With less than a month to go until season 21 begins, Destiny 2 players are itching to know more about what awaits them in Season of the Deep. This past week, Bungie has started to reveal more details about the sandbox and meta changes that the new season will bring, but today saw our first look at how the narrative will be shaking out as well.
Headlining May 4’s This Week at Bungie blog, the Destiny 2 team unveiled the official key art for Season of the Deep, which launches on May 23. That key art came loaded with the massive plot reveal that Deputy Commander Sloane—a character from the Red War who was thought lost along with Titan during Season of Arrivals—appears to be making a grand return alongside the oceanic moon she vowed to defend from the Black Fleet.
Destiny 2’s lore enthusiasts have been theorizing that we could see Titan return for a long time now, after The Witch Queen campaign saw Mars return in a similar capacity after being seemingly removed from existence by The Witness. Those theories were given more credence when Lightfall dropped and the Winterbite Exotic quest had a piece of flavor text mention that an enemy of The Witness was still alive on Titan. It was the first mention of the moon in a long time, seeing as how both it and its host vendor Sloane were removed from the game in both a narrative and literal capacity in 2020.
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While the return of Titan is an interesting direction for the story to go regardless, it also has a lot of implications for what we can expect from the seasonal gameplay content as well. Season of the Deep has a good chance of following in Season of the Haunted’s footsteps, bringing back a legacy location as a new patrol zone and giving Guardians seasonal activities to do within it in order to uncover the mysteries of its re-appearance. We won’t know for certain until Bungie provides us with more details, however.
Season of the Deep is also the first step on the road to reinvigorating the seasonal model, as Bungie have previously announced their intention to step away from the seasonal vendor upgrades and boon paths that have become heavily standardized across every season since Season of the Chosen. Player sentiment around the seasonal model has been overwhelmingly negative since the conclusion of Season of Plunder, and game director Joe Blackburn stated that season 21 would be the first season where they could start implementing changes to make the model more exciting.
It won’t be much longer until players can find out more about Sloane’s return, her new corrupted look and the Leviathan lurking in the background of the key art. Bungie will be revealing more details about Season of the Deep as its launch date—Tuesday, May 23—grows closer.
