Destiny 2 is reining in Eververse "because this is the right thing to do for the game," Luke Smith says
Bright Dust will also be easier to earn, especially for one-character players
Bungie is making sweeping changes to Destiny 2's real-money Eververse store, both by making armor transmog available for non-Eververse armor, and by directly limiting the store's inventory and adding many cosmetics into the main game's loot pool.
As director Luke Smith explained in Bungie's latest blog post, these changes will arrive in Destiny 2 Year 4, which kicks off this fall with Season 12. For example, true armor transmog, a feature which would allow players to turn any armor piece into a universal armor ornament, is "in early development and is expected sometime during Year 4." Transmog will not require players to buy or spend Silver, the Eververse currency, and will instead be unlockable through "in-game effort."
More pertinently, as of Season 12, Eververse will no longer sell ships, Ghost shells, Sparrows, or armor ornaments "that are visually based on themes from aspirational activities." This feels like a direct response to criticism of the Hive line of Eververse cosmetics which were clearly based on the Scarlet Keep Strike and Pit of Heresy dungeon in Shadowkeep. Both of those activities lack unique cosmetics, and are generally light on rewards anyway, so players were understandably angry when Eververse, of all things, received unique Hive-themed cosmetics.
That being said, Smith says Bungie is "not planning on changing existing items as that is time we could be spending on itemizing the future." In other words, Bungie will prioritize creating new items for upcoming activities over going back and adding items like the aforementioned Hive cosmetics into relevant activities. However, to further reduce the feeling that Eververse often gets the best-looking loot, Bungie removed a Season 11 armor set from Eververse and added it into the Season's activity loot pool. This is one of many activity reward changes which are planned for upcoming Seasons, to say nothing of Trials Adept Weapons, pinnacle cosmetics, playlist exclusives, and more.
To round things out, Destiny 2 will add more Eververse items to the Season Pass Bright Engrams and introduce more sources of Bright Dust in the future, "moving away from character-specific ways to earn Bright Dust and more toward account-specific paths." These changes were made to help give players who only play on one character more ways to earn Bright Dust. Ever since Eververse items stopped awarding Bright Dust when broken down, even three-character players have steadily been running out of the stuff, so this is nice to hear.
Destiny 2 was recently confirmed for next-gen consoles.
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Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with 12DOVE since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.