There’s nothing like the excitement of a new season in Destiny 2. It’s like waking up on Christmas day and getting to find out what toys Tess has locked behind a paywall right next to the dock to the left of the tree. At least you can tackle the Destiny 2 A Matter of Time quest without paying.

As of December 10 we are in the second season of Destiny 2’s third year, the Season of Dawn, and with it comes a load of new Eververse items to buy, the new Destiny 2 Sundial activity, and a few new pieces of exotic armour to try on before you inevitably go back to those nearly perished Orpheus Rigs—which you can now justify thanks to the new ornament. There is even a new finisher for you diehard Street Fighter fans come family men. 

New Eververse Armour Sets

Virulent Hunter Bundle

Wraith Trail Warlock Bundle

Future-Facing Titan Bundle

New Exotic Armour

The Bombardiers - New Hunter exotic leg armour

Severance Enclosure - New Titan exotic chest armour

Promethium Spur - New Warlock exotic leg armour

New Exotic Weapons

Symmetry - Exotic Scout Rifle (note this comes free with the new season pass)

Devil’s Ruin - Exotic Sidearm (this is a quest reward which will be released in January 2020)

New Weapon Ornaments

Violent Exorcism - a weapon ornament for Arbalest

Doubt - a weapon ornament for Trust

Black Death - a weapon ornament for Crimson

Long Live the Queen - a weapon ornament for Telesto

Packmaster’s Command - a weapon ornament for Lord of Wolves

Shifting Loyalties - a weapon ornament for Dust Rock Blues

Abyssal Scream - a weapon ornament for Tractor Canon

Ain’t My First Rodeo - - a weapon ornament for Chaperone

New Armour Ornaments

Mantle of Remembrance - an ornament for the Hunter’s Shinobu’s Vow arms

Calliope’s Lullaby - an ornament for the Hunter’s Orpheus Rig legs

Flight of the Interceptor - an ornament for the Warlock’s Getaway Artist

Embodiment of the Warbeast - an ornament for the Titan’s Doom Fang Pauldron arms

New Ghost Shells, Sparrows, and Ships

Ships

Sparrows

Shells 

Emotes, Transmat Effects, and general Eververse purchases

Destiny 2: Season of Dawn, bringing us the return of Osiris and the resurrection of Saint-14, is now live, and that means we've got some patch notes to look at. A lot of patch notes.

First, though, a recap: Saint-14, who we discovered dead during our excursion into the Infinite Forest in the Curse of Osiris expansion, is now feeling better thanks to some time-manipulation shenanigans on the part of Osiris, who will hopefully be a little more interesting and engaged this time around. This is all actually a time-twisting counter-campaign in response to an effort by Cabal Psion Flayers, who are trying to mess with the timeline in order to change the outcome of the Red War. Got all that?

Seasonal highlights, announced during a livestream last week, include a new "Charge With Light" mechanic that grants special abilities to seasonal mods, and a new finisher "playlist" that will randomly select from a group of up to nine whenever a killing stroke lands. There's also a new Sundial activity for season pass owners that will pit teams of six Guardians against hordes of Cabal enemies in past-and-future alternate timelines, with changing mixes of champions and bosses. The horde mode sounds fairly straightforward, but the randomized blend of elements from different timelines could be a fun playground to run around in.

And you can finally ride your Sparrow on Mercury, which is long overdue but also, let's be honest, a bit like driving between stores on opposite sides of a parking lot: Silly and not really as much of a time-saver as you might think, but sometimes you just can't be bothered to hoof it.

The patch notes seem to be about what was expected: The long-awaited Thundercrash buff, increasing base damage from 2700 to 3200, is finally in place, and linear fusion rifle precision damage has been increased by 20 percent as well—except for Sleeper Simulant, which used to be a great weapon and now, well, is not. Stacking restrictions have been removed from many armor mods, and similar mods can now be stacked for an improved effect, albeit with diminishing returns—you'll get less relative benefit than you would from two different mods.

There are also a number of adjustments made to different Guardian classes, mainly but not exclusively Solar, and some Steam-specific additions: Steam and Switch controllers are now supported through Steam input, Steam Link and Remote Play will now work with supported controllers, and Text Chat lobbies will now try to recover when Steam Servers come back online.

The dawning of the Season of Dawn will bring free seasonal rank rewards, a new seasonal artifact and unlockable armor set, and a new story campaign for all Destiny 2 players. Season pass owners will also get:

• Instantly unlock the Exotic Scout Rifle, Symmetry
• Play the new 6-player activity: The Sundial
• Exotic Quests, Seasonal Armor Sets, and Ornaments
• New Triumphs, Bounties, and Seasonal Lore Books
• Exotic Emote, Ghost, Ornament, and Finisher
• Additional Season Pass rewards to unlock

For the detailed rundown of everything that's changed, have a look at the Destiny 2 Update 2.7.0 patch notes. A more big-picture look at what's happening in the Season of Dawn can be had at bungie.net.

The latest This Week at Bungie is mainly a recap of the big Destiny 2 announcements that dropped earlier this week, including a teaser for Saint-14's return and a livestreamed look at some of the other changes coming in Season of Dawn. But it expands on all of that a bit with some bullet-point specifics on more granular changes, including small increases to Power and Pinnacle reward caps and a long-awaited buff to Thundercrash, the Striker Code of the Missile Super ability, that's been given a boost to base damage, in-flight damage, and the amount of time you can stay in the air after it's activated.

The new TWAB also reveals changes coming to the Eververse Store that will see a significantly increased amount of inventory made available for Bright Dust along with the premium Silver currency. Roughly 50 percent of Eververse items will have been purchasable with Bright Dust at some point during the Season of Undying by the time it wraps up next week, but Bungie aims to get that up to around 80 percent for Season of Dawn. The Eververse Store will also prevent the purchase of items already in your collection in the new season, in order to ensure that people aren't blowing Silver or Bright Dust on stuff they already have.

Tweaks will also be made to the Bright Dust economy in the new seasson. "In Season of the Undying, we changed Bright Dust from a pay-and/or-play-to-earn currency to a play-to-earn reward. We want all players to be able to acquire a selection of their favorite Eververse content every season just by playing the game, and we’ve been keeping an eye on the Bright Dust economy in Season of the Undying with this in mind," Bungie explained.

"In Season of Dawn, all Dawning Weekly and Repeatable bounties will award Bright Dust in quantities equal to the amount awarded from strike, Crucible, and Gambit bounties (200 per weekly and 10 per repeatable). Crimson Days will do the same for Weekly bounties only, as this event does not include Repeatable bounties."

Destiny 2: Season of Dawn goes live on December 10. And as promised, bullet points:

Rewards

• Increased the drop rate of the “Scourge of the Past” raid Exotic weapon Anarchy from 5% to 10%
• The Exotic Engram and the Fated Engram have been collapsed into a single new Exotic Engram item 
• When opened, it awards a new Exotic if any remain to be collected; otherwise, it contains a random piece of Exotic armor
• Note: Contents are still class-specific

Powerful and Pinnacle Reward Caps

• Powerful Cap: 960, up from 950
• Pinnacle Cap: 970, up from 960

Escalation Protocol

• Escalation Protocol wave 7 chest no longer requires a key to open
• Chest can be opened upon every successful completion of wave 7
• Each time opening the chest awards one piece of EP armor for your character class until you have the full set
• After full set is acquired, subsequent opening of the chest awards a random piece of armor
• Charged Decryption Keys and Key Fragments are being removed from the game; these items will be removed from player inventories
• Armory keys to spawn Valkyrie Javelins are unchanged and will remain
• EP weapon drops were not touched and are still cumulative-stream boss drops

Weapon Mods

• The cost of slotting a weapon mod has been reduced from 5,000 Glimmer to 500 Glimmer
• Fixed an issue where Ada-1 could grant duplicate weapon mods

Bounties

• Repeatable bounties have been added to the Gunsmith
• Merged strike/Crucible/Gambit objectives on the Gunsmith weekly bounty "Field Calibration" into a single objective that shares progress from all sources
• Removed Valor/Infamy and Vanguard tokens from "Field Calibration" as there is no longer a requirement for any of these linked activities
• Added new mode-specific daily Crucible bounties (one per day, selected from full-time playlists and active rotators)
• Reduced the completion requirements of several daily and repeatable Crucible bounties
• Removed grenade and melee bounties from the Crucible bounty repeatable pool

Striker Code of the Missile (Middle Path)

• Thundercrash:
• Increased base damage from 2,700 to 3,200
• Increased in-flight damage from 100 to 200
• Slightly increased the amount of time you have in the air after activation

Nightstalker Way of the Pathfinder (Bottom Path)

• Vanish in Smoke:
• Added a short period (0.8 seconds) after the invisibility is applied where firing weapons or performing other actions will not break invisibility
• This should help prevent allies from accidentally breaking invisibility the moment it’s granted to them if unexpected

Voidwalker Attunement of Fission (Middle Path)

• Handheld Supernova:
• Adjusted grenade charge time so it lines up with the animations and FX; this should make it feel more consistent to activate

Crucible Maps

• Added Rusted Lands to appropriate playlists
• Added The Dead Cliffs, Legion’s Gulch, Retribution, and Solitude to appropriate playlists
• Removed Emperor’s Respite, Equinox, Firebase Echo, and Vostok from all Crucible playlists
• These maps are still available for play in private matches

Bungie followed up on yesterday's Destiny 2: Season of Dawn reveal today with a livestream showcasing some of what's coming when Saint-14 returns to action next week. 

One of the more interesting changes coming in Season of Dawn is an update to Armor 2.0 that adds a new "Charge With Light" mechanic. New seasonal mods can either add charges of Light or consume them, granting special powers or abilities in the process. One such mod seen during the stream grants "significant damage resistance against combatants when your shields are destroyed." The effect consumes all Charged With Light stacks when it activates; the more stacks you have, the longer it lasts. 

Another fun-sounding change is the addition of a "playlist" of finishers, which will deliver one randomly-selected finisher, from a list of up to nine, every time a killing blow is landed. Another nice (and long overdue) touch is that Sparrows, the little space-bikes that Guardians ride around on, will finally be usable on Mercury—previously they were disabled on the planet, presumably because it was so small.

The new Sundial activity is basically a horde mode, but it should at least look interesting, as it will blend different elements of Destiny 2 together in hypothetical past and future timelines, with new champions and bosses each week. The underlying idea sounds a bit like the Infinite Forest, with randomized elements intended to keep players interested and engaged, but hopefully the execution will be a little better this time around. The Sundial will be a matchmade activity, but a "hard mode" that will arrive later in the season will require a premade team.

Behold the Season of Dawn calendar:

One thing that's notably absent is the Trials of Osiris Elimination mode, which apparently will not be making a comeback in Season of Dawn. Players have been hoping for its return, and an Osiris-themed season would seem like a natural time to make it happen, but Bungie community manager dmg04 made no mention of it in his rundown of Crucible changes coming in the new season.

There are some nice touches here and the new armor looks sweet, but on the whole it seems a little thin. Given how quickly serious Destineers devour content, the big question is whether one new horde mode-style activity, a new PvP map, and a couple of exotic quests will be enough to keep players happy until the next season rolls around in March.

One thing that will keep a certain subset of Destiny players happy is an incoming blast of lore that will dig deeper into the story of Saint-14. New chapters will be released daily until Season of Dawn goes live on December 10—the first one is available now.

The full reveal of Destiny 2's next season, the Season of Dawn, will take place tomorrow. But we can get a taste of what's coming right now courtesy of a new teaser, released today by Bungie, that stars a couple of big-time Guardians we've run into previously.

Osiris was at the center of the Destiny 2 expansion Curse of Osiris, but he seems destined to play second fiddle in Season of Dawn. The big hero role this time goes to Saint-14, the greatest of the Guardians, who nonetheless—brace for lore—managed to get himself killed by the Vex while searching for Osiris in the Infinite Forest. (The Destinypedia has details, if you're curious.)

But that's okay! Because now a gang of Cabal Psion Flayers are trying to manipulate time in order to change the outcome of the Red War, and so in a fine example of fighting fire with fire Osiris has built a magic time-traveling sundial in order to bring back the departed Saint, who will (I guess) kick the requisite ass and set everything back to the way it should be. (Although I'll bet dollars to donuts that it's you, the player, who will do all the heavy lifting.)

(This is also, by the way, why I don't believe for a second that Cayde-6 is really dead. Mark my words, he'll be back.)

Putting the Season of Dawn on Mercury is an interesting choice. Curse of Osiris, to be blunt, wasn't very good: Osiris, despite the hype, was a completely forgettable figure, the Infinite Forest felt very finite, and Mercury itself was small and dull. It wasn't a disaster by any stretch, it was just very flat at a time when Destiny 2 really needed to make a power move. Tim went deep into it here, as he does, saying that while Curse of Osiris is "perfectly serviceable," it did not go over well with fans, who moved "from resentment into full-on riot" following its release. 

Along with the new story content, Season of Dawn pass holders will also be able to jump into a new six-player activity called The Sundial that will have them protecting Osiris' great creation from a Cabal onslaught—a horde mode of some sort, from the sounds of it. There are also new exotic quests, the return of the Rusted Lands, a new seasonal artifact called the Lantern of Osiris, and various new exotic items to earn. Some of the new stuff is free for everyone, and other bits are restricted to owners of the $10 season pass. Here's how it breaks down:

Free For All Players:

• Free Seasonal Rank Rewards
• Seasonal Artifact: The Lantern of Osiris
• Help Osiris fix the timeline by restoring Obelisks on four destinations
• Unlock the Seasonal Armor Set: Righteous
• Progress through Season ranks to earn the Exotic Scout Rifle, Symmetry

Season Pass Owners:

• Instantly unlock the Exotic Scout Rifle, Symmetry
• Play the new 6-player activity: The Sundial
• Exotic Quests, Seasonal Armor Sets, and Ornaments
• New Triumphs, Bounties, and Seasonal Lore Books
• Exotic Emote, Ghost, Ornament, and Finisher
• Additional Season Pass rewards to unlock

The Season of Dawn begins on December 10. More information, including the full reward tracks for both free and premium players (although they're not labelled, so you'll have to take a guess at some of them) is up at bungie.net. The full reveal livestream will take place tomorrow, December 4, at 10 am PT/1 pm ET on Twitch, YouTube, and Mixer.