The trailer for Destiny 2’s new content season is out, revealing all sorts of information about what Guardians can expect to see in the game for Season 17. The trailer, embedded below, offers details about the themes of the new season, shows off some of the weapons and armor players can earn, reveals the location of the new dungeon launching this week, and provides a bunch of new story details.
Bungie originally announced it would release the trailer at 8 AM PT / 11 AM ET on Tuesday, May 24, just two hours before the season actually launches for players. But that plan appears to have gone out the window after PlayStation Japan launched its version of the trailer Monday night on YouTube. With the Japanese language trailer out, there wasn’t much reason to hold back the English language version, and so Bungie launched the trailer a little more than 14 hours earlier than it had said it would.
From this point forward, this article will be full of spoilers revealed in the trailer, so stop reading now if you don’t want to know anything more.
Everyone who’s still here okay with trailer spoilers? Good.
The trailer kicks off on the moon with location vendor Eris Morn and shows the Leviathan visible in the sky above the planet. The trailer reveals a couple of important items straight away: First, Destiny 2 is continuing the story from the Presage mission from the Season of the Chosen and the Vox Obscura mission from the just-finished Season of the Risen. Second, the Darkness-created phantom Nightmares from the Shadowkeep expansion are playing a big role, bringing old, dead enemies back for players to deal with, while also forcing characters to confront mistakes from their pasts.
It also reveals the name of Season 17: The Season of the Haunted. Check out the full trailer below:
The trailer heavily features the Leviathan, the home of exiled Cabal emperor Calus and a returning location from vanilla Destiny 2 that was vaulted with the release of the Beyond Light expansion. It looks like the Leviathan will be the home of the new dungeon, which launches on Friday, May 27, and with it will come returning weapons from the Season of Opulence, which included the Menagerie activity that put players back on Leviathan. Our best guess is that the weapons you’ll find in the dungeon will be new versions of Menagerie guns, including some PvP favorites, like the Austringer hand cannon and the Beloved sniper rifle.
As for story, we see Eris, Zavala, Crow, and the player Guardian even taking part in what appears to be a seance–so expect things to get spooky as they try to deal with the Nightmares associated with the moon and the Pyramid ship buried beneath its surface.
It’s tough to draw too many more story conclusions from the trailer since so much of it focuses on the Leviathan, which has changed significantly since it disappeared with the Beyond Light expansion. Like the Glykon Volatus, the ship that was the setting of Presage, the Leviathan appears to have been changed by interactions with the Darkness. It’s covered in weird Darkness plants and filled with Scorn enemies. There’s also some suggestion that the Leviathan has taken on aspects of a throne world, with Ascendant portals scattered throughout. Seems like it’s going to get weird in there. The Crown of Sorrow, a major element of both the raid of the same name on the Leviathan and the Presage mission, also appears to feature in the new story.
The trailer also shows off new Solar abilities, solidifying that the Solar subclasses will be the next to receive the 3.0 treatment we saw with Void during the Season of the Risen and the Witch Queen expansion. It’s tough to tell exactly what new abilities might be on offer, but there are at least some nice touches, such as a Warlock snapping their fingers to set enemies on fire, which feels like a nod to the same firestarter capabilities from the original BioShock.
The trailer also gives a look at some of the various armor sets that’ll be available in the season and possibly the dungeon, a lot of it taking on a gruesome, macabre theme to go with the seance feel of the season. What looks like a new Exotic sidearm is featured, which fires a burst of Arc bullets. And the trailer ends with a Hunter wielding a flaming, Grim Reaper-style scythe to attack a Scorn Nightmare boss enemy. It’s tough to say exactly what that scythe is, whether it’s a temporary weapon you can pick up like the Season of the Risen’s Psyonic Spear or a new Glaive archetype for players to earn through the course of the season.
The Season of the Haunted begins at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET on Tuesday, so we can expect more answers then.
GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.
