Bungie has recently given players an inside look at how the Destiny 2 Weapon Team manages the balancing of new and old weapons, as well as introducing new legendary and exotic gear. Included in this look under the hood of Destiny 2's weapon balancing is an insight on the development of the weapons that will be coming alongside returning legacy raid content.
Most notable among this legacy content is the Wrath of the Machine raid, which already has some of its equipment previously implemented into the current build of Destiny 2. Though the raid has not been announced to return to Destiny 2 at the time of this writing, the most recent This Week at Bungie blog post implies that it will have a new exotic weapon if it is reprised in the future.
The specific wording from the TWAB blog comes in response to a question about the criteria for reprising weapons from the original Destiny into Destiny 2. In response, the Weapon Team comments that any raid being reprised will always get six legendary weapons and whatever exotic weapon was previously associated with the activity. However, if the gear related to a legacy raid is already among Desinty 2's current exotics, then Bungie will instead create a new weapon to be built into the theme of the older activity.
"For raids, we'll always reprise an Exotic weapon associated with a raid when we bring that into Destiny 2. We'll select the six most popular Legendary weapons and reprise those, as well. One other thing, and this hasn't come up yet, but in the event that a raid didn't have an Exotic (or that Exotic has already come back), or there were fewer than five Legendaries, we get to make new weapons to match the raid."
There is currently only one raid-specific exotic that has been reintroduced into Destiny 2 without the associated raid also coming back as legacy content from the original, the Outbreak Perfected. This means that if Wrath of the Machine was to ever be brought back from the original Destiny, then it would need a new exotic weapon to be created in order to use this design philosophy. While this specific raid hasn't been confirmed by Bungie to be joining Destiny 2 just yet, the current trend set with Vault of Glass and King's Fall imply that the activity could be coming soon.
As is often the case with the unannounced exotics coming to Destiny 2, this is mostly left up to speculation as to what a new Wrath of the Machine exotic weapon might look like. Similarly, it's completely unclear when Bungie will bring the next legacy dungeon back, whether it will be in Season 19 or after the release of the upcoming Lightfall expansion. For now, fans can at least be excited to know that if Wrath of the Machine does return to Destiny 2, it will be bringing an exotic weapon new to the game like the other legacy raids.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.