Destiny 2’s Court of Blades desperately needs a loot boost before it’s too late

Destiny 2 Episode Heresy triggered a boost in active players on February 4 but if action isn’t taken fast, its contentious mid-season update could scupper those fortunes in the blink of an eye.

Introduced alongside Heresy Act 2, Court of Blades, a riff on the original Destiny’s Court of Oryx activity, is a seamlessly replayable time-attack mode pitting Guardians against a gauntlet of bosses with some rogue-lite features thrown in for good measure.

It’s short, sweet, and a superb playground to test new builds in, but it falls short in what’s arguably the most important department of all – loot.

The Nether did it better

Act 1’s Nether activity, widely praised by the community, again, for being an excellent repeatable activity, sends forth a tidal wave of loot with every foray into the Dreadnaught’s Hive-infested halls.

Without hyperbole, Destiny 2 hasn’t delivered a bounty of riches on this scale since Into The Light, and Court of Blades doing a U-turn back towards stingy loot distribution feels even worse as a result.

While there shouldn’t be an expectation that Bungie comment on the complaints, the studio is often receptive to feedback of this nature and there’s certainly precedent for the studio to make mid-season tweaks for players’ sake, as it did with Revenant’s Tonic system.

The real question is why, in the first place, was Court of Blades shipped as is? All of Heresy’s weapons can be obtained from the Nether and Court – there’s nothing exclusive to either and the former is more rewarding, so why bother with the latter outside of quest requirements?

Destiny 2 is one of the most successful carrot-on-a-stick games of all time. If one of two equally entertaining activities offers objectively better loot, you can bet your bottom dollar that players will flock to whichever has the superior time-to-reward ratio.

With Heresy intended to tide players over until Frontiers arrives in the summer, Nether being the only worthwhile loot grind will lead to burnout. There’s plenty of time between now and then to justify investment in improving Court of Blades for variety’s sake.