Destiny 2’s newest Exotic is setting an interesting precedent

Bungie added its first real Stasis weapon with Tuesday’s Destiny 2: Season of the Splicer update. After the Beyond Light expansion added the game’s first Darkness element, Stasis, the new Cryosthesia 77K is the first sidearm and non-Power weapon to deal ice damage. Being the first of anything this far into Destiny 2 life is already interesting, but Cryosthesia 77K fits into the Kinetic weapon slot, something weapons with elemental affinities haven’t done since the original Destiny.

Since Bungie shifted Destiny 2’s weapon slots in its Forsaken expansion, players have had three weapon types equipped to their Guardians. Power weapons use limited; Heavy ammo to deal tons of damage. Energy weapons can use either primary (very common) or secondary (less common and limited in PvP) ammo depending on their weapon type, have elemental affinities like Solar or Arc, and deal bonus damage to shields. Finally, Kinetic weapons go in the Guardian’s top spot, work similarly to Energy weapons when it comes to ammo, and deal a bit more damage than Energy weapon in exchange for having no elemental affinity.

While there are perks like Osmosis that temporarily imbue a Kinetic weapon’s power with elemental energy, there aren’t any weapons with constant elemental damage in the Kinetic slot. Or there weren’t, before Cryosthesia 77K. Being the game’s first Stasis weapon — outside of the Salvation’s Grip drum-fed grenade launcher from Beyond Light, which lives in the Power slot — it’s placement as a Kinetic weapon is significant.

With Bungie confirming Legendary Stasis weapons coming in season 15 this fall, it begs the question, “will all Stasis weapons will appear in the Kinetic slot?” With another Darkness subclass and element likely coming in Destiny 2’s next expansion, The Witch Queen, one starts to wonder if elements of that new type will also appear in the Kinetic slot.

Bungie has already broken up the subclass trees into Light powers — the traditional Arc, Solar, and Void elements — and Darkness powers, which currently only contains Stasis. As Bungie adds more elements, and more enemies with elemental shields, players will need more tools at their disposal to deal with them — matching an enemy’s elemental shield with a matching weapon deals bonus damage and is nearly a requirement for most high-level activities.

The Cryosthesia 77K’s unique placement seems to suggest a larger shift for Destiny 2 weapon slots going forward. Instead of Kinetic, Energy, and Power, maybe next year we’ll have Darkness, Light, and Power — with Power weapons containing both types of elemental weapons.

This change would certainly give combat even more of a puzzle-like feel, with Guardians needing to closely communicate with their allies to coordinate their weapon loadouts. Having elemental damage in all three slots harkens back to the original Destiny, where weapons like the original Fatebringer dealt Arc damage in the primary weapon slot — Bungie later removed this outside of Exotic weapons.

Bungie said it would offer more details around Stasis Legendary weapons later this year. With us already a few days into season 14, Bungie could confirm this new Darkness slot soon. Of course there’s always the off chance that Cryosthesia 77K is just an odd duck that sits in the Kinetic slot for a unique reason, but without any specific perk calling that out, it looks like Destiny’s weapon system may be taking a dark turn.

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