Destiny 2 is killing the most hated villain in its entire galaxy: blue engrams

Destiny 2 is finally giving blue engrams what they deserve: permanent residence in the trash.

Bungie's latest blog post announced a long-awaited update to the way the game handles blue engrams, which decrypt into rare-grade gear that quickly becomes utterly useless. Beginning with Destiny 2: The Witch Queen's release on February 22, blue engrams will no longer drop once you reach the soft Power cap (which will be 1,500 at the start of the expansion). Instead, you'll receive more legendary shards on average and you'll have a slightly higher chance at getting legendary engrams. So blues will still help you boost your Power up to a certain point, but they won't weigh you down once they've outlived their usefulness. 

It's hard to overstate just how long, and how loudly, Destiny 2 players have been asking for this change. Blue engrams are the worst. They're the mosquitoes of Destiny 2. Nobody wants to touch, see, or hear them, but if you leave them alone for too long they'll just multiply, so you've got to get after them at some point. That means cleaning out your inventory and the postmaster – who to this day will still delete a stack of priceless Ascendant Shards to make room for a god forsaken blue – frustratingly often. Once you're of-level, getting a blue engram is orders of magnitude worse than getting absolutely nothing, so they will not be missed. 

This is one of many quality of life updates planned for The Witch Queen. As Bungie community manager dmg04 implied in a recent tweet, the Tower Gunsmith is also getting an overhaul to mirror the inventories of other vendors, which means gunsmith materials will be useless come February 22, so spend them now. 

Mods are getting an update, too, and it's great news for new players. Mod components are getting the axe, so new mods will only cost some Glimmer going forward, plus you'll get your pick of four from Ada-1 and Banshee-44 each week, which will double the number of mods offered. 

New, lapsed, and lazy players will also be happy to hear that Dead Man's Tale and Hawkmoon will be available through Xur the Exotic merchant even after their respective missions are cut out of the game and stuffed into the Destiny Content Vault. The Exotic catalysts for these weapons will be added to the general playlist loot pool along with three other catalysts which have been missing for some time: Outbreak Perfected, Whisper of the Worm, and The Fourth Horseman. 

Last week, Bungie unveiled some big armor buffs (and what looks like a big weapon nerf) also coming in The Witch Queen.