Seasonal Artifacts Will Refresh Optimal Builds Every Season

Bungie has told us about a lot of changes that are coming to Destiny 2 with Shadowkeep and Season of the Undying. But none seem to buck the trend more than Seasonal Artifacts.

What Are Seasonal Artifacts?

If you’re uncertain as to what a Seasonal Artifact is, don’t worry, we’ll explain. Each season will have its own Artifact for Guardians to own and upgrade. The Artifact for Season of the Undying is a Gate Lord’s Eye, but once the season ends it will disappear, and a new Artifact will be given for Season of Dawn.

Each Artifact can be upgraded in order to unlock more, and better, mods and mod slots for it. These mods are geared towards the current season, and will help you fashion a season-perfect build for taking on hordes of Vex. These mods won’t count on your armour builds, so any mods you attach to those for ammo will still be active whilst you also have Artifact mods for things like Health Regeneration triggering upon a certain number of Vex kills.

Guardians upgrade their Seasonal Artifact by completing activities within a season. As with the Season Passes, any activity is going to count towards seasonal progression, but it will also count towards Artifact progression. Once you’ve maxed out the level on your Artifact, you can attach all kinds of mods to it for all types of activity. Bungie hasn’t said that these mods affect PVP modes, but they have said that we can change out our mods on the Artifact depending on if we’re just exploring a planet, completing a Strike, or even a Raid. The mods you attach will help you in all kinds of situations regarding PVE, and that’s where things get really different for Destiny 2.

Seasonal Builds

Traditionally there were armour sets and weapons that would form the perfect builds for certain activities in Destiny 2. These ranged from Raid gear to Exotic weapons, but every activity had a new build that was the best of the best with every expansion, or season. Now, that’s going to totally change.

The Seasonal Artifact is going to be the item that helps Guardians make their build viable for each activity, but once the season ends it will be gone. Bungie is implementing this because they don’t want to see activities stomped on by overpowered builds. Instead, Guardians are going to have to level up their Artifact and earn the best mods so that their lives are easier in whatever activity they find themselves.

Personally, I think this is great for a number of reasons. But the biggest reason Seasonal Artifacts are great is that it stops any Guardian from being lazy. Now we constantly have to think about what we’re doing, or we’ll fund ourselves punished for not paying attention to the activity, and what mods on the Artifact might help with it.

Seasonal Artifacts make Destiny 2 much more like an RPG than a sci-fi shooter, and that’s an aspect I know Guardians, including myself, have been waiting for.

We can’t wait to see what builds come out of Season of the Undying next month. Let us know what you think of Seasonal Artifacts in the comments.