This Week At Bungie Is Back With Dates For The Next Raid And Matchmaking Changes

It has been a while since we heard news about Destiny 2 after Bungie had cut back on communication following the threats to the company and their employees. Thankfully, communication is back a bit and today we are bringing you another "This Week at Bungie" wrap-up. Guardians will learn more about the launch date of the next raid as well as learn more on some matchmaking changes rolling out in Season 18 and Season 19.

Joining Destiny in Season 18 will be another raid out of the Destiny Content Vault and the name of that raid is…sorry, the reveal is being saved for the Destiny 2 Showcase on August, 23. This ultra secret raid goes live at 10 AM PST on August 26. Now, because this raid is something most Guardians are familiar with, the World First race is changing a bit, similar to how they changed Vault of Glass.

Challenge Mode and the secret Triumph will only be available for the first 24 hours, so those who would like to be declared the World First Winners will need to jump to it. After everything is reviewed, the coveted raid belts will be awarded.

Come Season 18, some changes will be made to the matchmaker in the Crucible. This is the first step that is part of a larger plan going through Season 19. The reason behind these changes are very simple, as always, the Destiny 2 team is striving to give all players–even New Lights–the ability to enter regular matches where they feel competitive and have a reasonable chance of winning/competing. Destiny will attempt to make matches more fair by using Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM).

At first, the SBMM will be implied rather loosely in Season 18 as the devs behind the scene fine-tune the new introduction. Then, in Season 19, Destiny 2 will be implementing a form of fireteam-size-preferred matchmaking.

The goals in creating high-quality matches are to improve connection quality, match fairness, and matchmaking speed. If players would like to read more about TWAB regarding how skill numbers will play out in-game as well as the current competitive landscape, please make sure to check out the official post here.