Speculation on what the mysterious final season of The Witch Queen expansion could be has been rife in recent weeks, but today’s This Week At Bungie blog may have just given us our first explicit hint.
Alongside a breakdown of numerous nerfs and buffs coming to perks and Exotics next season in Destiny 2, Bungie let slip that Seraph Rounds—a perk found exclusively on weaponry from the Warmind expansion—will be appearing on more weapons next season. With the magazine perk belonging only to the line of IKELOS weapons before now, the idea that the upcoming weapons to feature it could also connect to Rasputin is an inevitable connection to make.
While it’s unfortunate that this official hint toward next season’s theme and story comes at the cost of a nerf to Seraph Rounds, it only adds to the community excitement around season 19. “Seraph Rounds will be appearing on more weapons next Season,” Bungie confirmed in the patch breakdown. “But in its current form, it’s the strongest magazine perk by a large margin, so we’ve pulled it back a little and made it more of a tradeoff.”
That tradeoff is a removal of the magazine perk’s 10 percent bonus to the range scalar, but the addition of a bonus seven stability and three range at base. It’s not the end of the world by any means but does knock Seraph Rounds down from the throne it has held for so many years as one of the best magazine perks on the market.
Players had already noticed during the recent community event to rebuild the Eliksni Quarter that some of the Sweeper Bots in the area had a Warmind-sequence chassis. Considering these robot designs hadn’t been seen since Rasputin’s last presence in the Destiny 2 storyline during Season of the Worthy, their inclusion seems very intentional.
Furthermore, players have begun reading into one cutscene from The Witch Queen‘s campaign where a number of notable allied characters met in Zavala’s office to discuss the threat of Savathun. Some of the inclusions seemed odd at first, with Saint-14, Ana Bray, Lord Saladin, and Shaxx present where they would not be usually.
Yet as we approach the end of the year, one Reddit user noticed that each of these characters represents a different seasonal story from throughout the annual release cycle. Ana Bray is the only character remaining without this style of connection and is currently in possession of Rasputin. Last we saw her, she has been trying to bring Rasputin back online after he was shut down in Season of Arrivals and inevitably had to be pulled from his housing by Ana in a bid to save him.
With less than a week left until the new season launches though, we won’t have to wait long to get confirmation on whether or not this trail of breadcrumbs is leading to the Rasputin-themed Destiny 2 season that players have been craving for so long.
