Bungie details Destiny 2's new prestige raid lairs and Crucible changes

The latest edition of This Week at Bungie covers a lot of ground, beginning with confirmation that, because of "vendor constraints," the ability to directly purchase Destiny 2 Faction armor was intentionally removed in the 1.2.1 update. The good news is that, if all goes according to plan, it'll be returned in time for the final Faction Rally, and Iron Banner, of season three.

The 1.2.3 update will also see changes to the Crucible, including the removal of the Supremacy game mode from Quickplay (Bungie didn't say why, but it's not exactly a popular mode), which will be replaced by Rumble as a full-time playlist. Supremacy will be added to the weekly featured playlist as a 6v6 mode. Additionally, the Control mode score ceiling will be increased to 150, while Clash will now require 100 points to win.

Crucible Ranks are also being modified to be more forgiving: Valor Rank will be earned from Competitive, Crucible Labs, Iron Banner, and Trials of the Nine playlists following the update, consecutive losses will decrease the Glory Rank points lost instead of increasing it so you don't get hammered quite so badly if you go into a slump, and Rank streaks will no longer reset once the cap is hit.

But the biggest changes are coming to the Eater of Worlds and Spire of Stars raid lairs, both of which will get Prestige versions when the update arrives. The Prestige lairs will provide access to 400 Power weapons (which otherwise won't be available until the launch of Forsaken), unique raid armor ornaments, and special Exotic Masterwork Catalysts. They will also challenge players with a weekly "curated weapon suite and global activity modifier" that will require specific weapon combinations, like auto rifle/SMG/sniper rifle (it me), or scout rifle/hand cannon/rocket launcher.

Prestige raid lairs will rotate through three activity modifiers when the update goes live: one that's been around for awhile—Prism—and two that are brand new, "built from the ground up by the raid team."

The Prestige Leviathan raid will stay as it is now, and the raid lair encounters will not be changed for Prestige. "When we originally created the raid lairs, we wanted to focus on making the normal modes of encounters the most complete forms of the experience. We believe these modifiers and loadouts will create more variety in your Prestige gameplay than small, per-encounter changes," Bungie wrote. "We also believe that the mechanical complexity in Destiny 2 raid lairs is very high, and we want to lean more into the moment-to-moment sandbox engagement in Prestige."

The update also covers some questions about the transition from Year 1 to Year 2, and how (or, actually, if) randomly-rolled items from Year 2 can be reacquired from your Collections. With fixed weapon stats, as the system currently stands, weapons can be added and retrieved from Collections with relative ease because they always come out the same. The randomized stats coming in Forsaken complicates that process somewhat.

"With the addition of random perk rolls to items starting in Year 2, we had to make a tough call for Collections. We investigated numerous options for gear with random perks: fixed Collections perks, buyback limits, reroll mechanics, and many others—but each of these came with issues that impacted the Collections experience in a negative manner," Bungie explained. "Ultimately, we decided to disable purchase of all Year 2 randomly-rolled Legendary weapons and armor."

That's not necessarily the end of it, as Bungie said it's looking at a long-term solution for storing perk rolls in Collections. Until that happens, though, think twice before you throw out.

Bungie also responded to requests for more notice about upcoming events with a sort of mini-roadmap laying out what's coming in July. An update to the development roadmap was also promised for early in July.

The Destiny 2 1.2.3 update is currently slated to go live on July 17, which is also when the final Faction Rally (and thus, the final opportunity for Future War Cult to lose again, not that I'm bitter about it or anything) of season three begins. Two weeks after that, on July 31, the Solstice of Heroes event begins. Read all about that here.

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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.