Bungie would very much appreciate it if you (and the rest of the Destiny 2 player base) could kill literally hundreds of millions of Hive between 10 a.m. Pacific on Tuesday, September 3 and 10 a.m. Pacific on Tuesday, September 10, as part of September’s Community Challenge. That’s 300 million Hive, specifically, and they have to be Mars Hive if you don’t mind — Hive from other planets just simply will not do. Is that alright? Good.
While you’re at it, it would be an enormous help if y’all could also defeat 175,000 Wave 7 Escalation Protocol bosses, and use 300,000 override frequencies. Also, be a dear and defeat the Nightfall versions of Nokris and Xol 150,000/100,000 times respectively, alright? For all of your collective troubles, anyone that completes a Mars Nightfall during the aforementioned dates will receive this exclusive “Lost City” banner, provided that every single one of the community goals for this challenge are met. It doesn’t count if you only kill 299 million Hive on Mars.
Emperor Calus, as eager as ever to be involved in the affairs of Guardians, has agreed to sweeten the Menagerie pot in the event of a successful September Challenge. Players are guaranteed two rewards from chests and Chalice rune slots as soon as the Challenge requirements are met, with an additional reward added to the pile every Friday, for the rest of the Season of Opulence.
All of this is in preparation for the launch of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep on October 1, which sends Guardians back to the Moon for the first time since the original Destiny, on a quest to once again face the Hive infestation that festers beneath the surface. While official story details for the new expansion are light (get it?), Guardian scuttlebutt purports that Savathun, the Witch-Queen, sister of Oryx, The Taken King, and her pet Vex Mind Hydra Quria, Blade Transform, will play major roles in our urgent return to the Moon.
Previous trailers for the new expansion have teased the return of several baddies of yore, who appear in a bizarre, red-tinged Taken form that doesn’t quite fit anything we’ve seen so far in Destiny 2. “Your past confronts you, Guardian,” says narrator Eris Morn (above), who hasn’t been seen since the tail end of the first Destiny. This, along with some briefly glimpsed familiar faces, seems to indicate that some force on the Moon is able to recreate or resurrect threats from the past.
Morn was an expert on Hive magic and a member of Ikora’s Hidden, a secret network of spies embedded across the system. She has previously aligned herself with the goals of Awoken Queen Mara Sov, as well as Osiris, the exiled Warlock, in an effort to enact her vengeance on the Hive, which murdered her Ghost and stripped her of her Light. Morn was last seen leaving the City after the fall of The Taken King, and has not been heard from since. She may or may not have attempted to contact a Guardian after the defeat of Riven, the last Ahamkara, by posing as Quria, Blade Transform, in a series of encrypted messages. But that also might have been Dul Incaru, the Eternal Return, daughter of Savathun, the Witch-Queen, simply pretending to be Eris Morn. It’s complicated.
