A new season of Destiny 2 means new stuff to chase after (including an emote featuring a very good boy), so let's take a look at some of the new exotic gear on offer (yes, there's a puppy) and what it will do to make your life as a nigh-immortal Guardian just a little bit better. (And I'm serious about the puppy.)
First things first, we've got a trio of exotic gloves—one set for each class—beginning with Stronghold, a lovely pair of Titan gauntlets that will increase your movement speed and eliminate ammo drain when you're guarding with Swords, plus heal you after bullets strike your blocking sword.
Next is Getaway Artist, a set of rugged-looking Warlock gloves that will enable you to turn your Arc grenade into a "supercharged Arc Soul" that's basically an autonomous little floaty turret. Judging by the animation it seems to work exactly like 'eating' your grenade when playing as the void Devour Warlock.
Third, for the Hunter class, is Liar's Handshake, a vaguely Assassin's Creed-looking set of gloves for the arc subclasses that enables a powerful, healing melee counterpunch when someone socks you in the chops.
On the "shooting things" front, we've got Arbalest, a linear fusion rifle with the Compounding Force perk that delivers "massive damage" to elemental shields. It is, according to our in-house Destiny pro (you know who I mean), the first linear fusion rifle to go in the kinetic slot.
It's not confirmed whether these items have quests attached to them or if they'll drop randomly, but it looks like the latter: Players on Twitter are already claiming to have picked up some of the gloves via random loot drops.
One item that we know is attached to a quest is Thorn, the notorious OG Destiny hand cannon whose appearance in Destiny 2 was confirmed in last week's Season of the Drifter vidoc. We haven't got an image of that just yet, but there's a hidden exotic kinetic weapon in the collections tab and we're betting it's Thorn. Bungie said in the vidoc that players will "start your journey to Thorn" in week two, so I expect we'll get a proper look at that soon.
There are also a pile of new exotic ornaments, emotes, ships, and other such cosmetic goodness available for purchase in the Eververse Store, and a few new bundles as well. There's a full thread of all the items over on Reddit, but of most interest will likely be the new bundles which can only be bought with silver (the game's MTX currency).
The Prime Time Bundle is 800 silver, and includes five Bright Engrams, three Fireteam Medallions, and some Bright Dust—kind of an Eververse starter park.
The Gravitational Effects Bundle is 1100 silver and has an exclusive ornament for the Graviton Lance, a transmat effect, and three Bright Engrams.
Last up, and also by far the most important, A Guardian's Best Friend Bundle, which has the promised puppy emote and some other stuff that nobody cares about because there's a puppy! Who's a good boy?
Courtesy of Tim, who of course was all over it immediately (I would be too), this is what our little Guardian pupper looks like in action.
Destiny 2 Silver sells for $10 for a bundle of 1100; a smaller bundle of 500 can be had for $5 but that's not enough to buy you any of the above, and if you're going to drop cash on this stuff you might as well get the bonus. Bear in mind that these bundles rotate weekly, so this is just what the new season is starting out with; Bungie has also made some behind-the-counter changes to the Eververse Store, including the removal of the Prismatic Matrix, which you can read about here.
Destiny 2: Season of the Drifter is live today. Catch up with the full patch notes here, and keep your eyes open for our thoughts on the new Gambit Prime mode, which our elite Destiny 2 research team will be "testing" shortly.
