Sparrows have been in a weird place in Destiny 2 for many years now.
Always on Time, a Sparrow that used to drop from the Scourge of the Past raid, was afflicted with a bug that made it ever so slightly faster than every other Sparrow in the game. When combined with the fact its exclusive perks were also valuable in harder content, all manner of competition—and reason to use other Sparrows—disappeared.
That was the case, at least, until season 23. In today’s This Week in Destiny blog, Bungie revealed that starting next season, all Sparrows will be affected by the “need for speed,” in its words. While the devs didn’t provide many details, the implication of the announcement is that other Sparrows will be brought up to parity with Always on Time when it comes to their maximum speed, eliminating a large part of why Always on Time had such a monopoly on Sparrow usage rates.
As a solution, this makes a lot of sense. Back in December of last year, former community manager dmg04 explained that the Always on Time bug was so deeply rooted that the devs would have to “effectively remake the item” to remove it.
At the time, he suggested that the team couldn’t apply the same speed to all Sparrows either as Always on Time was so fast that it negatively influenced how loading and matchmaking worked in Patrol areas. “Team’s looked at data (community wide) to check impact,” he said. “Lots of folks still use other Sparrows, and the speed differential isn’t as big a deal to most players.”
Despite that, he said the team would continue to monitor the situation and it seems that now, in the run-up to the next season, they’ve found a solution that will stick.
“Always On Time is a beloved Sparrow for a few reasons, but the primary one is its speed,” community manager Liana Ruppert said in today’s blog. “There are so many other amazing vehicles to cruise around the galaxy in, so do you choose aesthetic or efficiency? Why not both? Beginning in Season 23, we’re making that need for speed universal across all Sparrows. After all, you can’t fight crime if you ain’t cute, and that absolutely applies to our handy-dandy modes of transportation, too.”
Season 23 is set to be a big one when it comes to quality-of-life updates for Destiny 2, with the Sparrow changes now joining the already-announced changes coming to the Legendary Shard economy and the return of a popular focusing tool from Season of Plunder.
