In the latest This Week at Bungie issue, the studio confirmed the 2019 passing of developer Matt Helmson. In memory of his work and the impact that he had at Bungie as a whole, the company is adding a unique mission to Destiny 2. At the start of their weekly reset, players will receive a message from the game’s directors that take them to Mars to complete a short quest that honors Helmson. The blog post reads,
Next week, we have a tribute going live in-game to honor one of our dear friends at Vicarious Visions who passed away last year, Matt Helsom. The weekly reset will include a direct message that will send you to Mars for a short quest to honor Matt. He worked closely with the team at both Bungie and VV on various projects during our partnership, and we wanted to memorialize his contributions to our Destiny universe.
As this small mission will also stand as a tribute to Helmson and is set to welcome Destiny 2‘s community, players will also have the opportunity to use their own in-game mechanics to honor Helmson as well. Helmson worked as apart of the Destiny 2 team at Vicarious Visions (which also partnered with Bungie on different Destiny centered projects). He worked on 2D and 3D art and had the role of Senior Artist at Vicarious Visions since 2012. Destiny 2’s weekly resets automatically happen every Tuesday at 10:00 PST.
There is also a tribute to Helsom in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2, which is also under Vicarious Visions. While players will have to go out of their way to fin this secret area, it is a gymnasium with his name on it. Players on Reddit have also screen recorded themselves finding it to help others that want to visit the level as well.