• Bungie is removing Legendary Shards in a bid to balance its economy more fairly.
• Players will be weaned off of the purple shards in Season 23 with a full removal slated for The Final Shape.
• The goal is to put all players from veterans to newcomers on an even footing walking into the final expansion of the Light versus Dark saga.

At one point in Destiny 2, there was a unique in-game currency for every planet you could visit. These currencies could only be earned by playing the game and would allow players to purchase armour, weapons and other things throughout the game.

This has changed significantly over the years with Planetary Materials as they were known, being retired altogether in favour of simply awarding players with Glimmer and experience points.

On Thursday Bungie took this removal of superfluous currencies a step further by announcing the removal of Legendary Shards.

Legendary Shards are earned throughout every aspect of Destiny 2 whether that be dismantling weapons or opening Engrams. These purple shards are also used for a number of things in the game including purchasing Exotic armour, upgrading armour, masterworking weapons and even crafting weapons.

However, Legendary Shards are also a bit of a headache for Bungie as there have been several instances over the years where players have been able to farm these shards. This has led to some veteran players having more Legendary Shards than they will ever need while new players hit walls when they don’t have enough of the currency.

“For a long time now, it’s been our goal to make the game easier to understand and to reduce the bloat of currencies, consumables, and items, while ensuring that players feel like their time is valued for how long they’ve spent playing the many activities across the game. Sometimes we get this right, sometimes we don’t. We always learn,” explains the Destiny 2 Economy team.

“As much as we know how bad it feels to have currencies that you have amassed over a long period of time wiped away, please know that we don’t make the decision to remove them lightly. We truly believe their removal is in the best interest of both the game and the players,” the team added.

Legendary Shards will be removed when The Final Shape launches in 2024, but before that Bungie will begin weaning players off of the currency. Starting in Season 23, Legendary Shard costs will be removed entirely from the Monument to Lost Lights as well as from focusing non-Adept ritual gear. Instead, focusing engrams into gear will now just cost an Engram and Glimmer.

With this in mind, players may want to try using up their Legendary Shards now as by The Final Shape they will be removed from the game entirely.

“And to be totally clear, we will not be offering a currency exchange for stockpiled Legendary Shards. The goal in removing Legendary Shards is to make Destiny 2 a more approachable and fair experience for all players. This is why we are not raising Glimmer prices for items or adding replacement costs to things that previously needed Legendary Shards,” writes Bungie.

This has raised a number of questions among the player base. For one, if Glimmer is set to become the main currency of Destiny 2, will players get an increase in the amount of Glimmer they can carry?

Players were also quick to point out that drop rates for materials in Destiny 2 are horribly low, something that Bungie will address by improving drop rates of other materials.

This is a weird change if we’re completely honest but ultimately it shouldn’t change the game all that much except for newcomers who won’t have to farm for months to amass a store of Legendary Shards.

The one looming question now is how players will purchase gear from Xur, the other-worldly vendor that sells Exotic armour and weapons for Legendary Shards at the weekend. There is talk of a new currency being introduced for those purchases and while that seems silly, it tracks with the idea of putting all players on even footing before The Final Shape arrives.