Calculating How Much Time It Takes To Stay ‘Current’ With Destiny 2’s Seasonal Storylines

Games Calculating How Much Time It Takes To Stay ‘Current’ With Destiny 2’s Seasonal Storylines Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Sep 10, 2022, 08:59am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Destiny 2 Bungie There is a common refrain in Destiny 2 that it’s easy to feel like you’re falling behind if you skip a season, or take a year off. I get it, and Destiny 2 is certainly overwhelming to return to after time away, or of course start from scratch. But now that we’ve settled into this weekly format for seasonal content delivery, if you want to stay “current” with Destiny 2’s seasonal storyline, how much of a time investment is that, really? A lot less than you think, and it’s pretty clear just how much of Destiny 2’s playtime is consumed by the grind for items, rather than purely following along for the story.

Which is fine! But if you’re short on time, keeping up with the season does not take very long at all. Take Season of the Plunder , for instance. We had an intro mission, and now we settle into a pattern of an Expedition, Pirate Lord hunt and then some interactions in the Eliksni quarter every week.

That is what it takes to get the full range of that week’s story developments. And there appear to be eight weeks of this. So lets do some math.

Plunder Intro Mission – 10 minutes (one time) Weekly expedition – 8 minutes (eight weeks) Weekly Pirate Lord hunt – 5 minutes (eight weeks) Eliksni Quarter conversations – 5 minutes (eight weeks) Presumed finale mission – 10 minutes (one time) So, the “essential” story here would be 10 + 64 + 40 + 40 + 10 = 164 minutes. Two hours and 44 minutes for a three month season. Destiny 2 Bungie MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry That’s the basics.

I would argue that even though Ketchcrash is not part of the seasonal questline most weeks, the amount of dialogue in there is worth hearing as part of the story. So eight, 10 minute Ketchcrash runs would add another 80 minutes, so 4 hours and 4 minutes total, using that metric. Add in maybe 20 minutes to read all the lore books and lore entries on all the gear, and we’re up to around four and a half hours.

The rest is all just…whatever you want to play for the loot chase, really. While added raid King’s Fall has story and lore, certainly, it’s a Destiny 1 tale not connected to this season at all. Everything else, Crucible, the strike playlist and Nightfalls, Gambit, Dares of Eternity, it’s all just grinding for loot, crafting patterns, etc.

Not that it isn’t fun, it’s just not connected to the story. The point being, to keep current on one character for the story of a full season of Destiny 2, it’s about four and a half hours to consume essentially all pieces of the actual plot and the lore attached. Not terrible across three months, though the soonest you can consume it all is eight weeks in, because of timegating.

I would be surprised if past recent seasons are all that much different (Sever + Nightmare Containment + at least one Duality run for its lore last season, etc). Strip a season down to its bare story essentials, and that’s what you’ve got. The rest is looting.

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