The new Destiny 2 raid, Scourge of the Past, is here at last. It’s the first raid ever set in the Last City, home of the Guardians and the last remnants of humanity. However, it still begins with a “hub” area that unlocks new zones. Except the zones seem to be played one at a time — an only take about as long as a Raid Lair. It’s not entirely clear just yet, but it seems like these zones will rotate week-to-week, offering different challenges depending on when you play. So make sure you know which zone you’re in before consulting our guide.
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Botza District, The Last City
No matter what, you always begin Scourge of the Past on a skyscraper overlooking a city district: Botza. Make sure you rally to the nearby flag, as you would with a public event, to give yourself full super energy.
There are a few things to note in this area. The first is that, unlike any previous Destiny 2 raid, you can ride your sparrow. Use it to get around the city faster. The area is also overrun with Fallen that drop special “Stolen Black Armory Gear” you can pick up. Make sure you do. Finally, there are impenetrable energy bubbles scattered around the area. We’ll get to those later.
Near the center of the district is a short mid-sized building with Fallen equipment set up on the roof. Get to the roof and you’ll meet an elite enemy: Berserker, Kell’s Scourge. It won’t seem like you can kill him at first, but there’s a trick. Someone needs to get his attention and trick him into triggering a large AOE attack. This will open an orange vent on his back that’s vulnerable to damage. Blast it quickly to kill Berserker. When you do, he’ll drop a time-limited, dunkable energy ball called a “Radiant Battery.”
Take the ball to the Fallen equipment nearby and dunk it into the sphere-ish generator. It will summon a holographic map of Botza — one that tracks your fireteam in real-time, the energy bubbles, and ominous red triangles.
Only one red triangle (each of which represents another elite enemy) will have a red ball over their map marker. One player should stay by the map to direct the rest of the team towards the enemy that does have the ball.
Killing this specially marked Berserker will drop more batteries. And each battery corresponds to a number that’s only visible via the holographic map. You can tell which battery is which, and where it needs to go, by the number of illuminated squares above the markers on the map. So the player that holds the battery with three squares needs to be directed toward the bubble with three squares, as well.
Servitors will spawn by the generators and block them. That means another player not currently holding a battery will need to follow their ally and clear the bots out, first. Not only that, but after a player deposits a battery, they’re prohibited from picking up another for two minutes. So players will likely need to rotate between map directors and battery carriers. It helps to plan this order out ahead of time.
Once you deposit all the batteries, congratulations! You’ve finished the first section of Scourge of the Past. You’ll get some gear, and a chest, and one of the bubbles will open. This leads to whatever the next zone happens to be.
The Sewers
The sewers are a small, interstitial area you reach after exiting Botza via the eastern bubble. There are no enemies. You just need to find a stone hole broken through one of the walls. It leads to the next real area.
There’s a trick to helping anyone having trouble, too. The sewers sport scattered lamps built into the ground. Players can turn these on and off to create a bread crumb trail for their peers. Just don’t turn them on will nilly. Make sure you know your way out and light the lamps leading to your friends, instead.
Otherwise, you can use the lamps to mark where you’ve already been. That way you know that any dark hallway could potentially be the exit. And bear in mind that you can still use your sparrow to zip around faster.
You’ll know you’re in the right area when you spot a pile of broken machinery on the ground. Past that, and up a large pile of rubble to your left, is a square opening in one wall that leads to a massive pipe. Follow it to the Botza Underground.
Botza Underground
The first step to this new area is easy, once you know the trick. Follow the Underground forward until you reach a dead end with a derelict Fallen walker. Across from the walker are two terminals that open up three-fingered hand symbols when you approach. Two players need to time their melee and hit the terminals at the same time to open the door. Once they do, get on your sparrows immediately and race out of the newly opened door.
From there, it’s a sparrow race against time through a mostly linear pipe filled with rotating gates and enemies. Try not to slow down. If you do, a massive, flaming servitor will burn you alive.
You have a tiny bit of leeway, though. If you reach a ramp you can’t pass over, hop off your sparrow and leap over it. If you miss a jump, dismount your sparrow in mid-air and try to use your Guardian’s double-jump to clear those last few feet. Just make sure you always hop back on when you have open road ahead of you.
Eventually, you’ll reach another dead end. That doesn’t stop the servitor. It’ll keep chasing you and kill the fireteam. Two of your teammates will need to hop off their sparrows just as they enter the dead end room. Flip around to face the way you came and you’ll see two more of those hand scanners. Time the melee strikes correctly to shut the door on the servitor once and for all.
From there, follow the path forward (you can ride your sparrow over otherwise lethal water) until you reach a massive room filled with concrete columns. Look to the ceiling and you’ll notice several cracked openings shining light into the dark room. One is a dead end, but the other — the one near large Fallen banners and metal scaffolding — is the exit. Use the pipes hanging on the columns as platforms to jump up to the glowing crack.
Vault Ebisu
You don’t really do a lot in this area right now. There’s a raid chest visible through a window, teasing us, but you can’t get to it just yet. The objective at this point is “gain access to Vault Ebisu.” So that should give you a pretty good idea of what happens next. For now, though, just push on!
Insurrection Prime – Phase One
You’ll eventually come across another holographic hand print door. Do your thing (by timing your melee strikes to hit both terminals at the same time. Then wait patiently for the doors to open on a massive outdoor area.
One of the first things you’ll notice is a large servitor elite. Destroy it, as Guardians are wont to do, and energy barriers leading to an outer, underground torus will open up. This subterranean tunnel has more of the hand print analyzers as before. Except now they show symbols: a cube, a sphere, and a pyramid.
Assign one player to each terminal. The remaining three should stay topside to clear adds and prepare to kill another servitor. Two of the three terminals will show their symbols, while the third will be a garbled mess. Have the two players assigned to the active hand print terminals melee them to acquire a buff. When they do, the energy barriers will reform, and the topside players need to kill that second servitor.
With the second mini-boss dead, the terminals will reactivate in random order. The three underground Guardians need to decide if they want to rotate clockwise or counterclockwise. That’s because the buffed players can’t stand close together. If they do, they’ll tether together and die. But everyone needs to find their respective hand print analyzer and melee it again.
Repeat this process until all three players have two stacks of a single buff. That is to say, one player needs to hit the cube twice, another needs to hit the pyramid twice, and the third needs to hit the sphere twice. When everyone has 2x stacks of the buff, rejoin the group topside.
Take your buffs to corresponding glowing plates around the inner circle of the arena. This will spawn three tanks. Use them to shoot the large machine in the middle of the zone and avoid the Fallen aerial bombardment. Once you take out a quarter of the machine’s health, assuming you’re quick enough, the next phase begins.
Insurrection Prime – Phase Two
It’s time to relive the first step of the raid. Another Berserker will appear somewhere in the area. Find him, kill him, and steal his battery. Take the charge back to where you entered the Botza Ruins and place it into the generator there. Another map will spawn and you’ll need to repeat the same process from the intro to Scourge of the Past.
Here’s the twist: whoever is standing by the map to call out generator locations also needs to shoot Insurrection Prime, Kell’s Scourge. The massive mech is covered in glowing weak points that give it a protective shield. The map coordinator can use a sniper or other long-range weapon to blow these away while the other players drop off their orbs. Players without a battery, especially those with the two-minute debuff, can help.
Once you deposit enough charges, Insurrection Prime will reveal its true weak point: a servitor built into its core. Now’s your chance to unload on the machine god (with the help of another tank that spawns).
This is pretty much just a damage phase, but Insurrection Prime does have one more trick up its sleeve. It will eventually begin floating in the air and prepare to pound the ground, dealing a huge AOE attack that wipes the entire fireteam. One or two players should be ready to move behind Insurrection Prime and hit it in the back. That’s where it will reveal two jetpack-like weak points you can destroy to stop the slam.
You need to repeat this entire process a few times to take down Insurrection Prime. Once you do, though, congratulations! You’ve completed the Scourge of the Past Raid in Destiny 2.
