Destiny 2’s New ‘Into The Light’ Onslaught Mode Is A Permanent, New Ritual Activity

This week, among a good amount of other drama at Bungie, Destiny 2 showed off its new Onslaught activity, the focus of the upcoming Into the Light, pre-Final Shape content meant to fill a gap with the expansion delayed.

It’s a horde mode with anywhere between 10-50 waves of killing enemies and building up (tower) defenses, and it’s free. But now, it seems it’s going to be permanent, similar to the last time we had a mid-season, expansion-delay activity introduced, Dares of Eternity.

I am making something of a logical leap here as I cannot remember anything that has Bungie literally saying “this is permanent,” but I am…just saying that yes, that’s going to be the case. Dares of Eternity was free, introduced exactly like this, and has remained in the game ever since. Now, Onslaught is not only showing up in the same fashion, at the same free price, it’s also literally being added as a Ritual playlist activity alongside Crucible, Gambit and Strikes, which is the first time this has happened since well, Gambit. And entire modes are not removed from there.

There’s also the issue that Destiny 2 is painfully lacking in good free-to-play content, and this helps bridge that gap somewhat. Not in a story sense perhaps (though this will have at least some modest amount of lore) but a horde mode like this should be perfect for newer players to get a feel for Destiny 2’s (very good) combat, while veteran players can challenge themselves on the highest levels. I’d say it’s likely more accessible than the game show-like Dares, and perhaps more engaging than out-of-context story-based strikes, sweaty PvP or initially confusing and under-supported Gambit.

So I’m guessing that’s one of the core ideas here, even if Bungie isn’t saying that explicitly. It should also be a good place to grind out weapons for new players, as it will apparently include new versions of some of the most classic weapons in Destiny 2, many previously sunset and therefore unavailable to new players currently.

Even now, I can see potential issues with Onslaught. In a 50 wave mode I worry about the first 30 waves or so being redundant for more skilled players if it’s just killing time until the real challenges begin. I am skeptical about the return of some of the former Pinnacle weapons that will likely have random rolls and have far less relevance than their glory days, even if it’s fun to see the name and model return.

But Onslaught does feel like it serves a lot of functions, and I can imagine how it may be more useful than Dares of Eternity on a few different fronts. We still have two more weeks of reveals about the content to come, so I’m wondering if there’s even more to it that is also hugely important going forward.

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