Earlier this week, Bungie released the first of two new Exotic weapon quests for the Devil’s Ruin Sidearm, as well as the Legend difficulty for Season of Dawn’s 6-player Sundial activity. That’s all players currently have to look forward to until the end of the month, admittedly a light start to the new year for content but a worthwhile one that added great story moments if players waited through the mission end timer. That doesn't mean Destiny 2's Season of Dawn roadmap doesn't have plenty on the way as the next Exotic weapon quest, the Empyrean Foundation, and the return the Crimson Days Valentine's Day event are all coming up in a few weeks time.
Right now, there’s only a handful of days left until the weekly reset and the end of The Dawning holiday event for another year. This time around, players were rewarded with two Exotic Sparrows that could be earned through gameplay rather than the microtransactions in the Eververse store, including the Alpine Dash Exotic Sparrow which came with a lengthy quest to upgrade and unlock all of its perks. And while Bungie has done a much better job with its latest seasonal event by offering rewards for players to chase and new quest that incentivizes participation in the Dawning’s baking gameplay loop, is the reward for the Alpine Dash Exotic Sparrow questline actually worth the amount of time and grind required?
The Dawning is an annual event held in Destiny 2 to celebrate the holiday season and the beginning of a brand new year. Destiny 2's favorite seasonal vendor, Eva Levante, has returned to the tower with the Holiday Oven 2.0 and tasked players to complete bounties and activities, find ingredients, and bake treats for the NPCs. The Dawning’s gameplay loop is fairly simple: Bake treats and deliver them to NPCs in exchange for rewards like the new Cold Front Submachine gun. Killing each type of enemy and using specific weapons or abilities such as Swords will reward players with a variety of ingredients, and completing activities rewards Essence of Dawning, a consumable that’s required to bake each of the Dawning's 22 treats.
Initially, each of the Dawning's 22 recipes requires two ingredients and 15 Essence of Dawning to create a single treat, meaning that players could expect a long grind ahead of them that would likely span the entire four-week event. However, discovering all 22 recipes allows players to upgrade/masterwork their oven, which in turn drops the required essence per treat to 10. Eva Levante also has a handful of Daily and Weekly bounties for delivery goods that reward Bright Dust and double XP, as well as two Exotic Sparrow quests that require players to bake hundreds of treats and deliver treats to specific vendors for upgrades and perks which is where the question of the Alpine Dash’ value comes into play.
The complete quest to fully upgrade the Alpine Dash Exotic Sparrow has three different stages called Baked for Speed, Baked for Style, and Baked to Order. Baked for Speed requires players to deliver Candy Dead Ghosts to the Spider, Lavender Ribbon Cookies to Saint-14, and bake a total of 150 the Dawning treats. Baked for Style requires players to deliver Fried Sha-Dough to Calus, Ascendant Oatmeal Raisin Cookies to Eris Morn, and bake a total of 200 treats, including the 150 already done, so an extra 50 treats. And finally, Baked to Order requires players to deliver Chocolate Ship Cookies to Amanda Holliday, Hackberry Tart to Benedict 99-40, and bake a total of 300 treats in The Dawning (a number believed to carry over from 2018’s The Dawning event and potentially future years).
Essence of Dawning is obtained from completing various activities in Destiny 2 from Strikes to Crucible matches or Public Events. The problem is that the amount of essence obtained per activity means that players are required to grind out essence for hours on end, even after upgrading their oven. Patrols offer 1-3 Essence of Dawning per completion, Public events reward 5, Strikes reward 15-18, and Crucible matches around 15. Assuming the oven has been upgraded, each treat would cost 10 Essence of Dawning with a total of 300 treats requiring 3000 Essence of Dawning. The best activity to grind based on time vs. rewards is easily the Heroic Strikes playlist. With that in mind, let’s assume that the average strike takes 10 minutes to complete and rewards 15 Essence per completion: it would take a total of 200 Strike completions to earn enough essence for 300 treats, equating to a total of 33.3 hours of game time.
By the time players complete the first step of the quest, they’ll have already repaired the Alpine Dash Exotic Sparrow and are able to use it but it won’t have any of the perks. Upgrading the Sparrow through Baked for Speed, Baked for Style, and Baked to Order unlocks a single perk each time. Baked for Speed unlocks the Custom Drive perk, Baked for Style unlocks the Vernier Thrusters perk, and Baked to Order unlocks a unique perk called Dawning Parade, giving the Alpine Dash a festive snowing effect. Outside of Dawning Parade, none of these perks aren't groundbreaking or add anything to the gameplay experience that a regular Sparrow doesn’t already.
Whether or not completing the long quest to upgrade the Alpine Dash is worth it ultimately comes down to player preference. For the most part, it’s relatively easy to complete while working on other bounties, quests, or objectives because Essence of Dawning is earned through completing activities and ingredients similarly come from general gameplay. However, the sheer volume of treats required takes far too long to complete for the average player and for hardcore players that are already up to date on existing and struggling with content draughts, Bungie is asking for dozens of hours of game time in exchange for a holiday-themed snow effect.
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One.