Destiny 2 downtime means players have less than a week to wrap up any outstanding Year 5 seasonal content, as the FPS game is set to go offline for 24 hours before the Destiny 2 Lightfall release date. This means Guardians looking to catch up on Destiny 2 story content, finalise seasonal exotic quests, and farm for god rolls of seasonal weapons should note that they have until 6am PT / 9am ET / 2pm UTC on Monday, February 27, to do so before the game goes dark for a full day.
Lightfall and the forthcoming Destiny 2 season 20 content are expected to wipe the slate on much of the game’s present seasonal content. Even if players have paid for the Lightfall DLC and all Year 5 seasonal content, it seems unlikely they’ll be able to play the weekly story missions after Lightfall’s launch. Typically, Bungie ties such content to the game’s seasonal content model. As such, seasonal story content has historically only been available from its release through the end of the game’s in-year cycle, which, in this case, began with The Witch Queen DLC launch and will end 24 before Lightfall’s launch.
Bungie shared that as of the Lightfall launch, some exotic missions such as Operation: Seraph’s Shield from the Revision Zero exotic quest will join the multiplayer game as part of exotic rotator missions similar to the Destiny 2 Nightfall, dungeon, and raid rotators. Adding an exotic mission rotator allows players to experience these unique missions throughout Year 6 and should presumably let them earn these exotic weapons if they did not already earn them during Year 5. However, players may need to wait several weeks for specific quests to become available and, as a result, may wish to try to complete such content grinds before Lightfall launches next week.
Although Bungie has also shared that some Battlegrounds will join the Vanguard Ops playlist and the Mars Heist Battleground will be playable as a Nightfall, players will likely no longer have the opportunity to grind these activities at their leisure to earn the seasonal rewards. The same goes for seasonal activities such as season 17’s Nightmare Containment, which may be temporarily or permanently removed from the game.
Ultimately, this also means players looking to get their hands on specific weapons, currency, and other rewards that drop from these activities may wish to do so before Bungie alters their availability in-game. It’s unclear whether Year 5 seasonal weapons will still be available post-Lightfall and how players can earn them if they are, so Guardians gunning for a last-minute god roll may want to put in the effort while they know they still can.
For Guardians looking to catch up before the season ends, Reddit user Atomsck shared a guide on essential in-game Year 5 seasonal content to try to complete before the scheduled downtime. The guide includes overviews on seasonal missions, exotic missions, and must-have legendary weapons.
With less than a week to go until the Lightfall launch and Bungie’s introduction of the Destiny 2 Strand subclass, there’s still plenty to discover in Destiny 2 season 19.