There’s going to be a Destiny cookbook, according to an Amazon listing, which is not something I think I understand at all. World of Warcraft cookbook, okay, that makes a lot of sense: There’s literally cooking in the game. Elder Scrolls, yeah, food everywhere, that scans. Fallout, with its emphasis on weird preserved pre-apocalypse food and post-apocalyptic delights, has a cookbook that makes sense to me. Even reverse-engineering the recipes in Stardew Valley I get.

But Destiny? Is there even one reference to eating in either game? Do immortal zombie warriors continually resurrected by an alien space-god even eat? What is even happening here. (No insult intended to listed author Victoria Rosenthal, who also did the Fallout cookbook which is actually a decent book of cookery.) But, Bungie… why. Here’s the official blurb while I try to sort myself out:

"Explore recipes inspired by Bungie’s hit franchise in Destiny: The Official Cookbook.

Based on Bungie’s acclaimed video game series Destiny, this official cookbook is filled with recipes inspired by the Guardians and locations seen throughout the game’s expansive universe.

Eva Levante has traveled around the world after the events of the Red War, gathering a variety of recipes after crossing paths with many Guardians along the way and learning from their adventures. Craft, mouthwatering food from her diverse list of recipes inspired by the game’s unique world, plus step-by-step instructions and full-color photos, help guide and inspire fans to go on their own culinary adventure through the solar system.

Perfect for all Hunters, Titans, and Warlocks, Destiny: The Official Cookbook is packed with amazing recipes and stories that celebrate Destiny’s vast multiplayer universe."

This explains nothing to me, other that there is somehow now a canonical food historian in the world of Destiny. You can get this thing on August 4th, 2020 if the Amazon listing is to be believed, and pre-order it now for $35.00.

Thanks for noticing, PCGamesN.

The latest This Week at Bungie update digs into some of the changes coming to Destiny 2's Solar subclasses when the Season of Dawn goes live in December. As it's said previously, the goal of the changes is to "revisit some older subclass paths and freshen them up a bit," which for the Solar class means changes to three subclasses: Gunslinger: Way of the Sharpshooter, Sunbreaker: Code of the Devastator, and Dawnblade: Attunement of Sky.

"When we started working on sandbox updates to follow Season of the Undying, our team looked at the whole catalog of Solar subclasses by cross referencing data, feedback, and conversation to figure out which subclasses needed help, which are performing fine, and which ones were a bit too potent. During our investigations, it was pretty clear that three specific subclasses were underperforming and needed to be taken back into the shop for a rework," Bungie explained.

"It’s worth noting here that a rework doesn’t mean it’s a completely new subclass. It means that we took the root of the gameplay fantasies for those subclasses and either expanded on what was already there or shifted some of the existing attributes closer to their fantasy. In some cases, entire perks were changed to help further the gameplay role and fantasy of those subclasses."

Here's what you can expect to change in the next season:

Gunslinger: Way of the Sharpshooter (Bottom Path)

In order to make Way of the Sharpshooter a more versatile subclass, Bungie has made changes to better differentiate the 3-shot and 6-shot Golden Gun: 3-shot will have increased auto-aim distance and reliability when aiming down sights, while 6-shot will have shorter damage falloff range. "We want Way of the Sharpshooter to feel more active and rewarding for players who can fulfill the role of the sharpshooter by taking down enemies with accuracy and precision," Bungie said.

Other changes:

• NEW Weighted Knife: High-damage knife throw with a long wind up. Travels at high speeds, bounces once, and does extra damage to the head. Precision shot final blows recharge the melee completely. One-hit precision final blow in PvP.
• Practice Makes Perfect: (QoL):  Lasts longer but gives a bit less energy per second. Precision hits grant two stacks.
• NEW Knock 'em Down: Precision final blows increase weapon stability and ADS speed. Timer starts at 10 seconds but any additional final blow/assists can increase it up to 25 seconds. Casting your Super with this buff above 20 seconds consumes the buff and grants extra damage. (Does not stack with Celestial Nighthawk).
• Line 'em Up: (QoL): Old perks from Crowd Pleaser are now part of this perk. (Golden Gun can cause precision damage and precision shots generate orbs of light).

Sunbreaker: Code of the Devastator (Middle Path)

Code of the Devastator is getting some nice buffs to make it more of a player in PvP combat. The Roaring Flame perk has been given a "significant buff" to bonus damage, and the base damage of the Throwing Hammer melee ability has also been increased. Burning Maul will last longer so you'll have a little more time to think about what you're going to do with it, the Light Attack energy cost has been cut, and the Ground Slam explosion height has been increased to make it easier to mess up airborne enemies, at a slightly higher energy cost.

Details:

• Throwing Hammer: Increased impact damage from 100 to 120 and increased hammer pick-up radius from 2m to 3.5m. Adjusted hammer throw animations to fit a more damaging attack.
• Roaring Flames: Increased damage bonus from 10% per stack to 25% per stack in PvP, and increased duration from 15 seconds to 20 seconds.
• Burning Maul: Increased duration from 21.2 seconds to 28.5 seconds
• Burning Maul Light Attack: Reduced light attack energy cost from 5% to 3%. Adjusted the animation so that it flows seamlessly into chained light attacks without stopping.
• Burning Mail Heavy Attack: Ground Slam attack now detonates when it detects enemies above it. Detonation radius was increased to make landing attacks more consistent. Increased energy cost from 6% to 8%.

Dawnblade: Attunement of Sky (Top Path)

"When we initially released this path, its movement capabilities were tuned around the original Destiny 2 gameplay experience, which was much slower and more deliberate about positioning. However, over time, this movement needed to adapt to the new sandbox," Bungie explained. "We want to give you the gameplay experience that the fantasy begs for: A flying angel who can maneuver with grace and destroy its foes below."

To differentiate the two Daybreak paths, Bungie has reduced the Burst Guide acceleration speed in Daybreak, in order to "reserve the air superiority gameplay with Attunement of Sky." Icarus Dashes in Daybreak will have increased speed and thrust, however, which Bungie hopes will deliver a similar feeling of speed, "but with maybe a bit more expression behind that speed."

Other changes:

• NEW Celestial Fire (Melee): Send a spiral of three explosive Solar projectiles.
• Heat Rises (Rework): Consume your grenade to extend Glide time and dramatically reduce the in-air accuracy penalties for weapons.
• Winged Sun (Rework): Fire weapons, use Celestial Fire, and throw grenade while gliding. Airborne final blows grant melee energy and extend the duration of Heat Rises.
• Icarus Dash (Rework): Tap (Crouch) twice to dodge in midair. Dodging in Daybreak accelerates players farther and costs less Super energy while under the effects of Heat Rises.
• Added note: Due to the nature of these reworks, Wings of Sacred Dawn received a buff where it gains 15% damage resistance while Tome of Dawn is active.

Bungie said that it's working on numerous other changes beyond these three subclasses: Most Solar, and some non-Solar, subclasses have also been tweaked. These changes and others, such as the nerfs to One-Eyed Mask and Recluse, will be implemented on December 10, when Season of Dawn begins.

Update: Bungie told GamesRadar that it has "no plans right now to have Destiny 2: The Collection available outside of Stadia," noting that it's "pretty easy to find ways to be content complete" without having to spring for an entirely new collection. The free Destiny 2: New Light includes all year one content, the Forsaken Compete Collection covers year two for $25, and year three starts with Shadowkeep for $35. After that, you can spring for Shadowkeep expansions as you like on an a la carte basis.

Original story:

It looks like Destiny 2: The Collection, one of the Stadia's launch games, won't be limited only to Google's streaming platform. It launched yesterday on Stadia, but PEGI ratings suggest that it will also be coming to PC and consoles. 

Since Destiny 2 is free, the appeal of the collected edition is the Forsaken and Shadowkeep expansions, which have to be purchased individually on PC. It's convenient, letting you dive into any part of the game you want without restrictions, but I also imagine it will be even more confusing as you figure out where to start.

When New Light launched, I wrote that it did a bad job of acclimating new players, and incredibly Bungie has since revealed that this was in part by design. It doesn't want you to play through the game chronologically, experiencing the campaigns as they were released and learning about the often dense lore. Instead you're meant to dive right into the new stuff without the benefit of the years of context veteran players have. It's very strange. 

There's no release date or official word on the edition yet. On the PEGI website, they all have the same release date as the Stadia version, which was yesterday. Because it's available with a Stadia Pro subscription rather than being for sale, it's also not clear how it will be priced. 

Cheers, GamesRadar. 

Bungie promised in October, when it nerfed Destiny 2's bottom-tree Striker and Dawnblade subclasses, that the Titan helmet One-Eyed Mask would be dialed back at some point in the future. Today it nailed down when the nerf will land: The studio said in the latest This Week at Bungie blog that the overshield granted by defeating opponents will be removed at the start of the Season of Dawn, which kicks off on 10 December.

One-Eyed Mask is actually a perfectly reasonable exotic in PvE, but it can be a real pain in the ass in the Crucible: Winning a duel immediately pops a full-health overshield, plus begins health regeneration, and grants a damage buff. That means that that even if a player is a half-step away from death, their opponent's teammates can't jump in to finish them off easily. Handy for anyone on the right side of a fight, yes, but a little too good to be left alone.

Reaction to the nerf on the game's subreddit has mostly been that Bungie hasn't gone far enough, with many complaining that the real problem with OEM (as it's known), is that the gun also grants wall hacks that enable players to see the person who just shot them for a several seconds. I probably don't need to explain why wall hacks in a supposedly competitive FPS rustle a lot of people's jimmies.

The change to OEM is not the only notable nerf revealed this week. The Recluse, a wildly overpowered SMG (our resident Destiny man Tim described it as "the ultimate easy-to-use bullet hose" and added that "putting it on feels like easy mode," and to be honest that sounds like my kind of gun, but anyway) is having its signature damage-dealing perk toned down considerably. 

On the other side of the coin, Xenophage, the machine gun with a bug in it that was also bugged, is getting a pretty big buff.

Here are the details:

The Recluse

Changed the effects of Master of Arms:

• Removed the precision damage modifier
• Recluse will continue to receive a damage bonus from Master of Arms, but damage will not default to precision values when the perk activates

Many doubted The Recluse when it was first announced, but it has since proved to be resilient to being squashed. Although the precision damage modifier did not actually improve the efficacy of the weapon at its best, it did allow for fairly mindless spraying to be just as good as concentrated aiming. After considering various options on what to do with it, the decision was made to remove that part of the functionality and preserve its activation methods. The alternative was leaving in an effect we believe to be too strong for a Legendary weapon.

The description of the nerf is a bit vague and, in the absence of niceties like actual numbers, that led to some confusion about what exactly was changing. Bungie community manager dmg04 clarified on Twitter, saying that the Master of Arms effect currently defaults all damage to critical when active, but after the nerf will not—you'll have to actually aim if you want to land critical shots.

One-Eyed Mask

Changed the effects of Vengeance:

• Removed the overshield granted from defeating an opponent that inflicted damage on you

In a previous sandbox update, One-Eyed Mask received some tuning in how Vengeance was applied to Titans. Next Season, this perk will continue to provide health regeneration when defeating an opponent that has inflicted damage upon your Guardian, but it will no longer grant an overshield.

Xenophage

• Increased PvE damage by +50%
• Ammo pulled from PvP crates has been increased to 4/6 from 3/4 from shared and solo Heavy ammo crates, respectively

Xenophage unintentionally shipped a little weak, so it’s getting a bump up in raw damage. Machine Guns have a higher ammunition capacity than other Heavy weapons, trading raw DPS for ease of use. Xenophage slides further towards other Heavy weapons such as Grenade Launchers in that aspect but didn’t get enough power back. This will correct that. 

All three nerfs will take place when Destiny 2's next season gets underway on December 10. Bungie said that more Sandbox patch note previews and quality of life changes to things like Escalation Protocol Armor will be revealed over the next few weeks.