Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen buffs rocket launchers and raises mouse recoil

Destiny 2
(Image credit: Bungie)

Bungie is kicking off Destiny 2: Season of the Chosen today with the introduction of a new story, a new PvE mode called Battlegrounds, and a very attractive exotic bow that can track several targets at once. But behind the headlining content is also an accompanying patch that fixes a bunch of bugs and cements some significant balancing changes to weapon archetypes.

You can read the shockingly thorough patch notes on Bungie's site, but here are some balancing highlights going into Season of the Chosen.

Rocket Launcher

  • Increased Rocket Launcher damage by ~30% against Miniboss tier enemies and above.  
  • Exotic Rocket Launchers have been adjusted individually and are affected by this change to different degrees. 

Fusion Rifle 

  • Increased Fusion Rifle damage falloff start distance, by an increasing amount based on range (6% with 0 range, 16% with 100 range). 
  • Reduced camera movement from firing a Fusion Rifle by 9.5%. 

Breech Grenade Launcher 

  • Breech Grenade Launcher projectiles will now detonate on impact with enemies, even if holding the trigger. 

Submachine Gun 

  • Reduced camera movement from firing an SMG by 24%. 

Pulse Rifle 

  • Reduced camera movement from firing a Pulse Rifle by 7%. 

Machine Gun 

  • Reduced camera movement from firing a Machine Gun by 9.5%. 

Sniper Rifle 

  • Scaled flinch from damage from other players while aiming a Sniper Rifle by 1.6x. 

Sword 

  • Damage against Miniboss tier enemies and above reduced by ~15%. 

Destiny 2 - Season of the Chosen updated calendar

(Image credit: Bungie)

Also notable is an overarching change to recoil on mouse and keyboard. Recoil on a mouse is increasing about 40 percent for the following weapon archetypes: Auto Rifles, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Submachine Guns, Hand Cannons, and Machine Guns. Bungie says the adjustment brings mouse recoil more in-line with what it already is on controller.

It makes sense to standardize recoil across various inputs, but that sure is a lot of muscle memory that will have to be relearned from here on out. Speaking of PC, Bungie has also removed notifications and sound options from the PC version that it says "didn't do anything." Good call on that one.

Morgan Park
Staff Writer

Morgan has been writing for PC Gamer since 2018, first as a freelancer and currently as a staff writer. He has also appeared on Polygon, Kotaku, Fanbyte, and PCGamesN. Before freelancing, he spent most of high school and all of college writing at small gaming sites that didn't pay him. He's very happy to have a real job now. Morgan is a beat writer following the latest and greatest shooters and the communities that play them. He also writes general news, reviews, features, the occasional guide, and bad jokes in Slack. Twist his arm, and he'll even write about a boring strategy game. Please don't, though.