'Ideally it melts your face off' says Destiny 2 dev about Solar rework

Season of the Haunted goes live in Destiny 2 in just under an hour, and thanks to a leak from the Japanese arm of Bungie's new paymasters at Sony, we now know quite a bit about it. What had been missing from the splurge last night, though, was details of the rework to the Solar subclasses. That's now here in the form of a developer insight video in which Bungie's designers showcase some of the fiery new abilities the guardians will be wielding.

Internally, the work on Solar 3.0 was dubbed 'Operation Caliente', because the goal was to add spice to "core powers that have been stagnant for three years." In the video, Bungie highlights a new ability for each class.

Titan gets a double-hammer melee slam called 'Consecration' that unleashes three waves of flames. It's a lot like the Dead Messenger grenade launcher when set to Solar burn.
Hunter has a new new grenade ability called 'Gunpowder Gamble', that sees three pipe bombs lashed together. Once thrown this will stick to walls or opponents, and can also be shot out of the air. Perfect for show off trick shooting, although whether I want an extra step before my grenade goes boom remains to be seen.
Warlock undoubtedly receives the coolest looking new move in the form of the 'Incinerator Snap' melee. Click your fingers and nearby targets spontaneously combust in a manner I'm assured by Anime enjoyers is a nod to Roy Mustang from Full Metal Alchemist.

Around 30 seconds into the video you'll also be able to spot some menu screens showing some of the new Solar aspects. As with the Void 3.0 rework which arrived alongside The Witch Queen last season, Solar appears to now be built around a shared taxonomy of terms that includes: 'Radiant' (your weapons deal increased damage), 'Ignition' (a large Solar explosion damages surrounding enemies), 'Restoration' (you regenerate health and shields, cannot be interrupted by damage), and 'Cure' (you are healed in a burst of light).

Solar 3.0 images — (Image credit: Bungie)

Based on the impressive depth of the Stasis and now Void subclasses, both of which used the same modular system to create builds, I can't wait to dive in this afternoon. "Ideally it melts your face off," says sandbox discipline lead Kevin Yanes at the start. Given that I plan to main a Dawn Chorus Warlock with the newly buffed Retraced Path trace rifle, I think the chance of singed eyebrows is dangerously high.

The latest Destiny 2 patch notes are live now, by the way—you can catch them in full at bungie.net—and include notable nerfs to both Well of Radiance and the Loreley Splendor helm, as well as more detail on the new Solar subclasses.

With over two decades covering videogames, Tim has been there from the beginning. In his case, that meant playing Elite in 'co-op' on a BBC Micro (one player uses the movement keys, the other shoots) until his parents finally caved and bought an Amstrad CPC 6128. These days, when not steering the good ship PC Gamer, Tim spends his time complaining that all Priest mains in Hearthstone are degenerates and raiding in Destiny 2. He's almost certainly doing one of these right now.