• Bungie will make sweeping changes to how players increase their Power level in The Final Shape.
• These changes will make it easier for players to catch up and use older gear if that is all they have.
• Players will also find it easier to play the game on different classes thanks to a shared Power system.

Destiny 2 can be a fun game but it suffers from a down-time problem.

Generally speaking, once a seasonal storyline is complete, there isn’t much to do for the average player and this sees an exodus of gamers until the next content drop rolls around. Unfortunately, this can lead to players not coming back to the game as attaining the required Power levels for activities can be a slog.

Faced with the chore of grinding out activities multiple times in hopes of receiving the right item one needs to raise their Power level, players often just don’t do that and simply fall further behind until catching up is seemingly impossible.

Bungie has announced that when The Final Shape launches on 4th June, “catching up” will no longer be as big of a problem thanks to several updates to the Power grind.

The first of these updates is Fireteam Power. With this system the person in a Fireteam with the highest Power level will become the Power Leader and all other players will be brought up in Power to 5 points below the Power Leader. As 5 points are negligible in Destiny, this should ensure that all players on a team can at least survive and do damage in higher-level activities.

Perhaps the biggest change however, is to the Power level of gear. In Beyond Light, Bungie introduced sunsetting. This was a divisive decision in which gear released before a certain point would be capped at a Power level far below that of the level required to participate in certain activities. This was done, Bungie said at the time, to address overpowered weapons which had become incredibly problematic in the sandbox.

Ultimately this was reversed but now, Bungie is doing away with Power caps for older gear altogether as this system is at odds with Fireteam Power. This is because one could simply equip older gear and be bumped up to the Power level of the Power Leader.

So come The Final Shape, all gear will be usable.

“We understand that many old Power limited items have been dismantled by this point, and we regret that we have no recovery mechanism for these. Going forward, we intend to reintroduce sources for most or all of these, updated to modern Destiny sandbox standards with added properties such as Origin Traits and buildcrafting perks (as we have started to do with the BRAVE arsenal in Destiny 2: Into the Light),” Bungie explains.

Some players have reacted negatively to this news given that they dumped old gear under the assumption it would become useless. However, in the context of the gear we currently have, Legacy gear is a bit underwhelming in context. There may be outliers but generally speaking, a weapon from Destiny 2 Year 1 is easily outclassed by even the worst weapon that drops in 2024.

As for the Power levels for the The Final Shape, these will be:

• Power Floor: 1900 (the minimum you will be when starting the campaign)
• Soft Cap: 1940
• Powerful Cap: 1990
• Hard/Pinnacle Cap: 2000

It will also be easier to determine which activities have Power enabled and which don’t. This as activities will fall into either Power enabled or Power disabled.

In activities with Power disabled, all players are on event footing. Activities that fall under this banner include Seasonal story missions, free-roam activities, Crucible, some legacy content and campaign content.

“Power Enabled activities, by comparison, are where you grow stronger by improving your Power. These each have an Activity Power Cap, or a Power level at which you will have achieved maximum effectiveness. We’ve improved our UI to show you exactly what these Activity Power Caps are and if you’ve achieved them. Enemies will have a set feel for how tough they are even at the cap, but you will notice yourself getting stronger as your Power level grows. Power Enabled activities include Vanguard playlists, Nightfalls, Seasonal activities, Exotic Mission Rotators, Trials of Osiris, raids, and dungeons,” the developer writes.

Activities will reportedly be labelled accordingly.

Then, perhaps the biggest change ever will likely have more people playing Destiny for longer stretches. This change is to how different characters receive power.

“Starting in The Final Shape, the gear rewards you earn on any character will drop with a Power level relative to the highest Power character on your account. Level up the Power of your Hunter, and when you switch over to your Titan or Warlock, the gear rewards you earn will be around your Hunter’s level. The exact Power of rewards will still depend on the source, but the Power you earn on one character will positively influence rewards you find on your other characters,” the developer said.

Players will still have to grind for gear but this will be easier as Bungie intends to add more relevant rewards to more activities in the game.

These all look like great changes that can potentially lure players who have abandoned Destiny back to the game. The grind in Destiny can be fun but it’s not the sort of grind most people enjoy. For those who like the slow burn, the Artifact power grind is being shaken up to account for longer Episodes rather than the current Seasonal model.