Destiny 2 Will Let You Pick Your Loot Rewards Next Season With Umbral Engrams

More changes to loot and rewards are coming to Destiny 2 with the start of its next content season on February 9. Bungie just announced that in addition to changes to certain activities and refreshed rewards on the Moon and in the Dreaming City, Season 13 will see the return of Umbral Engrams to the game, along with the ability to choose what kind of weapons and armors you can claim from them.

Bungie ran down the changes in its This Week at Bungie blog post, outlining some changes happening with the start of Destiny 2’s next content season. We last saw Umbral Engrams in the Season of Arrivals, where they were a major part of seasonal activities. Using a new item in the Tower called the Prismatic Recaster, players were able to determine which weapons and armor would drop from Umbral Engrams. The system also allowed you to choose which stats your loot would favor–essentially allowing you to more easily get guns and armor with the stats and perks you prefer for your loadout, rather than relying on random drops.

In Season 13, Umbral Engrams will return, as will the Prismatic Recaster. You’ll get Umbral Engrams most often from seasonal activities, Bungie writes, but they’ll also drop from random enemy kills and from other game activities. Here’s the complete list:

  • Patrols
  • Strikes
  • Crucible
  • Gambit
  • The Ordeal
  • Public Events
  • Blind Well
  • Nightmare Hunts
  • Exo Challenges
  • Empire Hunts
  • New Seasonal Activity

Though Umbral Engrams come from a number of sources, they won’t be as plentiful as in the Season of Arrivals, however. Drop rates are being reduced, and you’ll need to complete a short story mission in order to access the Prismatic Recaster in order to make use of the engrams. On the plus side, it sounds like Umbral Engrams will be here to stay beyond Season 13.

Bungie also reiterated a change it had mentioned before the release of the Beyond Light expansion–seasonal activities will persist throughout the rest of the year. That means that, while the Season of the Hunt is set to wrap up in a couple of weeks, you won’t lose access to the Wrathborn Hunts, Harbinger mission, and other activities that have been a part of it. That means seasonal loot will also persist throughout Destiny 2’s Year 4.

The Season of the Hunt was originally designed on Destiny 2’s old system, in which content expired with the end of each season, so Bungie warned there might be some weirdness with the Crow going forward (the character will appear in two places in the solar system, for example). But Season 13 has been designed with this persistent state in mind. The idea is to combat players’ FOMO–fear of missing out–with expiring content. With the new approach, you’ll be free to keep playing everything that drops this year until the release of the next Destiny 2 expansion in November.

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