Bungie has announced the upcoming arrival of Rite of the Nine, a limited-time Destiny 2 event centered around three of the space shooter’s dungeons.
The dungeons featured will be Prophecy, Spire of the Watcher, and Ghosts of the Deep. They’ll rotate weekly throughout the event’s duration. Three modes – Ultimatum, Explorer, and Eternity, will affect the way players experience each dungeon. Players will be working towards a high score, and that score is calculated on how often you die. Stay alive as much as possible, and your score will be higher. That score will determine how good the loot drop is at the completion of each encounter. “We’re challenging you to go into this harder mode and not just execute, but execute in a way that gets you a higher score, better rolls, and in the Ultimatum mode, Adept versions,” Bungie explained.
Ultimatum mode is for players who are experienced in running dungeons looking for an extra challenge. Ultimatum mode will bump the power level to be equivalent with the game’s most difficult content as seen in the likes of Contest mode. Each dungeon will have activity modifiers added which will craft the experience, or make it more challenging.
Bungie’s aim here is to require Guardians to make decisions before entering a dungeon or starting an encounter. For example, the Not Swap mod means you’ll need to keep one Exotic equipped for the duration of the encounter without changing it. “We need you to really focus on figuring out this encounter and how you’re going to tackle the challenges associated with it,” Bungie said.
Explorer mode has been created for players who may not have ever played a dungeon before. They’ll be tuned so that Guardians can go in, learn the mechanics, and gain experience. It gives players the opportunity to take their time and figure it out. To accommodate this, Bungie has added in-world tooltips that describe the dungeon mechanics, as well as markers for the moments where a route might be less obvious. Alongside this, there will be reduced Darkness phases, and the revive timer will be just five seconds long. Bungie wants to remove the penalty for failure and encourage players to learn these dungeons.
In the event’s launch space, Guardians will meet the Emissary, who serves as the event vendor. The Emissary will offer quests, bounties, and rewards throughout the event. Four weapons from each dungeon can be earned. These weapons have reworked perk pools, as well as new perks. Similarly to the Into the Light event, Guardians can attune themselves to specific weapons if they’re looking for a particular roll.
Ultimatum mode is the only mode which will drop Adept versions of the dungeons’ weapons, which have new treatment. Not only do Adept weapons roll with additional perks, but they have a visual makeover too. An animated holofoil pattern shines across the weapons, and Nine iconography is engraved into them.
As well as the Adept weapons, a new event-exclusive Origin Perk called Gravity Well will drop on all weapons during the event. While Bungie didn’t tell us exactly what Gravity Well does, it did disclose that players will only be able to get weapons with this Origin Perk during the Rite of the Nine event.
