Though Destiny 2 players already knew the crafting economy would look different in Lightfall, but Bungie brought a surprising change in today’s This Week at Bungie blog post. The developer is taking out Resonant Elements from Destiny 2 once its new expansion lands and will use some more common currencies starting in Year Six.
“As part of an initiative to integrate weapon crafting into the broader core economy, we will be completely removing Resonant Elements from the game,” Bungie wrote in the blog post. The element costs added during The Witch Queen will give way to Glimmer, Enhancement Cores, and other “standard materials,” according to Bungie. The developer will also get rid of the Deepsight Attunement objectives for good.
Resonant Elements were one of the main crafting resources in Destiny 2 during Year Five. The team fused old materials like Neutral Elements to make the broader Resonant Element shortly after The Witch Queen launched, but the resource is going away completely in Lightfall.
The change is part of Bungie’s plans to revamp the crafting system post-The Witch Queen. Bungie previously outlined some ideas for the new features in the This Week at Bungie blog post on Oct. 27, 2022, though the full removal of Resonant Elements wasn’t in the cards at the time.
For the time being, Resonant Alloy and Harmonic Alloy will continue to feature as crafting materials, according to Bungie. Resonant Alloy can be used to craft weapons or improve their intrinsics. Harmonic Alloy fulfills that same role, but for raid weapons. These items will stay available early into Lightfall, but Bungie is planning to “overhaul” them through the course of Year Six.
Additionally, the Exotic-rarity Ascendant Alloys “will remain as is for now,” the blog post reads. Players can use Ascendant Alloys to equip enhanced versions of perks, which come with a bump in functionality compared to the base versions.
