What is an Origin Perk in Destiny 2?

Since random rolling weapons were reintroduced into Destiny 2 in the Forsaken expansion, every Legendary weapon has drawn from a pool of perks chosen for that weapon to determine its most significant traits. This is still the case for randomly dropped weapons in The Witch Queen, but with the added bonus of Origin Perks, which are present on every roll of a given weapon, are included in addition to the normal two Legendary perks, and are determined by the activity a weapon is earned by or its manufacturer.

As an example, the new Season of the Risen weapons earnable from the PsiOps activity and the War Table each come equipped with Land Tank, which provides players with extra Resilience and damage resistance for a short time after each kill. This perk will always drop on that group of weapons, including versions crafted by players at the Enclave.

Legendary weapons earned in The Witch Queen and from Season of the Risen each feature Origin Perks alongside the regular randomly rolled perks players are used to, or the ones they choose to equip on their weapon if they’re crafting it themselves. To go back to our example, the Sweet Sorrow auto rifle from the seasonal weapon pool will always have Land Tank, but you could get a random rolled version with the Turnabout and Perpetual Motion perks, or craft a variant with Triple Tap and Vorpal Weapon.

Each Origin Perk helps to define a weapon’s role in your arsenal, and gives players a reliable perk to keep in mind for a given weapon. Longtime Destiny players will likely remember the first game’s intrinsic perks on certain weapons, and the system used here brings back much of that classic setup, modernized to fit the ever-expanding sandbox of Destiny 2.

Bungie has also started rolling out perks akin to the weapons’ Origin Perks on some armor pieces. The Season of the Risen set features the Uniformed Officer perk, which grants a small boost to the Psychogenic Intel currency players earn from playlist activities, and players willing to brave the Master variant of the Grasp of Avarice dungeon can still earn Artifice Armor from it for an extra slot for seasonal mods.