A while back there was a rather large datamine of Destiny 2 that showed off pretty much the entire Solstice of Heroes questline early, and that proved to be accurate when the event itself actually arrived.
There were also a few scraps in there that implied the existence of a coming Solar Week, the next phase of Arc Week which we saw earlier in the year. It seemed to involve Lord Saladin, and a possible exotic weapon hunt to assemble pieces of a rocket launcher that many assumed was either Dragon’s Breath or Gjallarhorn from Destiny 1, both solar rockets.
But alas, the dream is dead.
Because this became something of a meme in the community, Bungie has come out to say that no, no secret Solar Week is coming. It’s not on the current roadmap because it doesn’t exist. Fans were waiting to see if it might happen this week, as Solar was the featured element of the week. Others were waiting for the next Iron Banner since the week seemed to have something to do with Saladin.
It’s not coming, though, and as Community Manager DMG says, don’t always trust datamines.
It’s possible that once upon a time there was a plan for Solar Week sometime this month, but obviously this has been an absolutely crazy time for Destiny with cross save launching and Shadowkeep right around the corner after a “polish” delay.
The point of Arc Week previously was that many Arc subclasses got much-needed buffs, and it’s possible that if that was the plan for Solar subclasses for Solar Week, Bungie decided that now wasn’t the right time to do it. There’s also the fact that Arc Week ended up being kind of a disappointment to many players, as it was little more than a glorified balance patch without much actual content to it. So maybe the concept of named elemental weeks has been scrapped altogether.
If Bungie was planning on reintroducing Dragon’s Breath or Gjallarhorn back into the game, I would certainly think that’s still in the cards in the future, just perhaps not during Solar Week, and instead some other random period of time. Bungie likes to spring surprise exotics on its playerbase to keep them busy between big content drops, so whatever was supposed to get here during Solar Week, I’d be surprised if we didn’t see it by year’s end.
This is kind of a down time for Destiny right now because there isn’t all that much to do besides finish out Solstice or Moments of Triumph objectives. There are two more Iron Banners coming, a bonus Infamy/Valor week and a Mars community challenge before Shadowkeep arrives, so that’s something, I guess, but I actually don’t mind a bit of a break from the game before Shadowkeep, given how much I’ve played this summer. As you may have seen, I’ve been diving back into Anthem, which is less ridiculous than it sounds as it’s actually kind of fun. And of course, Borderlands 3 arrives on September 13, and everything else will cease to exist when that happens.
So yeah, no Solar Week. But oh well, no huge loss. Solar subclass buffs and secret solar rocket launchers are probably still coming eventually. We just don’t need to slap a label on them.
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Pre-order my new sci-fi novel Herokiller, and read my first series, The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.
