Destiny 2 Season 22 release date, story, weapons, armor, reprised raid and more

On the hunt for the Destiny 2 season 22 release date? With the main storyline for Season of The Deep now complete, it’s time to start speculating about what lies ahead. Bungie has done a lot this season, giving us at least a decent impression of where things might be going.

We’ll cover the Destiny 2 season 22 release date, as well as speculate on the story and the characters we’ll see at the forefront. We’ll also take a look at what we sorts of weapons and armour we might expect to see, and what general changes could be on the table for the game. With the addition of a few popular new exotics like Destiny 2 Centrifuse and Destiny 2 Wicked Implement in Season 21, we’re sure to be treated to some more excellent guns next season.

Season 22 start date

Destiny 2 Season 22 will start on August 22 2023 after the Weekly Reset. Providing Bungie doesn’t need to seek any last-minute server maintenance, we should be able to expect the season to drop right after the Destiny 2 2023 showcase. This is what happened with last year’s showcase and the Season of Plunder. The Season 22 release date will make the season a rough halfway point between the Lightfall and Final Shape expansions.

Season 22 story

With the Season of The Deep story now complete, we’re left in a fascinating place for the story of Season 22. We’ve learnt the origin story of The Witness, its plans, and its relationship to The Traveler. We’ve also gradually learnt more about the Veil through the weekly Veil quest, and now have an idea of what it actually is. We’ve watched Sloane grow as a character. She’s worked through her anxieties about losing her purpose with mentors and friends, and found the confidence to continue onward, despite the uncertainty of her path. Most importantly of all though, we learnt Asha’s final message. We now know the secret to finding a way through the portal on The Traveller: Savathûn.

Much to the dismay of the Vanguard leadership, it would seem that the only one who can guide us through the portal safely is The Witch Queen. Players may well remember that at the end of the Witch Queen DLC campaign, Savathûn’s ghost, Immaru, escaped.

We can expect that next season’s story to revolve primarily around resurrecting Savathûn. This may be through a combination of new seasonal missions and content, as well as locating Immaru, and convincing him to strike some form of deal. It’s also possible that the season might see us working to get through the portal, or even navigating through it entirely.

There are still a few factors of uncertainty though. We have a few more Veil log entries remaining. The revelations in these could change everything. It’s also possible that we’ll get a final additional mission in the last week of the season, as we did with Season of Defiance previously.

Season 22 artifact

Like with every season, we should expect to get a seasonal artifact at the start of Destiny 2 Season 22. We can’t guess what this will be, but there’s a good chance it’s going to be Hive-themed, or possibly Vanguard-themed since the Hidden, a clandestine operations group of guardians, are the ones currently in possession of Savathûn’s corpse.

We also can’t be certain what the new seasonal artifact mods are going to be, but we can make some good guesses. There will definitely be mods for dealing with Champions, as there always are. This seasonal artifact, the NPA Regulator, has offered a lot of mods focusing on strand, arc and void. It seems reasonable to speculate then that next season’s artifact will have mods affecting solar and stasis subclasses. Going by many of the previous seasonal artifacts, it should also have some pretty interesting lore behind it.

Season 22 armor

We should likely expect to have three sets of seasonal armour – one for each class – based around the seasonal theme. This could well mean we finally get some more Witch Queen-inspired designs, similar to those that came out at the time of the DLC. Of course, it could be something completely unexpected, too.

Much as Season 21 has also seen new armour from the Solstice 2023 event dropping in the middle of it, we should expect that we’ll see some new gear and loot in Season 22. The Festival of The Lost 2023 is scheduled to take place during the middle of the next season. It’s always possible these designs could be influenced by seasonal events, but there’s certainly no guarantee of this.

In addition, we’ll probably have more seasonal armour ornaments, unlockable at the higher season levels. The ornaments for Season of The Deep look fantastic, so the bar is already set pretty high for the Destiny 2 Season 22 release date.

Season 22 weapons

As for weapons, there will almost certainly be some new exotics arriving, though we can’t guess what they might be or what they might do yet. We also know of a few different guns that’ll be arriving next season – all presumably legendary weapons as they can be earned through playlist activities. While there’s no a guarantee for some especially powerful legendary gear like the Destiny 2 Epochal Integration hand cannon, it’s not impossible similar guns or missions might happen.

Here are the nine new weapons for Season 22 that we know about so far, and where you can get them.

• Cataphract GL3 – A strand heavy grenade launcher from Trials of Osiris.
• Igeneous Hammer – A solar hand cannon from Trials of Osiris.
• Luna Regolith 3 – A solar sniper from Vanguard Strikes.
• Point of The Stag – An arc bow from Iron Banner.
• Pre Astyanax 4 – A solar precision bow from Nightfalls.
• Qua Xaphan 5 – A void machine gun from Gambit.
• The Guiding Sight – A strand scout rifle from Iron Banner.
• Unending Tempest – A stasis SMG from the Crucible.
• Warden’s Law – A kinetic hand cannon from Nightfalls.

We saw plenty of new activity-specific guns like the list above this season. We got a whole Taken-inspired arsenal, earned through decoding engrams at the Sonar Station, and opening chests at the end of Deep Dive activities and Salvage missions. Meanwhile playlist activities like Trials of Osiris weapons saw fresh new weapons like The Messenger and Unexpected Resurgence. The list above is just the weapons we know about so far – we’re expecting there might be a few more yet to be unveiled for Season 22.

New hand cannon archetype for Season 22

Fans who have been around since the days of the Forsaken DLC might recognise one of the weapons on the list above. Warden’s Law, a legendary hand cannon introduced in Forsaken, is indeed returning. Alongside it, we’ll see a whole new weapon archetype for hand cannons.

For those unfamiliar, a weapon archetype is what determines the particular base qualities of a weapon. This is separate from perks and traits. A precision frame linear fusion rifle, or rapid fire frame machine gun are both examples. The archetype determines the base damage, accuracy, and RPM or speed of a weapon.

Come the Destiny 2 Season 22 release date, we’ll see a new hand cannon archetype that’ll have a staggering 600 RPM burst fire, shooting two shots in quick succession per trigger pull. The reworked Warden’s Law will be the first weapon of this new archetype. While we don’t have any confirmation of other hand cannons that’ll get this blueprint yet. The introduction of one gun like it certainly opens up the possibility though.

Season 22 exotic mission rotator

The next season is going to see the return of some player favourite exotic weapons. You’ll be able to pick these up through exotic missions, which will run on weekly rotations. The exotics and their missions that we know about so far are:

• Dead Messenger, a void grenade launcher from the Vox Obscura mission.
• Dead Man’s Tale, a kinetic scout rifle from the Presage mission.
• Revision Zero, a kinetic pulse rifle through the Seraph Shield mission.

We know that the rotation will be starting off with the Presage mission – good news for any scout rifle fans.

Season 22 seasonal activity

Just like Season of The Splicer, Season of Arrivals, and every other season in recent memory, players should expect some brand new content to arrive with Season 22. We don’t yet know what the seasonal missions seasonal activity might look like. But given our speculation about the story, it seems reasonable to think that they’ll be Hive themed.

Destiny 2 reprised raid

There’s been a lot of chatter about a new dungeon or another reprised raid. We don’t have anything on the potential for another dungeon yet, and given that Ghosts of The Deep only just came out, it does seem unlikely that we’d see another one so soon.

For raids however, it is confirmed that we’ll be getting one. We also know that it’s going to be an old one returning to the game with some reworks, as happened with Vault of Glass and Kingsfall. The leaks so seem to concur enough to suggest a ranking of which raid is the likeliest to return. Here’s that ranking from most to least likely.

• Crota’s End. This raid saw players take down Oryx’s son on the Moon in the Dark Below expnansion for Destiny 1.
• Wrath of The Machine. This was an old and popular raid set in The Last City, back in the earlier days of Destiny 2.
• Scourge of The Past. Another Destiny 1 raid, this arrived with the Rise of Iron expansion and saw players battle against rouge nanomachines called SIVA and the Fallen who awakened them.
• Leviathan Raids. Any of the Leviathan raids could also make a comeback. There’s no consensus on which one it could be, though.

Though we don’t yet know which raid it’ll be, we do know the start time and Contest Mode details. The reprised raid will launch on September 1, 2023. For the first 48 hours, players will have access to Contest Mode. This is a far harder version of the normal raid, and easily one of the most difficult activities in the game. Some players might remember this from the Root of Nightmares Day One experience.

To complete Contest Mode players will first need to finish a full run of the raid with the mode active. Then, players will then need to complete the raid again, using the details laid out in an unlocked secret triumph to complete each encounter with certain challenges enabled. Failing a challenge will wipe the fireteam at that encounter. Completing the challenge run will finish Contest Mode, rewarding players with a unique emblem, and immense sense of achievement.

Season 22 PvE additions

Of course the returning raid may be headline PvE content, but it isn’t the only thing we’re getting for the Destiny 2 Season 22 release date.

We know that the Veil Containment weekly logs from this season will be returning in some capacity next season, bringing more revelations and insight. It’s too early to tell if this might see the activity expand into something with a little more action or interaction, but it’s probably not off the table.

We also know that Vanguard medals will be making a return in Season 22. They’ll work on a rotation alongside the weekly surges, so players will be able to show off the best of their subclass builds.

More strikes will be coming to the Nightfall and Grandmaster rotational pool. At the moment, we know that this is set to include some more Psi Ops Battlegrounds strikes, so be prepared for a fight.

Lastly, Gambit is getting some love (more of a warm handshake). The Cathedral of Scars map will be seeing a port to Destiny 2 for the game mode. The Drifter will also be adding the Lucent Hive and Shadow Legion to his menagerie of captives, so players will have a few more options to face off against.

Season 22 PvP additions

Crucible and PvP in general has been a point of contention and controversy within the community lately. Luckily, it’ll be seeing at least a bit of fresh content in Season 22.

There’s the basics of course. We know that we’ll be getting some new Trials of Osiris armour. Prepare to see a few different bits of gear here and there for the season. More exciting than the basics though is the new modifier, new mode and new map.

New PvP modifier: Checkmate

Checkmate is a new modifier focusing on primary weapon boosting. In matches with this modifier active, players won’t spawn with special ammo, and will only be able to pick it up from enemies they defeat. Player health will also be higher. Primary weapons will be tuned for longer ranges too when this modifier is active.

It’ll first appear in Crucible Labs, being available there for weeks 5-10 of the season.

New PvP mode: Relic

We don’t know loads about this new mode yet, and we’re hoping to learn more once it comes into Crucible Labs from week 1-4, followed by a return in week 11 of the season.

Relic will be a 6v6 gamemode, focusing around players charging up a powerful relic. This relic could be a number of items and change between matches, but a few that’ll see inclusion are:

• Synaptic Spear
• The Scythe
• The Aegis

New map: Multiplex

We’ll be seeing a new Crucible map make an appearance for Season 22. This map is called Multiplex, and it’s a Vex Network inspired map. From what little we know so far it looks like it’s set to be a pretty large one, with plenty of verticality to exploit and a mix of narrow spaces and open areas.

Multiplex will be in the Crucible Labs for the first ten weeks.

Season 22 additional gameplay changes

There are more changes than just PvE and PvP additions coming to the game. Plenty of smaller scale alterations are going to reshape the meta and alter the player experience. Last season we saw some big changes to gameplay that totally altered the meta landscape. We overhauled our best warlock build, best hunter build, and best titan build in response to this, in fact.

With many supers having seen significant PvE damage buffs and weapons that excel for PvP builds, it looks like additional balancing and changes for the classes, subclasses and their associated exotics will be present, but a little more subdued this time around.

Season 22 economy changes

As for the news we do know. Season 22 is going to see some welcome economy changes to the game. These will center around increasing the number of certain materials that players can hold in their inventory. We currently know that the following materials are having their maximum stacks increased:

• Ascendant Shard – Max of 10 held to be increased to max of 30.
• Ascendant Alloy – Max of 10 held to be increased to max of 30.
• Enhancement Prism – Max of 50 held to be increased to max of 100.

Season 22 power level cap changes

There’s also a lot of speculation regarding light level, and whether we’ll see an increase in the pinnacle cap and power cap, or a continuation of the current system. Right now, there are fewer pinnacles available to grind, but that’s balanced against the new exotic engram focusing system. This is to account for a freeze on the ever-rising power level – or light level for us pensioners of the community – in the game.

From what we know so far, it looks possible that the light level will rise again once we get to the upcoming Season. This has yet to be confirmed however, and it’s also very possible that Bungie will continue moving away from the power level system altogether. It’s likely to be something we’ll see addressed in an upcoming TWAB (This Week At Bungie) or TWID (This Week In Destiny) blog post.

Season 22 Quality of Life changes

Last but not least, we know there are a few different QoL changes to make the Destiny 2 experience less awkward for players. Here are some of the key alterations that’ll make your time in game a more enjoyable one.

• Stasis aspects and fragments will move to a vendor system, unlocked from Elsie Bray on completion of the Beyond Light quest. This’ll mean no more grinding quests to unlock the full potential of the subclass.
• A favouriting system for cosmetics. Players will be able to pin their top 100 cosmetics, including shaders, ornaments and emotes.
• Transmats will be unlockable, rather than consumable.
• Currencies will move to Colletions.
• You can rank up in Ritual Activities during matches, without having to wait to get to orbit.
• Rework for the Wish-Ender quest to make it more straightforward.

That covers everything we know so far about the Destiny 2 Season 22 release date, story and more. We’ll be sure to keep this guide up to date with the latest as we near the end of Season of The Deep and get ready to enter the next step of the adventure. In the meantime, be sure to keep up to date with the latest weekly Nightfall Strike so you can tackle the best loot-giving activities to prepare for the coming season.

What is the next Destiny 2 season?

The Next Destiny 2 season is Season 22, we don’t yet know the name of it.

When will Destiny 2 Season of The Deep end?

Destiny 2 Season of The Deep will end on August 22, at the weekly reset.

What will Season 22 be about?

While we can’t yet be certain, it looks like Season 22 will focus on resurrecting Savathun and finding a way through the portal on the side of The Traveler.