emberwick Ghost Shell's preview is cut off at the top of the screen.
  • The Festively Armed daily bounty awards Balanced Flavors but does not require defeating combatants with Void energy.
  • The Unstoppable Hand Cannon mod may play audio for an extended length of time when aiming down sights on any weapon.
  • The Jade Rabbit Exotic Scout Rifle is currently disabled due to an issue.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

You've got a yeehaw in me

How about them movies?

Hippy: When Pokémon and Destiny 2 collide, what happens? Epicness, duh. I don't think I've ever wanted to bop Flotsiks over the head quite so much as I did in this video, but this MOTW submission is just too funny to pass up. Need a little chuckle? Don't worry, we've got you—now stab him!

Movie of the Week: When Pokémon meets Destiny 2

Sam: Hi, Guardians! Today we are throwing it back to many of our childhoods and hanging out with our favorite astronaut and cowboy from a beloved children's movie, and really showing us what friendship and video games are all about.

Movie of the Week: You've got a friend in me

My Phoenix

And now, the art.

Timon: A strong Titan on the way into Iron Banner with a weapon that is proven to be one of the strongest in the Crucible! Of course, only in the right hands. The amount of detail created by Chris Gill is just phenomenal! Good job!

Art of the Week: Forged in flame

Ivan: I was missing Osiris and I'm glad this grumpy old man is back. Just imagine waking up, and you have everything that's happening in Destiny around you. Let's try not to upset him too much, Guardians, he's been through a lot. Phoenix rises!

Art of the Week: Rise, my phoenix

Hippy: Sorry, we have to do a bonus round again. It can't be helped.

Bonus Art of the Week: Shaxx wishes you a happy Dawning

A very special farewell

As some of you might already know, Dylan (dmg04) is leaving Bungie's Community Team at the end of the month. It's hard to put together how we feel about him, but let's try.

First as part of the Destiny Player Support team, and later as a Community Manager, Dylan's contribution to make Bungie and Destiny better is unmeasurable. He is honest and respectful, shows a genuine love for his work, and always takes everyone's feedback seriously, no matter if you are a new player, if you have been there since the Alpha, or if you are a new member of his team. We could make a 10,000 word TWAB about him, and that wouldn't even begin to do his yellow beanie justice.

So, we'll just keep it short and sweet. When you are great, you never truly leave, so this is not a goodbye, but a thank you. And that's how it is. Thanks, dmg04.

See you in 2023!

So, how did I do? Hopefully it was at least enjoyable. First one for me, but number 47 for the year and last of 2022. Remember, there won't be a new TWAB until January 12 and there are no planned updates or hotfixes either, but we will still keep an eye on things to make sure our cherished game keeps chugging along as usual.

By the time we are back on our usual schedule, Lightfall will be just a little more than a month away, but that's plenty of time to tackle a few topics, comment on the changes we are making and explain all the wonderful novelties that are coming.


 Enjoying some well-deserved time-off

Not much else to say, so we wish you all the best. Do something fun and rewarding, play some games, maybe farm a few new good rolls, enjoy the cold or warm weather (greetings to the South Hemisphere!), and eat something fancy while spending some quality time with those you love the most. If you need some traditional Spanish food recipes, just ask!

No matter how or where you celebrate this time of the year, or even if you don't celebrate it at all, this community is wonderful and thrives when we support each other. Let's keep that attitude during the last weeks of 2022 and when 2023 starts. Oh, and you reading this: you deserve the best and we are proud of you!

'¡Hasta luego!'

Bruno

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