An unexpected part of this morning’s Xbox Series X Games Showcase, Bungie showed up to announce Destiny 2 coming to Xbox GamePass with all expansions—including this fall’s Beyond Light—as part of the package. The developer also left fans with a brand new trailer for Destiny 2: Beyond Light, showing off the new Darkness imbued Stasis powers that that Guardians will get to wield later this year.
The trailer begins with Guardians trudging through snow on Europa, an intriguing new bit of tech the likes of which we haven’t seen in Destiny 2 before. While “leaving paths in snow” might be old hat for games, it’s an exciting layer of immersion for Destiny fans as Bungie builds out this new location. We then see a Fallen channeling the Stasis Darkness powers. in some way. Luke Smith hinted in an interview with Geoff Keighley that enemies’ access to the Darkness and its powers will grow and evolve over time and we’re starting to see that here.
We see a few quick glimpses of new locations (another Pyramidion entrance…?) and some weapons and armor—after all, Bungie loves their teases—but the real meat of the trailer is a look at how Guardians will wield the new Stasis abilities. Three words stand at the core of these abilities: Create. Encase. Shatter.
Create seems to be about creating ice crystals for various purposes, either to burst up and knock enemies away or even make platforms to jump on using grenades. Encase appears to freeze enemies in place, encasing them in ice (even shown off being used in Crucible). And Shatter is just what it sounds like: shattering frozen enemies into little icy bits.
The abilities seem to correlate with specific classes (Create for Warlock, Encase for Hunter, and Shatter for Titans) but Bungie hasn’t fully released any details about what the limitations of these abilities might be. Could a Titan wield the create grenades, for example? Can a Warlock shatter frozen enemies? There’s still a lot to learn about these new powers before the November 10th release date.
Talking with Geoff Keighley during the post-show, Luke Smith said that the team wants to keep its cards close to its chest to allow players the opportunity to discover these new things for themselves, but that these new abilities are just the start of changes in ways players will interact with the world of Destiny 2.
Destiny 2: Beyond Light releases November 10th after a brief delay from its original September release date. It’s unknown how the delay will impact the cadence of seasonal content in Destiny 2 Year 4. Destiny 2 will also be available on PS5 at its release this holiday season, featuring 4k/60fps.
