Bungie's weekly blog post series—This Week at Bungie—is often dense with information, and this week's This Week is definitely one of those times. The post for this past week includes details about some upcoming events, like Master Nightmare Hunts, planned nerfs to certain Titan and Warlock supers, and some important changes to the Armor 2.0 modding system introduced with the launch of Shadowkeep.

One of the nicest incoming additions is a tab in Collections for armor mods. That's a feature whose absence Phil noted in his Shadowkeep review, and Bungie says it was always the intent to include it. In the post, the developers explained that the new system—along with the "housekeeping" planned for Collections in general—took a bit more time than they had planned and will be arriving post-Shadowkeep in the 2.6.1 patch, which is due out later this month.

What's nice about that is that you'll be able to see at a glance all the mods that are available for a specific armor slot, rather than only the ones you've found. You'll also be able to see which ones you have left to find and what you'll need to do to acquire them. 

Bungie also needed additional time to test a few of the broad-category mods—those that aren't tied to a specific element. Mods for ammo finder and ammo scavenger will be unlocked for all players when they arrive next season, so you won't need to do any hunting or trading to get your hands on them. Bungie says it's also working on broad-category mods for ammo capacity, but those still need a bit more time in the oven.

Also beginning next season, Bungie will be easing the restrictions on mod stacking, although this has a couple important caveats. You'll be able to use multiple copies of the same mod, but these will be subject to diminishing returns—two identical mods will provide 1.5 times the benefit provided by a single copy of the mod, or the equivalent of the enhanced version.

My Name is Byf has been producing videos on Destiny's lore since the beginning of the series. Here, we've asked him to tell the story of the Guardian who's had the greatest impact on the universe's recent history: you, the player. For more detailed lore dives into Destiny's story, visit My Name is Byf's Twitter, YouTube and Patreon pages.

The lore of Shadowkeep sees the ruthless efficiency of The time-travelling Vex contrasted against the cruelty of The Hive. All the while, a greater spectre is hanging over the universe. We've finally had our first real encounter with The Darkness and it's clear that it is definitely on its way back to our solar system now, bringing with it the possibility of a new collapse.

The lore behind the expansion makes the game richer and it lends context to our allies as well as the enemies we face. The full list of stories that one could jump into is huge so I'm just going to cherry-pick a few of my favourite beats that you might have missed. Some of these stories are still being told right before our eyes, so you should jump back in week by week to get the full picture. 

Let's start off by talking about possibly the most important lore to happen in Destiny since the beginning of game one, told through a lore book that's playing out before our eyes. At the end of Shadowkeep's campaign we enter the pyramid of The Darkness and find a mysterious statue. From it we claim an artefact that calls out to the Vex of The Black Garden. Upon following the signal of the artefact and completing the raid within The Black Garden we find another of these same statues. From this point onwards, the artefact starts to communicate directly with us, giving us passages every week from a lore book called "Unveiling." 

These transmissions are crucial, because it seems clear that the messages come directly from The Darkness itself. The messages in this book, along with the changes to Destiny's world in Season of the Undying, are the next step into the story of Destiny. At current the 'Unveiling' book is revealing a kind of origin story for The Darkness and The Light—telling a tale that begins before time itself. For a Destiny lore fanatic this is a fascinating piece to dissect but for anyone with even a passing interest in the story it'll be important to watch this unfold.

Another important aspect of Shadowkeep's lore—one that gets to the heart of the apparitions haunting the Moon—is that of Eris' fireteam. Eris had spectres following her around throughout Shadowkeep's campaign—nightmares of her old fireteam that were conjured by The Darkness to weaken her resolve. We first learned about this fireteam in The Dark Below back in Destiny 1, but Shadowkeep now expands on their story and gives us some truly gruesome details about their deaths. 

Eris' fireteam was the first group to try and assault the Hive God-Knight Crota after the Great Disaster, where the Guardians were squarely defeated by The Hive on The Moon. Eris' team was created as a means of hopefully killing Crota, but their assault on the Hellmouth did not go to plan. All the members of the fireteam died—in one sense or another—except for Eris. The Darkness now torments Eris with manifestations of her deepest trauma.

Each week, players can help heal those wounds through a quest to help Eris come to terms with her loss. These reveal the horrifying fate of each member of that doomed fireteam. To give you an example, Vell Tarlowe, the Titan of the fireteam and member of the Pilgrim Guard, was beaten back by a horde of Hive thrall, before being murdered by a Hive champion known as Alak-hul, the Darkblade. We actually get the see a recreation of this moment as Vell's phantom falls to the ground and is cut down by a mighty Hive axe. This all happens right in front of you and Eris, who falls to her knees and cries out “No. No, Vell, not again!” Here Bungie pulls no punches in showing Eris' pain.

Keep an eye on these quests over the next couple of weeks, and remember that the most powerful moment may be yet still to come. We've only got two phantoms left, and we know that Omar Agah's death in particular is a really grizzly affair. 

On a less intense but more mysterious note, you should also try killing some Vex while you're out in the world. Doing this is going to give you a chance to find pages of the 'Aspect' lore book. As lore books go this is unquestionably one of the most mysterious in the whole game. It starts to tell stories about The Vex of The Black Garden, and introduces a series of characters that are stuck within the Vex network. 

Fans of The Taken King and The Vault of Glass might remember Praedyth and I'm happy to say that he features prominently in this book. Lore fanatics will be even more delighted to know that it features various copies of the Ishtar Collective team that were released into The Vex network back in the Golden Age. The book isn't just fascinating because it draws from some characters that are deeply rooted in the lore of The Vex, but also because of what it carefully implies about the purpose of the Ishtar operatives. 

There are potential hints that Praedyth was trying to warn us about the coming Darkness by leaving an inscription on the inside of the "No Time To Explain" exotic from back in Destiny 1. The book gives us an account of the nature of The Vex of The Black Garden, as being worshipers of The Darkness, which sets them at odds with the rest of The Vex. Those who’ve read through the book will know that the questions it creates are as fascinating as the ones it answers. It is, above all else, beautifully written.

After you're done reading up on The Vex in Aspect, I would encourage you to head back to The Moon and start doing some bounties and lost sectors. Doing random activities, or even just opening a stray chest, has a chance of dropping a dead Ghost trace. You can take this to Eris and she'll use it to pinpoint the location of a dead Ghost. This is great from a collector's standpoint because it gives more rewards for simple exploration, but for lore fans these particular ghosts are something even more special. After picking up each ghost you'll see a cloud of light that gives a recording of the last words of that particular ghost and all those nearby.

Some of these recordings are excellent for giving context on The Moon and the characters surrounding it, but if you have more questions, look into the lore tab—each Ghost gives you an account with more detail there. The dead Ghosts in Forsaken demonstrates the evolution of Bungie's storytelling. These collectibles deepen the story, and more players should know about them. 

For particularly exciting stories from these, I'd recommend looking into the First Fireteam's Ghosts. Eriana and Toland's Ghosts indicate the sharp division between the two characters' core beliefs. Sai Mota's Ghost talks about how hopelessly she's trying to resurrect her Guardian. Eris Morn's Ghost recorded the last conversation that she had with Eris. All of these stories help to paint a greater picture of the lost Guardians of Luna and help to show how haunted this place really is. 

There are countless other stories that I'd encourage you to experience, such as The Inquisition of The Damned, which tells the tale of three ambitious Hive that undergo a dark sorcery to challenge their superiors, or the patrols where Toland leads you around The Moon and tells you more about its story. There is honestly so much to see at both surface level and in the depths below. 

Just remember to check back in to see how the story changes next. All signs seem to indicate that this is just the beginning of a new story that's going to be unfolding soon, and that the way Shadowkeep improves how Bungie tells Destiny's story is just the beginning of a greater evolution.

As Andy wrote yesterday, Bungie now offers a boost for Destiny 2 characters looking to speed their way to 900 power—the so called soft cap, after which you start chasing powerful rewards from weekly activities. There are two things to know about this microtransaction:

1. You can only buy it if you already have a character who has reached 900 power already
2. It costs $20

That seems pricey. Surely it must save a whole bundle of time. Well actually, it does not. As detailed in our Destiny 2 levelling guide, the journey to 900 is itself incredibly quick and easy for your secondary characters. I just did it (hey, I'd been looking for an excuse to roll a Titan), and it took just 15 minutes. And 10 of those were playing the intro mission.

Here's what I did.

Step 1: Make a new character

Note that, because of the Seasonal Artifact's account-based power bonus, my new Titan actually starts at 759 power instead of 750. As a result, I'm not going to stop until I've hit 909 power, because I am not a cheat.

Step 2: Play the intro mission

This took me 10 minutes, but I did have to alt-tab out for a bit to mess with my screenshot settings. Look, this isn't a scientific experiment.

Step 3: Transfer your highest power guns from your main character

Armour, as you probably know, is class dependant. Guns, however, are not. Open up DIM (or just use the in-game vault), and equip your highest power guns on your new character.

And yes, my highest kinetic weapon is currently Does Not Compute. I'm not happy about it either.

Step 4: Get armour from your Collections tab

In Collections, select Armor and then the Levelling tab. This is where you'll find the real trash. Don't worry: you don't have to wear it. For our purposes it's just very cheap. Grab every piece in one of the levelling sets, from helmet to class item, and then go back to helmet and pull each piece again. You don't even need to equip them—they just need to be in your inventory. Keep pulling armour until the power level stops raising significantly enough to be worth it. It should be around the 870s mark.

Step 5a: Are you done? You might be done

Equip the highest power level armour you pulled (OK, yes, I lied, you do have to wear the bad armour). Depending on the power of your guns, this might get you over the line to 900. Boom.

Alas, it only got me to 907, which—remember that artifact bonus—is only 898 base power. And thus, for my last step...

Step 5b: Shaxx for the win

Or Zavala, I guess. Got any tokens from playing Crucible or Strikes on your other character? If so, now's the time to cash them in. Maybe you'll get weapons (bad), but maybe you'll get a couple of pieces of armour that will be higher power than your levelling set.

Boom. Properly this time.

It took me under five minutes from reaching the Tower for the first time on my Titan to reach the 900 soft cap. Given that, what exactly is the character boost doing that's worth my $20? Saving a bit of time in the menu? Lessening the hassle of me having to dismantle six bad helmets from my inventory? I'll stick with the admin, thanks Bungie.

With the release of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep, all players, current and new, were immediately bumped to Power level 750. Lapsed player languishing around 500? Now you're 750. Installing Destiny 2 for the first time ever? Boom, 750. It's like you got tickets to a taping of Oprah and midway through tells everyone to look under their seats, but instead of a PlayStation or a Volvo or whatever, it's 750s all around.

But the whole point of Destiny 2 is to push that Power level higher, a process lovingly known as "grinding." But if you really don't want to horse around with that, it's now possible to purchase a power boost for your characters that will push you all the way to 900 for 2000 Silver, which translates to $20 in real money.

There's one big caveat: The booster is only available after you've got at least one character to Power level 900 the old-fashioned way. The idea, presumably, is to enable players with more money than time (or patience) to get their full roster to the soft cap without having to grind to it three times over. 

It's purchasable from the character select screen for any Guardians under 900, and once purchased will be immediately activated and cannot be refunded; if their inventories are full, the Power level 900 weapons and armor granted by the booster will be sent to the Postmaster instead.

What's surprising about this isn't that it's doable, but that it costs so much for such a small payoff. Power level 900 is now the "soft cap" in Destiny 2, which means that for all practical purposes it's where the real grind starts: The only way to surpass it (which you'll need to do if you want to roll in any endgame content) is through powerful gear drops, which can get you to 950, or pinnacle gear, which will take you to 960. 

Being able to jump from 750 to 900 might have a whiff of "pay to win" about it, but Power level 900 is really nowhere near the big leagues. More to the point, it's not at all difficult to get from 750 to 900 through gameplay anyway; just show up and play, which you presumably want to do anyway, and you'll basically fall backwards into it. And because it's only available after you've reach 900 on at least one other character, it's not as though you're not doing—you're just not doing it again.

Even so, the high price makes me wonder if Bungie is trying to passively discourage people from using it. There might be some value to it for players who want to skip straight to the real grind for their third character, but if I'm running three character then I'm probably pretty dedicated to Destiny 2 anyway—and for 20 bucks a pop I think I'd rather just play the game. Oh, and if you are looking for some power leveling assistance, our guide has you covered. Honestly, if you move your high power weapons from your main to your alts you get a big boost without spending a dime.

Update: In case you thought we were exaggerating about the ease of leveling a character from 750 to 900, Phil just did it in 15 minutes. 

Whilst anxiously prepping for my first Garden of Salvation raid run this weekend, I came across this video titled 'Broken Builds' from Ehroar, who's one of the best Destiny 2 content creators around. In it, he explains how—using a simple-to-activate glitch—you're able to double-dip on some of the most powerful armor mods from Shadowkeep's seasonal artifact.

Here's how it works…

Step 1: Choose which slot you plan to do the glitch in, and equip a fresh piece of armour which has no mods. You can easily acquire new armour from any of the original planetary vendors for this purpose.

Step 2: With the fresh armour still equipped, access the piece of armour you want to apply double mods to, and rather than seeing the 'similar mod already applied' message, you should now be able to slot two copies of the same seasonal artifact mod.

Step 3: Profit

As Ehroar shows in the video, the effect of mods like Breach Refractor and Ballistic Combo do stack when you have two copies applied in the same piece of armour. Note that you still won't be able to apply two copies of some mods. For instance, Oppressive Darkness costs six energy, and the energy capacity of armor pieces is 10 total.

Nonetheless, there's potential for some spicy builds until Bungie gets around to patching the glitch (which it hasn't, as of today's weekly reset). 

For example: I have Anti-Barrier Rounds on my Recluse, and have combined that with two copies of Breach Refractor on my chest piece. Breach Refractor grants grenade energy when you kill enemies with a shield-piercing weapon, which once doubled provides a substantial payoff. Given how good grenades are in Shadowkeep when you synergise with stuff like top tree Voidwalker and the aforementioned Oppressive Darkness mod, there's a ton of fun to be had here while the glitch lasts.

Pictorial proof of the two mods being applied can be found below. I'm happy (read: eager) to talk builds in the comments below. Or you could go further and join the PC Gamer Destiny 2 clan. We're onto our third and final clan now, so the remaining spaces are limited.

As spotted by Polygon, Destiny 2's Haunted Forest game mode is likely going to be making a return this year as part of the Halloween-themed Festival of the Lost. The reveal was made by the description of two emblems granted to last year's participants in the game mode. 

The "Terror’s End" and "Deep in the Woods" emblems from the 2018 Festival of the Lost tracked progress towards terrors defeated and lowest branch reached in the Haunted Forest last year. Those emblems were updated sometime since the release of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep and now show progress for both 2018 and 2019. Since the Haunted Forest hasn't been available so far in 2019, players are of course assuming it will be making a return as part of further Halloween festivities this year.

The Haunted Forest mode from last year's Festival of the Lost challenged solo players and fireteams to get as far into the forest as possible in 15 minutes while taking on increasingly challenging groups of enemies. 

We already knew thanks to the updated Destiny 2 roadmap that the Festival of the Lost would be returning from October 29 to November 19. The updated emblems seem to confirm that the Haunted Forest will be coming along with it, likely with some other new rewards for players to earn like last year.

Thanks, Polygon.

It was a mistake to refer to Destiny 2 and its ilk as 'games-as-a-service'. 'Service' implies  consistency and a smooth user experience. 'Service' tries to hide the limitations of the team delivering it. Destiny 2 is something else. Destiny 2 is games-as-an-infrastructure—a subway system that gradually builds into something bigger and more sprawling; that needs to be constantly maintained; that will sometimes keep you waiting because such projects are big and complicated and the people running them can't do everything at once.

With Shadowkeep, Bungie is redrawing the map. The expansion adds a revitalised tourist destination—the Moon, returning from the first Destiny with a handful of new attractions and a fresh coat of paint—but also spearheads a more fundamental shift in purpose. A series of small tweaks and changes that add up to something that feels at once far-reaching and, paradoxically, not as dramatic as it first seems.

Players return to the Moon in search of series regular Eris Morn, the Destiny character voted most likely to keep a LiveJournal. Shadowkeep's campaign manages to highlight both the best and worst of Bungie's storytelling. The specific objectives are tiresomely monologued by Eris before you head out; the mystical technobabble ensuring I rarely ever know what I'm actually doing. The broad strokes are that you need to forge a new, special armour set, but the delivery is rendered obtuse thanks to the density of arcane Hive rituals and mystical macguffins.

And yet! On a wider level it's a triumph, thanks to an overarching threat that feels grand in both its menace and in the way Bungie has seeded it throughout the last two years of the game. As someone who's read my fair share of Destiny lore collectibles, coming face to face with the thing that hides beneath the Moon felt dramatic and shocking. Oh shit, I have to deal with one of those? I felt unprepared, which speaks to how successfully Bungie has teased the Destiny universe's larger antagonist.

As a collection of missions, Shadowkeep's campaign is largely business as usual. You'll fight your way to an arena and kill a big ogre. You'll fight your way to an arena and kill a big Captain. You'll fight your way to an arena and kill a big Wizard and then run away very fast. There isn't the same thematic playfulness as, say, Forsaken's campaign, which used the skillset of each Baron as the basis for how you'd beat them. Instead, Shadowkeep works in part because of the reason Destiny always works—it feels good to shoot the guns—but also because, as an environment, the Moon is dripping with atmosphere and nostalgia.

The Moon has always been one of Destiny's most evocative locations, but the new areas in Shadowkeep—the Scarlet Keep in particular—are astonishing in their beauty. The red tower looks almost like a painting, looming dark and ominous in the distance. As for the returning parts of the map, Bungie deftly avoids the disappointment that can come from retreading old ground. It helps that this is the Moon's first appearance on PC, but—even for people like me, who spent hours farming Helium Filaments in the first game—Bungie has shown enough restraint when it comes to resurrecting old content that here the return feels novel and exciting.

I get a kick out of revisiting destinations like the Traitor’s Ketch, where Taniks once challenged players in the ways of old, or from navigating the tunnels under the surface using nothing but memory and guesswork. Most of Shadowkeep's guns are tied to quests that require tracking down trinkets throughout the world. While many will likely turn to Google, I've enjoyed getting lost underground, refamiliarising myself with the strange sights of the Hive's stronghold. It helps that, even for the returning locations, enough has been subtly changed that it feels like time has passed—a rare thing in a game that's largely about doing the same things over and over.

The campaign's ending may be abrupt, but, as always, the expansion's story is more of a tease of things to come—some of it through the next year of seasonal releases, the rest likely further out still. In the meantime, the familiar and steady rhythm of Destiny 2 resumes after players have hit the relatively easy-to-reach soft power cap of 900. The slower journey to the hard cap of 950 may have been remixed, but the notes are largely the same—relying on the weekly drops of powerful gear from three-player Strike missions, Crucible PvP matches, the still-brilliant competitive PvE of Gambit, and the new raid, which challenges players with a series of puzzle-like encounters among the vibrant, Vex-infested greenery of the Black Garden.

There's a renewed focus on bounties now, with each vendor offering a powerful reward if you complete a set number within a week. Thanks to the XP awards now granted by bounties, which award progress along a season pass full of goodies as well as powering up the new seasonal artefact, the steady tick of treats keeps things moving at a nice pace. That said, I'd love a central bounty board that collected them all up for easy access. Nothing delays a fireteam like having to bounce between vendors hoovering up bounties for every activity that might be on the cards for that evening.

As for specifics additions and changes, yes, there's a new Nightfall variant—The Ordeal, which has curated modifiers that increase in number as you up the difficulty. Yes, the Crucible playlists have been retooled, giving players more control over what mode they play, (and letting you earn Glory score without ever having to suffer through a round of Countdown). And yes, there are new Strikes and a couple of Crucible maps from the first game that make their PC debut. But there's also a lot of repeating the same things that we've been doing for over a year. You will run the Pyramidion strike and earn a Ten Paces. You will play a Control match on Vostok and be rewarded with a Does Not Compute.

The lack of new world or vendor loot isn't a surprise—if Destiny 2 game director Luke Smith's essay on the state of the game pre-Shadowkeep had a single throughline, it was the limitations of what a development team can reasonably produce. Nevertheless, I was surprised how much being awarded the same old guns hurt my excitement for the year ahead. Ah shit, here we go again: another year of dismantling Go Figure.

That isn't to say there aren't new guns. Both Shadowkeep and the Vex Offensive activity that headlines the Season of the Undying (which runs in parallel to the expansion's release), each have their own new weapons. If anything, though, they're a too generously awarded. Ever since seasons were separated from DLC with Season of the Forge and the Black Armoury, each has had a different approach to awarding weapons. Last season's Menagerie felt like it hit the sweet spot: letting players decide what weapons or armour to chase. The Vex Offensive approach appears to be all guns, all the time. I've played maybe eight rounds of the event to completion and have somehow amassed nine scout rifles. It feels like overkill.

The frequency of new drops, and the lack of a vendor refresh, hides a deeper problem: there's less incentive than ever farm new guns. I'll pick one of the new Undying weapons at random: Loud Lullaby. It's an aggressive frame kinetic hand cannon, and thus up against the tried-and-true Duke Mk. 44 of which, if you've played for any length of time, you'll have dismantled hundreds of times.

I have good aggressive hand cannons already, although it's an archetype I rarely use. More broadly, I have good versions of every type of hand cannon. My desire to chase the specific set of perks that would make the Loud Lullaby distinct among its peers—subsistence and rampage, for instance—is low. Even discounting exotics, do I need a new hand cannon when I've got a curated Kindled Orchid? Do I need a new submachine gun when I've got The Recluse? Preference is still a factor: I enjoy the feel of the auto rifle Pluperfect enough that it's earned a spot in my loadout. But—unless new loot is paired with a host of interesting new perks—farming for the best version of your favourite gun just doesn't feel as vital.

On the other side of the loot pool, the chase for new armour sets does at least have more obvious purpose. Shadowkeep brings new armour stats and a new, ostensibly more flexible mod system. Instead of consumables, mods are now unlocks—free to be switched in and out into any armour piece of the same elemental affinity. Any armour you collected before Shadowkeep will remain tied to the old mod system, but will also—in my experience, at least—have been assigned some woeful stat rolls as a heavy-handed incentive to switch.

Your mileage will vary with the new system. Being able to easily experiment with different mods is a change for the better, but the elemental restrictions feel rooted in old-school MMO design in a way that will likely be at odds with how some play the game. Personally I like a little friction when it comes to theorycrafting builds, although the foundations of Shadowkeep's armour system aren't as solid as I'd like. The biggest issue is that, if I'm using a solar helmet, for instance, I can only see the solar mods. The system desperately needs a Collections tab that lets me see both the mods I've earned and where to unlock the ones I haven't. The theorycrafting potential is interesting, but that only works if you can easily see the possibility space.

For this reason the seasonal artifact is a much stronger addition. With it, you can unlock a selection of mods that will only be available throughout the Season of the Undying. As someone who remembers Destiny more as a series of metas—the year of being killed by Graviton Lance, the year of being killed by Luna's Howl, the hilarious weekend of being killed by Prometheus Lens—I'm excited by the idea of formalising it. That said, this season's inclusion of an enhanced submachine gun loader perhaps wasn't the most interesting way to shake things up given The Recluse's continued dominance in PvE.

Where Shadowkeep was billed as a bold new template for the third year, the reality is messier. Nowhere is this more clear than for 'New Light', the new user experience that puts the emphasis on repeatable activities and playing with friends. It's great in theory: certainly the amount of stuff you get for the newly free-to-play base game is incredibly generous. But it also does a bad job of onboarding new players. After a short introductory mission, you arrive at the Tower only to be inundated with quests. It's confusing and unhelpful, to the point where I've had a couple of friends who are trying out the game ask me how you even find the campaigns. For reference, they're with the shipbuilder. I don't know why either.

To be clear, Destiny 2 is still an engaging shooter that—when you step back and take stock of all it has to offer—is absolutely packed full of stuff to do. Shadowkeep is both an entertaining assortment of new activities and a solid base from which the game at large can build and improve. But Shadowkeep also doesn't feel like Destiny 2's final form, and there's a real sense that there's still much left to be tweaked and tightened.

The subway is being refurbished slowly, one station at a time. That doesn't stop me from enjoying the ride.