The Iron Banner in both Destiny 1 and 2 has gone through many changes throughout its lifetime. Most recently in Season 17 of Destiny 2, Iron Banner went through a major revamp of the playlist overall. Adding a new title to it, introducing the Rift to it, and more was both taken and added to the playlist.
Now, with the upcoming arrival of Season 18 in a matter of weeks, Bungie has announced even more changes coming to the playlist in their latest TWAB. so today we’re going 5 Ways Destiny 2 Season 18 is set to revamp the Iron Banner.
1. Guilding Your Iron Lord Seal
Image Source: Bungie.net
One of the major additions this past season has added to the Iron Banner playlist is its first ever seal. Previously, Iron Banner was the only PvP playlist in the game that still didn’t have its own seal. To achieve this, players have to perform a number of tasks while playing the playlist, such as “Get all Iron Banner weapons”, for example. A player will need to obtain all 15 unique weapons from the playlist, such as the Peacebond Stasis Sidearm or Zero Energy SMG Hero’s Burden, for example, for it to count towards the objective.
There are currently a total of 7 tasks for players to complete in order to obtain the Iron Lord Seal. One thing to note, however, is that one of the other big changes to Iron Banner is that it will only be available to play twice per season. Which means players have 2 weeks of a 10-week season to complete all required objectives.
Coming to Season 18, players who have acquired the Iron Lord Seal this past season, and future players who will eventually acquire it, will have the ability to guild it. Guilding a seal allows a player to show off how many times they’ve done it before, as well as changing the color of their seal from purple to gold to really help show it off! In order to be stamped, players will have to do some wins/actions once again to do so. But once completed, they can show off their new fancy guild seals for all to see.
2. Removal of cracks from iron banner (temporarily)
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In Season 17, Destiny 2 brought back one of its previous Destiny 1 game modes, the Rift, and made it the main activity for Iron Banner for the season. The Rift from Destiny 1 was a 6v6 objective-based game mode where players would try to get the spark concentrated in the middle of the map and then sink into their opponents’ rift. After pouring a certain amount of spark into the cracks of his opponents, he won the match. Returning to Destiny 2, the Rift saw some tweaks and tweaks, but the core gameplay experience was more or less the same as when it returned in the form of Iron Banner activity.
However, the re-introduction of the Rift in Destiny 2 didn’t go as smoothly as it did after going live earlier this season with bugs and other problems. The second time around, however, was a better experience. Players speaking to Bungie said that the Rift shouldn’t be a competitive PvP experience like Iron Banner intended it to be, but rather a casual experience that can be inserted into the regular Crucible Mode playlist.
With this in mind, in Season 18 the Rift will no longer be the main Iron Banner activity for the season and will be replaced. However, it was said that the Rift would return to the Iron Banner playlist in future seasons once further adjustments were made.
3. Iron Banner Clash Returns
Image Source: Bungie.net
With the Rift being rotated out of the Iron Banner playlist, for the first time in 5 years since the initial season of Destiny 2, Clash is finally making its return to the Iron Banner. Clash is as simple as it gets: it’s your traditional team deathmatch 6v6 mode where each team must eliminate each other until a certain score limit is reached, usually 100 points.
It will be featured on both weeks of Iron Banner this upcoming season. However, it won’t be the same type of clash that’s already featured in non-competitive playlists.
4. Struggle… with a Twist
Image Source: Bungie.net
As stated above, Clash is returning to the Iron Banner playlist in Season 18, but this time with a twist. Bungie said they wanted to make Iron Banner feel more “unique” in its own right. That being said, the explosion was born. To put it simply, “explosion is a collision with an energy boost based on kill streaks”.
As a player gains a few kills in game mode, their character begins to glow, as well as the regeneration of all their abilities. The more you kill, the more energy inevitably builds up until the player reaches 5 kills without dying. When a player reaches this threshold, the hunt will begin. In this iteration of hunting, everyone on your team receives increased ability regeneration. All of which sounds great, of course, but as one would expect, there’s a catch.
The person who originally got the 5-kill streak that started the hunt would be “primed”. They have slightly more ability regeneration than their teammates and each kill they get is now worth 3 points each. But, now you have a 15 second countdown timer attached. If this timer hits zero, you’ll explode and die, and the hunt is over. On the other hand, getting a kill while the timer is active will reset it, allowing you to continue your streak as long as you can to prevent the timer from reaching zero. However, that’s not the only downside, as not only do you have a 15-second timer attached, but you’re also marked always so the enemy team can tell where you are at all times. Your friends will also be able to see where you are.
That’s all we know about Eruption at the moment, though more information will be released when the Iron Banner rolls out at the beginning of Season 18.
5. Future revamps and returning game modes?
Image Source: Bungie.net
In the end, Bungie ended TWAB by confirming that they would touch base with Control and the Rift in future seasons, but also teasing the return of “familiar modes with a unique experience in Season 19.” In what could be the end of this familiar mode, Supremacy is the first to come to mind as it is still sitting in the Destiny Content Vault and was once Iron Banner activity in Destiny 1. The only other game mode that has been featured as Iron Banner Playlist activity was mayhem, but that was back in Destiny 1 as a fun send-up to the game as Destiny 2 was about to launch at the time, so mayhem. highly unlikely.
That’s all for now! Bungie said they won’t reveal any big news for the next few weeks as they prepare for their big Destiny 2 showcase later this month on August 23. Season 18 will go live in-game shortly after the showcase ends. We’ll have more to talk about Destiny 2 over the next few weeks. For more Destiny 2 related content, check out our related articles below.
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