Triumphs and Seals in Destiny 2: Forsaken

The Destiny 2 2.0 update, which deployed a week before the Forsaken expansion, brought a plethora of quality of life improvements to the game. One of those improvements was the addition of Triumphs. The new Triumphs tab in the menu serves to track your accomplishments across the last 4 years of Destiny 1 & 2.

In Destiny 1, we had the Grimoire and Grimoire Score. The Grimoire was a collection of digital lore cards that you could unlock by finding various collectibles throughout the world, or reaching certain accomplishments in-game, like defeating various bosses. The cards granted came with a score, known as the Grimoire score, which acted as a sort of tell for how invested or veteran a player was.

One common point of negative feedback during the days of Destiny 1 was that the lore cards couldn’t be accessed in game. Players would have to access them either through Bungie’s website or through the Destiny companion app. Destiny 1 also included the concept of “Triumph Books” which kept track of achieved milestones in game, rewarding players with incremental loot as they completed the pages of milestones.

A Triumphant Return

The arrival of Destiny 2 saw the removal of the Grimoire and Triumph book system in favor of much more simplified in-game lore tabs on select pieces of gear. Sadly there was no way to track lore and scan-able items in the world. Forsaken changed all that by implementing perhaps the best version of in-game lore and collectible tracking.

Called “Triumphs”, this new system combines the Grimoire with the Triumph books into one cohesive and easy to understand system. Collectibles throughout the new destinations add to your Triumph score in addition to expanding the extended lore of the world. It also tracks various accomplishments and challenges, like competing all story missions on heroic difficulty, or unlocking all subclasses on your character. Other Triumphs pose challenges to players, like achieving multi-kills with a specific super, or denying the opposing team a certain number of motes in Gambit.

There are literally hundreds of Triumphs to accomplish and it all culminates in the earning of Seals. Seals are brand new to Destiny, and they are in-game marks of accomplishment in 7 different major categories. Achieving a seal also grants your guardians with a title that you can optionally display above your head, showing off your accomplishments to everyone you encounter. The one I’m personally seeking is titles “Rivensbane” and it asks for a series of accomplishments in relation to the Last Wish Raid. It includes a challenge that asks for you to complete the raid without a single death from anyone in your raid party.

Being able to display some of theses titles is an instance tell of your accomplishments in the game, and which accomplishments you are the most proud of, at least in that moment. You could choose to show off the crucible title “Unbroken” to intimidate opposing players.

The Triumph system was probably one of the smartest additions in the game, because it serves as pursuits beyond the endgame itself. You can work on them passively, or be granted an entire new set of things to do after finishing your more traditional pursuits of power leveling and completing all quests and pursuits.

Seals IRL

Now as if seals didn’t present incentive enough to pursue triumphs, Bungie recently announced a new product in their store as part of the new Bungie Rewards system. The system allows you to purchase certain items in the store only after you achieve certain milestones in game. And now, when you earn a seal in-game, you unlock the ability to purchase a real seal from the Bungie store. Bringing your in-game accomplishments into the real world in a big way.

Getting real life seals makes me want to earn them that much more. I can’t wait to display one on my shelf with nerdy pride. This was an incredible idea by Bungie and hopefully we’ll see more things like this in the future.

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About the Author
Born and raised in LA, he then graduated from The University of Nebraska Omaha with a BFA concentrating on Digital Media Production. He currently is an avid gamer, broadcaster, and content creator for his YouTube channel FutureFoePlays, dedicated to Bungie’s open-world shooter, Destiny.