We’ve got plenty of big changes coming in The Final Shape including The Pale Heart of the Traveller, Cayde-6 returning plus a brand new feature we haven’t seen before, and that’s Pathfinder. Details of Pathfinder are limited, but today I’d like to have a look at all the info we know right now, so we can look forward to this revamp of the bounty system in Destiny 2.
Joe Blackburn let us know Pathfinder is coming way back in August 2023, when he revealed a series of changes coming alongside The Final Shape.
“Finally, we called out back in February that we were initially targeting more changes to ritual content in the final Season of the year. While we’ve made the recent decision to push this initiative to The Final Shape, we have plans to replace some bounties with a more rewarding and engaging system tentatively called the Pathfinder. This is going to be debuted on the new destination in The Final Shape, and we’re currently nailing down a plan for how we can use this new system to replace core ritual bounties in the new year. For now, here’s a work-in-progress preview of the Pathfinder UI”
We don’t have many details beyond this short description from Joe Blackburn and clues about the UI, although I would take this with a pinch of salt, given much can change since that blog post last August. However, given its intention to replace the bounty system, it could have a big impact on how we all interact with Destiny 2.
Right now in the game Guardians have to complete 8 bounties for each of the core playlists (Vanguard, Crucible and Gambit) to get a pinnacle reward, and ultimately level up. Once Guardians have levelled up to max level (currently 1810).
In the screenshot of the Pathfinder UI we can see multiple paths to get to the pinnacle reward. This is then likely to replace the current bounty system, allowing Guardians to choose their own path to the high-level loot. This is going to add more player choice into the path of levelling up, rather than having to engage in activities you don’t really like. At the moment, when a new expansion releases and you want to level up quickly, then you have to play a range of activities to level up in the most efficient way, forcing players to play through activities they normally wouldn’t engage with. If you’re a PVP player, then playing Gambit and Vanguard activities can be frustrating and the opposite is also true.
We can see from the diagram that the Pathfinder nodes start out varied on the left hand side, presumably this is the start. Surrounding the nodes appear to be progress bars, so rather than completing 8 bounties, you may have a checklist of activities or tasks to complete to help you get to the next tier. Rather than being tied directly to the instructions on a bounty, for example “Kill 10 fallen with a fusion rifle”, Bungie could offer up more accessible paths to pinnacle rewards.
Joe Blackburn said this is going to be rolled out on the new Destiny 2 destination coming in The Final Shape, and this is highly likely to be The Pale Heart of the Traveller. Bungie is likely going to test this new system on that destination with the new vendor (potentially Cayde-6), and if successful we could see the Pathfinder system rolled out to existing planets and moons in future updates.
The current bounty system has been in Destiny since the very start, which is quickly approaching 10 years, so it’s stale and in-need of a revamp. The Pathfinder concept looks interesting and increasing the player choice sounds like a good idea. How it’s going to work in practice, and how players are going to respond to it, that we don’t know right now, but we don’t have long to wait for The Final Shape to find out. We’re likely to hear more about Pathfinder as we move towards The Final Shape, which is scheduled for release on 4th June 2024.
Let me know in the comments what you think Pathfinder is, and how you’d like to see Bungie overhaul bounties in Destiny 2.