Destiny 2
These days it is fairly easy to ignore more holiday events in Destiny 2, as there is one new weapon that has about a 5% chance of actually being worth faming, and some tweaks to an activity that we’ve run for 3-4 years before this.
However, in this year’s Festival of the Lost in Destiny 2, Bungie decided to release possibly the best shader they’ve ever made. Well, for weapons. Well, it’s not actually a shader.
That would be the “Lost Memento,” a return to the concept of Mementos, something Bungie seemed like it had put on a shelf after only making a handful of them in activities ranging from easy (Gambit) to harder (Trials). Now, there’s an event-specific one that’s…controversial, to say the least.
So, on the one hand, you have created something that people actually want to farm for during an event. That is not an easy feat, to be sure, and something these events have been missing.
However, the concept of a memento instead of a normal shader has all these qualifiers:
1) It’s limited use, as you’re guaranteed one, but you have to grind out future ones at a very, very low drop rate
2) It’s only usable on crafted weapons, not normal ones, not armor
3) You can only hold one of these at a time, so you need to hurry up and decide what to apply it to rather than saving multiples to dole out later if you want to keep farming.
4) This event is only three weeks long. With limited use and low drop rates, it’s FOMO of the highest order, and we have to maybe guess it might return next year. But obviously not until then.
To me, actively chasing a memento like this reminds me a bit of the old Luke Smith philosophy on why shaders were made consumable to begin with. I’ve seen some excitement about the return of mementos, but uh:
Does that sound familiar at all? Even with flawless qualifiers, it reminds me of the old idea that consumable shaders should be a part of raid loot, and should be another reason to keep re-grinding for more shaders. Everyone hated that.
Mementos straddle that line, but so far have been pretty easy to ignore because frankly, most are not that great looking in the first place. This one, however, the leather wrap black, is incredible, so now the conversation has changed, especially since in order to get it, it’s grinding three weeks of an event no one even wants to grind.
I don’t know what the answer here is. I think we see how this works as an experiment, how many people can collect (now that it’s done being bugged) and where we land at the end. And if Bungie is going to make this a regular thing or not. It’s an interesting situation, I’ll say that.
Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
