Big changes are coming to the way Destiny 2 armor mods work next season

(Image credit: Bungie)

Destiny 2's Armor 2.0 system, introduced to the game last year in the Shadowkeep expansion, made some big and mostly positive changes to the game's handling of armor, particularly with regard to customization—the most important part of the game, as any serious Destiny player will tell you. One aspect of it that fell short, however, was elemental affinities—arc, void, or rolar—which affects what mods can be placed on armor. Under the current rules, if you don't like the affinity of a particular piece of armor, your only option is to re-grind and hope for the best, which is not ideal. In the next season, however, that will change.

"You’ll soon be able to change the Elemental Affinity on any piece of armor to either of the other two Affinity types directly from the item’s inspection screen by hovering your cursor over the armor's energy icon. This is intended to mitigate the experience of getting an armor drop with a stat roll you want, but the wrong Elemental Affinity," Bungie explained in today's This Week at Bungie update.

"Changing an armor Affinity type will cost 1 Upgrade Module. If your armor is already upgraded to a higher energy level, the cost will be the total upgrade materials necessary to reach that energy value plus 1 Upgrade Module."

The next season will also see a major change to seasonal mods: The seasonal armor mod socket will be now house mods released during the seasons before and after the armor piece was released: Armor with a mod socket from Season of Dawn will be able to equip mods from Season of Dawn, the preceding Season of the Undying, and whatever mods are released in the following season. 

Only those seasons, however: Bungie community manager Cozmo23 clarified on Reddit that armor will be able to use three seasons of mods—current, preceding, and subsequent—in its seasonal socket. Our resident Destiny 2 survivor Tim Clark explains: "The community has been getting increasingly annoyed at creating a perfect gear set only to need to replace it every three months. This will help substantially with that, particularly as the current mods from Season of Dawn are actually really good." So good that we'll actually have a guide up on how to get the most from them tomorrow.

The next season of Destiny 2 hasn't been officially announced yet, but current rumors indicate that it will be called Season of the Worthy, it will begin on March 9, and it will bring back the Trials of Osiris PvP mode. Assuming that's at all close to the mark, we should be getting official word on what's coming very soon.

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Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.