The 7^th day of the 7^th month is not just my brother’s birthday but also Bungie Day. Celebrating Bungie Day started as a player-hosted celebration of Bungie and the games they make. Then Bungie decided to jump in and use Bungie Day as a way to celebrate its community both locally and virtually. During this time of isolation and restricted access to places outside my home, I have been more thankful than ever for my clan, my Destiny friends and fireteam, and my Destiny community. It has helped me to stay connected, and even on bad days, I always feel better getting on Destiny to kick some bad guy butt.

In a video released today, Bungie breaks down the different organizations they are supporting, not only as a part of Bungie Day, but as ongoing support during the pandemic insanity. I was so moved by the way Bungie has been helping their local and gaming communities, I wanted share with you, our Icon community, some about what they’re doing.

Giving back to the local community

Firstly, due to the pandemic, kids are out of school, and for many kids from lower income homes, that means their regular meal source is now gone. The Boys and Girls Club has started a meal program for kids out of school, and Bungie has financially partnered with them to support this program. They have now helped provide over 30,000 meals to children since the pandemic started.

A big way Bungie is helping their community is through the Bungie Foundation’s iPads for Kids program, their official Bungie Day 2020 fundraiser, that is supplying iPads to hospitalized children, not only for entertainment and therapy but also as a communication tool. Being hospitalized as a child is hard enough, but during the pandemic, these pediatric patients are much more isolated as the hospitals try to reduce their exposure risks, something that is especially hard on kids. The iPads allow these kids to communicate with family members and also help reduce the amount of times that health care workers have to enter their rooms, helping minimize exposure to keep them safer. As a former health care worker myself, I am so moved by this program. I’ve seen first-hand how hard being hospitalized is on kids. Bringing these kids joy and peace of mind through donated iPads is truly an incredible gift.

Another way Bungie is helping their community is by hosting a fundraiser and donating to Direct Relief, a program that is supplying invaluable PPE (personal protective equipment) to healthcare workers currently at the frontlines of the pandemic. COVID-19 has really financially stretched what protective equipment our hospitals have available for their workers, and this is an incredible program that is helping share some of that burden to protect those on the front lines of this pandemic. Bungie hosted a fundraiser for them that raised over $700,000!

Bungie has also partnered with Make-A-Wish foundation to help grant terminally ill children specifically with technology wishes. They have been helping make those wishes come true in new and innovative ways during the pandemic, so these kids can still get their wishes granted while in isolation.

Celebrating with the Destiny community

In true Bungie fashion, they are celebrating Bungie Day and supporting these different programs with their Destiny community through loot, sweet wonderful loot! We all love good loot, this is why we always come back for more Destiny. And Bungie has some great loot for us both in-game and real life.

Real life: The Bungie Store is currently having a huge sale on many of their items to celebrate the community and give us some sweet, sweet deals.

In-game: If you make a direct donation of $25 or more to iPads for Kids (100% goes to the program by the way), then Bungie will email you the code for a beautiful unique emblem.

Another in-game way you can support and get loot is to purchase the Exotic Empathetic Ghost Shell from Eververse, which is freaking adorable I must say, and 100% of those profits will go to the iPads for Kids program as well. It has perks of Guiding Light, Speed Demon, and a random destination perk.

Destiny Updates

Moments of Triumph

In addition to all the Bungie Day celebrations, this week is just an exciting one in Destiny. Moments of Triumph dropped at reset on Tuesday. There are 28 total triumphs, some quite challenging, to overcome this year in order to get the seal, but the rewards are pretty cool.

Raid reward limits lifted

Yes, to celebrate and also help us achieve the MMXX seal, Bungie has lifted the weekly reward limits on the Leviathan, Eater of Worlds, Spire of Stars, Crown of Sorrow, and Scourge of the Past raids. If you don’t yet have the exotics for these, now is the time to spam the raids and get them! Especially because some (perhaps all?) of these raids will be going away once Beyond Light starts in September.

Season of Arrivals

The season progresses further this week with two new exotic quests, another story mission giving us another piece to the Darkness puzzle, and a new Contact event on Titan. The Pyramid ships are advancing, and if you look at the game map, you can now see ships over Io, Titan, Mars, and Mercury. The number of Taken enemies has grown on Io and Titan. And, I’ve noticed while playing that enemies seem to be hitting harder and more aggressively than usual. As the story unfolds, it is also building on itself, making the excitement of what is to come ever more enticing.

Well that’s it for now guardians. Let’s celebrate Bungie and Destiny together as a gaming community. Stay safe out there. I’ll see you on the battlefield with my Ghost.

See more information and get some cool high resolution wallpapers here.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Bungie’s Destiny 2 big reveal stream was today and man…

did they add gasoline to the fire (or embers for some people) of excitement about the future of Destiny!

The stream started with a somber yet powerful 8 minute and 46 second tribute to George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement with a call to action. I can’t express enough how much I appreciate their support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Fall expansion

Updates for Destiny 2 started with discussing the new fall expansion, Beyond Light, coming September 22, 2020. The Stranger is back y’all! You’ll remember her, and her unfinished story, if you were an original Destiny player. I personally am so excited to see where her story takes us next. The fall expansion is going to open up a new location for us, the snowy moon of Europa. Bungie revealed that it is the place of the Golden Age Braytech facility, the Deep Stone Crypt, the place the Exo originated. We will uncover the secrets that lie deep under the ancient ice.

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Eramis, the Shipstealer, was mentioned to be coming back (another D1 story we get continued). The splintered houses of the Fallen have rallied and built their new empire on Europa, united under the banner of the Fallen Kell of Darkness, Eramis. Abandoned by the Traveler and left by the Light, Eramis is on her own journey into the Darkness, and towards a collision course with Guardians. And I don’t know about you, but I’m excited to shift focus away from the Cabal for a bit.

Other big news for the fall expansion is that we will be wielding darkness! What does this mean for us guardians? We get a new subclass, called Stasis. Rooted in Darkness, Guardians will wield this new elemental power alongside Arc, Solar, and Void to summon epic supers and control the battlefield. Titans, Warlocks and Hunters will each use Stasis in a different way. More details on Stasis to come later this summer. We don’t know much more than that at this point, but I am so excited to try it out.

And of course, we will be getting a new raid in the fall: Below the frozen tundra of Europa lies the Deep Stone Crypt. For decades it has remained dormant. Guardians will test their skill and teamwork in this brand new six-person raid, where glorious rewards await.

New console generations

Destiny 2 Game Director, Luke Smith, and General Manager, Mark Noseworthy, also informed us that as the new console generations roll out this year, Destiny players will be able to upgrade D2 to their new consoles for free, and that they will be launching intergenerational play, meaning that PS5 players and PS4 players can play together, as well as X Box Series X and X Box One players. Other exciting news that they slipped in there was that Bungie is working on crossplay, hopefully to launch next year, though they didn’t give us many more details than that.

The future of Destiny

What about plans moving forward for Destiny? There have been a lot of speculations about a potential Destiny 3 coming out. Well, Smith put those rumors to rest when he told us that Bungie does not want nor plans on making a D2 sequel. Rather, they plan on continuing and building off a single evolving world. However, adding to the D2 world that is already so big will have its challenges, notes Noseworthy. So, part of the plan is that they are going to launch the Destiny Content Vault (DCV). What the DCV will allow is that when a new season launches, older, less played content will be put into the vault to make room for the new content. The cool thing is, though, that the DCV content will be revolving, meaning that older, beloved content will be cycled in and out. Some of the content mentioned in the reveal today to be coming back included the Sepiks mission, the Vault of Glass raid, and the Cosmodrome location from original Destiny. As a prior D1 player, I was stoked to hear about these old missions and stories coming to D2!

Season 11

So, after all the exciting reveals of future D2 content, Smith and Noseworthy finally got to the real reason we were all there, content about TODAY’s new season launch. Season 11, the Season of the Arrivals, launched today at 10 am PST. However, most of the content will have to be discovered by ourselves in-game because all they told us in the reveal was that a nearly 100 GB update would need to be downloaded and that we were getting a new dungeon and public event. The new dungeon is called, Prophecy, and will be launching at 5 pm PST. It will include a grind to unlock the new DAITO Foundry armor and reprised Trials of the Nine armor sets, which look super cool.

We will be getting to experience the next part to the story of the Pyramid (i.e. Tetrahedron or Dorito) ships as they are arriving in our playable universe. The moon of Io will see the arrival of the first Pyramid ship, setting off a chain of events that will unfold throughout the Season, into the Beyond Light expansion, and beyond. From the video, we can see that Rasputin and Ana Bray will likely continue to play important roles as the story unfolds.

The new public event should be active right away, which is beneath the newly arrived Pyramid ship on Io, where an untapped power has summoned the enemies of humanity!

For all you lore junkies out there, throughout the season, Messages of Darkness will be found on Io. Journey to the Cradle on Io and uncover these hidden communications.

In addition to new armor from the dungeon, we will get some new weapons! Season Pass owners will instantly unlock the new Witherhoard Exotic Grenade Launcher and Seasonal armor set.

And with that, Bungie has already updated their profile picture to the image for the new season. Does that planet look like Venus to anyone else? All right guys, my content is done downloading, and I want to go explore. For now, I will conclude with, eyes up Guardian. Let’s go save humanity together! See you out there.

Updates

The reveal concluded with some fun updates for us:

• Pre-orders for the fall expansion Beyond Light are available today (on Steam, Stadia, and X Box One – PlayStation soon) with some immediate special features:
  • Instant access to a special Exotic Ghost Shell
  • Instant access to a Legendary Emblem
  • Digital Deluxe: instant access to the new Exotic Freeze Tag emote
• Expansions planned for the future:
  • 2020: Beyond Light
  • 2021: The Witch Queen
  • 2022: Light Fall

Destiny 2: Beyond Light Digital Deluxe Edition
The Destiny 2: Beyond Light Digital Deluxe Edition will be available to pre-order on all platforms:

• Destiny 2: Beyond Light Expansion + Full Year of Seasonal Content (4 Seasons Total)
• With pre-order: Exotic Rimed Ghost Shell and Legendary Emblem
• Freeze Tag Exotic Emote
• No Time to Explain Exotic Pulse Rifle with Exotic Catalyst and Ornament
• Any Other Sky Exotic Sparrow

Destiny 2: Beyond Light The Stranger Edition
The Stranger Edition is the only way for fans to access an exclusive 10” statue of The Stranger, sold with purchase of the Deluxe Edition at select retailers worldwide. For regional availability, check: http://www.numskull.com/official-destiny-merchandise/

Destiny 2: Beyond Light Collector’s Edition
The Destiny 2: Beyond Light Collector’s Edition will only be available from the Bungie Store:

• Beyond Light Digital Deluxe Edition (digital code only)
• Die-Cast Splinter of Darkness Replica with lights
• Europa Explorer’s Bag
• Europa Exploration Canteen
• Mysterious Logbook
• Plus other discoveries from Europa

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The PS5 and Xbox series X will be released later this year, but as of yet, we still don’t have a price. Reports say that Sony is holding out until Microsoft reveals their price, so they can price their box accordingly. But I feel like they’re in a stalemate. Microsoft may be holding out on revealing the price so PlayStation won’t undercut them. Just imagine, it’s a day before release and no one knows the price:

Of course they want to keep the price down, but I want know how much is too much? A recent report from Bloomberg says that the PS5 currently costs around $450 to make, which means Sony could sell it anywhere between $400 to $500. I think they’re holding off stating a price because they want to avoid taking a loss on the system, but I think they’re willing to if the Xbox Series X costs $500 or less. Sony is understandably a bit cautious with their price. They turned more than a few heads back in 2006 when the PlayStation 3 cost $600. And Microsoft wants to avoid the same issues they had with the Xbox One launch and having the PS4 being cheaper.

When the PS3 was released for $600, it was actually being sold at a loss, as in, it cost more to make than what they were selling it for. At that price, Sony lost about $240 per-unit. Sony could do this because they made that money back on software. That’s one of the reasons Sony puts so much emphasis on exclusives, and yet people still had issues with the PS3 because despite it being sold at a loss, $600 is still a lot of money.

But we live in a different time now. It’s 2020. We seem to be slightly more acclimated to spending more money on technology. I mean, not just on anything, but if a device has the best, top of the line specs and features and pushes innovation forward, then we seem more inclined to buy it. Higher end smartphones now go for anywhere between $1000 and $2000, and we keep those for what? One or two years? Would it be unrealistic to spend that kind of money for something that’s going to be around and supported for 5+ years? And from what we hear, Sony is putting a lot into the new console, which according to Bloomberg will include an expensive cooling system. Most consoles will spend less than a dollar on a cooling system, but Sony is spending a few dollars. One complaint you hear a lot about the PS4 is the fan constantly going, so maybe they’re taking users’ comments seriously and trying to better optimize the new console’s cooling. What’s also making things harder on Sony is that DRAM and NAND flash memory are in such high demand right now. This is driving up manufacturing costs and reportedly caused Sony to cancel the development of a new mirrorless camera.

So here’s a hypothetical: If the PS5 or Xbox Series X is $600 would you still buy it? What features would it need to have to justify that kind of price tag? Would you be willing to pay more if you knew that meant Microsoft and Sony would deliver the best possible console, or would you prefer less bells and whistles if that means a lower price?

On the one hand, I want a console with all the bells and whistles, but my wallet doesn’t, which is why it’s odd that Sony and Microsoft are waiting so long to give us more details about their respective consoles. They need to give people time to save money because we have to buy the consoles and the games.