During today’s Destiny 2: Warmind reveal stream, Bungie let us in on several new DLC details, including story events, exotic weapons and armor, and changes to the Crucible. In the upcoming Warmind DLC, players return to Mars for the first time since Destiny, but this time, to deal with the rising threat of Warmind Rasputin, whose awakening has triggered the melting of Mars’ icecaps and the release of a formerly frozen Hive army. Warmind‘s main NPC, Ana Bray, also got an introduction through the stream. The Hunter Gunslinger will serve as both vendor and mentor of sorts for player characters as they uncover ruins and artifacts and battle the Grasp of Nokris. On the same date as Warmind‘s release, a number of general game updates will also be implemented as season 3 of Destiny 2 content kicks in.
Warmind comes with a public event called the Hive Escalation Protocol: a new horde mode which will have players facing off against waves of Hive sent by Rasputin. Teams of players can fight through seven waves of Hive enemies with multiple stages contained in each wave and culminate the event with a boss fight against one of five unique bosses. Each boss will rotate by week with the goal of creating a mode for players that is challenging and replayable.
Players will be able to start up the Hive Escalation Protocol any time after completing the Warmind campaign, and they will gain a number of event-exclusive weapons and gear pieces. Due to its status as available only after the endgame, this event is targeted at high-level players; beginners, beware. Among the updated and refined weapons mentioned in the stream, the Hive sword from the original Destiny will be up for the collecting during the Escalation Protocol event as well as a new “magical spear rocket launcher” called the Valkyrie. Great news for Destiny veterans: the fan favorite Suros Regime gun will also be making a return.
Alongside Warmind, a new Crucible setup will be coming to the game (regardless of whether you have Warmind or not) with private matches and ranked modes for quickplay (valor) and competitive (glory) PvP play. Glory rankings in the competitive PvP mode will go up with wins and down with losses with additional bonuses and penalties handed out to players if they experience a streak of either wins or losses. Almost every exotic weapon has been refined, so the team showed off improvements to the Graviton Lance, the Fighting Lion, Riskrunner, Crimson, Skyburner’s Oath and Hard Light, among others.
The Crucible will also begin handling rewards differently. Some rewards will unlock after players reach a certain rank and others only once specific objectives in the Crucible have been completed. Players will also be able to reset their Valor once it’s maxed out in exchange for rewards, and built up Valor will level all over again to keep collecting them—there’s no limit to the number of times players can do this. Two new strikes are included with Warmind: Strange Terrain and Will of the Thousands. Also mentioned was the final raid lair for Leviathan which will be added, called Spire of Stars.
On May 8, Warmind and the first round of season 3 content will be released. The update accompanying Warmind includes an increase to Vault space, Exotic weapon masterworks, and a multi-emote wheel (for players eager to really bust a move in-game). If you’d like a visual for all this, you can check out Bungie’s entire hour-long Twitch stream which is embedded below. Stay tuned for more Destiny 2 updates as season 3 will continue rolling out content throughout the summer, and season 4 will follow in September.