Bungie pulls trigger on major Destiny 2 Checkmate changes

Checkmate has been in the spotlight of Destiny 2 PvP throughout the Season of the Wish, but Bungie wants to take a step back and tune the game mode a bit more.

On Jan. 8 on X, the official developer account Destiny 2 Team shared a list of changes and adjustments coming to Checkmate based on player feedback. Due to the amount of tuning, Checkmate will be moved back to Labs with the weekly reset on Jan. 9. There will be one more Checkmate Trials Lab on Feb. 9, but other than that, Checkmate will remain in Labs for the rest of the season and is not currently planned to return to Control.

One of the first big changes is adjustment of optimal Time-to-Kill for all weapons to match Hand Cannons, just like in the base sandbox. This is certainly a promising adjustment since Hand Cannons currently feel too dominant inside of Checkmate compared to other weapon archetypes.

Next come more changes to the special ammo economy. In modes like Clash and Control, you will now start the game with two kills worth of special ammo, similar to how it works in the regular Crucible. Deaths and assists will now grant more special ammo credit, but once you fill the bar up, you’ll get less special ammo overall: “from approximately three kills worth to two kills, to reduce snowballing.”

The last major adjustment is to the ability uptime inside of Checkmate. Destiny 2 Team stated that “the current level of ability cooldown tuning made some abilities feel impractical to use,” which is why ability cooldown penalties will be reduced from 30 percent to 15 percent, and melee damage will be increased to allow for a two hit kill, just like in regular PvP.

These changes seemingly feel like a mixed bag for many players. While weapon TTK tuning and special ammo changes are certainly a good thing, the ability uptime increase is slightly concerning, as the entire point of Checkmate is to reduce ability spam and focus on gunplay. Bungie previously stated it’s aiming for a midway point of weapon tuning and ability uptime, but 15 percent certainly seems a bit too much and too close to what we have in regular Crucible.

The changes and full list of patch notes for Checkmate will go live with the Destiny 2 weekly reset on Jan. 9. You’ll be able to test them yourself and give Bungie more feedback to further improve the game mode.