Destiny 2 players’ pleas for earnable ornaments have been around for years, with multiple controversies surrounding the split between what appears for free and what comes with a price tag. The studio, however, surprised the community by announcing free cosmetics as part of an event next month.
The upcoming Call to Arms event, slated for Nov. 11, brings a slew of rewards, but the most notable of them might be a new Exotic ornament for the New Malpais pulse rifle. The ornament—and other rewards, including a finisher—will be available for all players, Bungie confirmed in a blog post today.
The studio has rarely given free, earnable weapon and armor ornaments. With The Edge of Fate, Bungie added an earnable ornament for Conditional Finality, which required players to go flawless before they could purchase it for Silver (and, during one week, for Bright Dust). The new cosmetic for New Malpais marks the first time in years that players can earn this type of item simply through gameplay.
The announcement comes in the wake of turmoil at Bungie: Destiny 2‘s player count is cratering to new lows, and the studio faced a scandal with its in-game shop in the past month.
The team teased an “incredibly cool new set of armor” for Iron Banner, which would have been available for free by playing the mode. The studio, however, was caught red-handed after moving the promised set to the paid Eververse store and giving players a recolor of an old, basic armor set instead. The community uncovered the scandal after seeing concept art for the Gladius set on Ben Low’s since-deleted Artstation page, though PC Gamer archived an image of it (seen above).
“The overall balance in paid and earned armor cosmetics is off for this season,” Bungie said in its statement. As a make-good measure, the team added another would-be Eververse set to Iron Banner in its stead, but fans were furious with the decision to shift sets in the first place.
While this is the latest controversy involving the discrepancy in quality between earnable and paid armor sets, it’s by no means the only one to happen in recent years. In 2023, Bungie said it couldn’t maintain its pace of one ritual armor set per year, which sparked discontent in the community. To rectify the situation, the studio added the Biosphere Explorer set to the three ritual playlists, letting all players earn them without spending any money.
The news also follows major U-turns in Bungie’s plans for Renegades, including the removal of Unstable Cores, the abandonment of a seasonal reset in December, and a litany of improvements to the Portal, making the power grind far easier.
Players can earn the ornament for New Malpais, as well as a series of cosmetics and weapons, when Call of Arms releases on Nov. 11. Until then, Festival of the Lost, the game’s usual Halloween event, arrives next Tuesday.
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