“With warmth in her voice, she said, ‘…Now more than ever, we must gather together in the Tower, at the Farm, and all across the system to give thanks. Our Light has returned — and it illuminates everything around us.'” – Ikora Rey
A new year approaches, and with this new year comes great change for the Guardians of the Tower. The famous Dawning winter event will make its return to Destiny 2 on December 19, running from then until January 9. The Dawning is a special time of celebration for all who revel in The Traveler’s Light, bringing much exciting change along with it.
In the spirit of holiday tradition, The Tower will see an all new wintery decor, one fit with large mountains of snow for snowball fights (yes, real snowball fights with your friends at the tower or farm), beautiful, bright lights, and plenty of festive cheer. The exciting bit about the addition of “snowballs” is that they will serve as a social space and maybe even more importantly you may use snowballs in Strikes to stun enemies or deal massive damage. This is a pretty neat change, one that really ties the winter atmosphere in with an actual, effective game mechanic. (I’d love to see a raid team drop Calus only using snowballs…)
New Milestones will be available, rewarding players with “Dawning Engrams.” These will be decrypted by Tess and yield holiday, winter, or Dawning themed armor, gear, shaders, and more. After a certain point during the event, Tess will offer all of these items (including Exotic rarity) on the front of her shelves, so to speak. All will be available, again, in the spirit of the holiday season.
For the first time ever, you’ll be able to “gift” (and receive) items to other Guardians. The original post describes the process of doing this.
“Pick up a Dawning Gift Schematic from the Bazaar. Venture to other worlds and craft a unique gift for the vendors and agents you find in the Tower and beyond. Then, give the lucky recipient their gift and receive a gift in return,” the post states. Seems simple enough, head to X planet, perform Y task, and get Z item to use in the gift exchange process. Neat. I hope it doesn’t go awry. It could get… dicey.
However, these are just some of the many changes that we’ll see during The Dawning winter event. Bungie always manages to surprise us, and this seasonal event seems to be motivated strongly by generosity, which is good for us players. I look forward to these giant mounds of snow lying all around the galaxy and pegging my friends with virtual snowballs, and I can not wait to blast a Vandal in the head with one, too. New armor and weaponry excites me, for the same reasons it always does. But perhaps the change I look forward to most is that of the atmosphere. For what it’s worth, Destiny is a home to me. And this season, Bungie’s decorating.
