Destiny 2’s Into the Light, launching April 9th, introduces Onslaught Horde Mode available to all players for free. This three-player round base wave defense activity draws inspiration both from other games and Bungie’s own work. It takes place in the Last City, where Guardians are responsible for protecting their home from the advancing forces of darkness. In this Onslaught guide, we ‘ll talk about everything you need to know – the story, the mechanics, and the rewards.
Onslaught Rewards
As with all Destiny 2’s activities we are primarily interested in the rewards we can get for our efforts. We are all interested in good loot, powerful guns and beautiful accessories. So, what about the rewards?
If you complete 10 waves in Normal mode, it’ll grant you a chest with some rewards. Challenge mode apparently has normal and hard versions, and the rewards vary. In Normal challenge mode, you’ll get a normal chest until the final wave, then you’ll get double rewards.
And in the Legend mode, you can get a chest with double rewards every 10 waves up to 50. And the final one will give you even more valuable loot. For now we know about a chance to get Hung Jury SR4 Legendary Scout Rifle and Midnight Coup Legendary Hand Cannon from the removed Leviathan Raid.
You can also get additional rewards for completing secondary objectives, like heavy ammo crates. And also a trophy of Bravery with currency to spend at Shaxx, as we assumed from Noah Lee’s stream. At this point, we can only guess about potential rewards, but we’ll be sure to get back to you with more details.
Onslaught Weapons
As a reward for completing the Onslaught activity, you can get 12 “greatest hits” of Legendary Weapons with redesigned perks , the return of which many of us have been long awaiting. In fact, it’s a mix of raid weapons, pinnacles and world drops, as well as some Stranger ones. So, you have a chance to get any of these weapons even if you don’t have a dedicated DLC.
All of these Onslaught’s weapons come with an Origin trait — Indomitability, that grants grenade energy on a Light subclass and melee energy on a Darkness subclass through final blows. And The Mountaintop comes with a unique Intrinsic trait — Micro-Missile Frame.
In addition, there is a chance to get them in a limited edition , which will certainly be a great addition to your collection.
| Weapon | Type | Ammo | Element |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hung Jury SR4 | Scout Rifle | Primary | Kinetic |
| Midnight Coup | Hand Cannon | Primary | Kinetic |
| The Mountaintop | Grenade Launcher | Special | Kinetic |
| The Recluse | Submachine Gun | Primary | Void |
| Edge Transit | Grenade Launcher | Heavy | Void |
| Falling Guillotine | Sword | Heavy | Void |
| Hammerhead | Machine Gun | Heavy | Void |
| Blast Furnace | Pulse Rifle | Primary | Kinetic |
| Forbearance | Grenade Launcher | Special | Arc |
| Succession | Sniper Rifle | Special | Kinetic |
| Elsie’s Rifle | Pulse Rifle | Primary | Void |
| Luna’s Howl | Hand Cannon | Primary | Solar |
You can increase the chances of receiving desired gun drops using attune in the new Hall of Champions.
Keep in mind, that all of these Onslaught weapons are not craftable, but you can enhance them with new Bungie’s system.
Destiny 2 Onslaught Story
Before we talk about the Onslaught gameplay, let’s dive a little bit into the story highlights and overview. The Witness and its forces are making strategic moves against the Sol system. With the Witness now inside the Traveler, brave Guardians, including notable Crow, Mara, and Osiris, are preparing to counter this threat by establishing a bridge into the Traveler. The narrative focuses on the preparation for the Final Shape battles, with Shaxx playing a crucial role by offering his Brave Arsenal to equip Guardians with necessary gear and lore-rich weapons, despite the Witness’s efforts to keep them trapped in the City.
As we know, Crow went inside the Traveler at the end of Season of The Wish. And now we’ve awaiting for him and Mara and Osiris to figure things out and allow everyone else inside. This horde mode is basically the Witness’s attempt to prevent us from crossing the portal, using all its power to keep us trapped in the Last City.
“Now, the Witness, of course, will do everything that it can to keep us on this side of the portal, which means unleashing every bit of its resources, every part of its power against us to keep us pinned in the last City. So, this is about breaking out and discovering new power, right? Sharpening ourselves, finalizing our builds, and getting some new toys so that we can face down the Witness.”
Destiny 2 Onslaught Gameplay
Let’s talk about how Onslaught works and the gameplay mechanics. In brief, players will defend and upgrade an Advanced Defense Unit, or ADU, which is central part of the activity progression. Onslaught game mode is a wave-based activity. And as the waves progress, it’ll get more difficult.
- There’s a wide diversity in the waves with different enemy types. For example, one wave they have only Ogres and Curse Thralls, in the other you will meet Champions. You will definitely meet Fallen in the first 10 waves, and then – the Hive enemies. One wave will spawn exploding Shanks, and another of the last ones – a Giant Tormentor. The choice of enemies doesn’t seem obvious, perhaps it was done out of consideration for the lore and we’re in for the return of the Whisper Mission, who knows.
- Enemies will drop both Scrap and repair Batteries. So when you kill them, you’ll get Scrap, the currency for the activity, and those batteries to repair the ADU if it gets damaged. You’ll just throw them at it, like in some other activities in Destiny 2, and it’ll raise its health seen above the unit.
- In addition to defending the ADU, there are Augments and secondary objectives available. These include capturing points to spawn turrets, exploring the zones, killing certain types of enemies, standing in wells to defeat targets for increased boss damage, and completing waves within a certain time frame for heavy ammo crates.
Onslaught Augments
Onslaught Bonuses
- Every six wave of the tier, i.e. 6, 16, 26, 36, 46, it’ll also teleport you to the Pyramid ship hallway. Give you a little breather, where you have to dunk into the Rift and kill the enemies, spawning in a spark of Light. This mechanic is pretty much identical to the Rift PvP game mode.
- And also you’ll need to go deeper to the Pyramid in certain boss room areas.
Onslaught Map
Midtown was the map Bungie showed this week but other maps will be available for this activity. And it’s not just a straight copy and paste. It is the Midtown we know and love, but different lanes have been changed and terraformed by the Pyramids to fit this activity. It’s somehow unusual to participate in PVE activities on these maps, well known as PvP zones.
How revives works in Onslaught
As Onslaught is a wave horde mode activity, how do revives work? For the first two sets (20 waves), Darkness is off, but after that, it’ll be enabled. The Legend Version features restricted zones, that means your teammates need to revive you. So, if everyone goes down or the ADU gets destroyed after those 20 waves, the activity will end, and you will go to the Orbit.
As you progress through the waves, it will get much harder, like way, way harder. So it’s worth paying special attention to your build here. It’s not entirely known yet what to favor, but it’s already pretty sure that the Stasis Turrets will be on top of the game. With our help you can get a perfect build, for example, a Meta Titan Build.
But despite the challenges, your team will not be alone in this difficult challenge. With Lord Shaxx help you can purchase sweeper bots that can be used as decoys and other defenses using Scrap. You have about 30 seconds between the waves to make a purchase before new ads will spawn.
Scrap Currency
So, the basis of the Onslaught is to defeat enemies to get Scrap, and then spend Scrap to deploy defenses. And the three defenses are as follows: Turrets, Trip mines, and Decoys.
- Trip Mines — 1,000 Scrap
- Turrets — 2,000 Scrap
- Decoys — 2,000 Scrap
You can also upgrade each of these defenses three times. These upgrades will grant you things like faster rates of fire or the ability to apply more damage. It seems like to reach the tier three of the upgrade you’ll need to spend around 12,000 Scrap.
Keep in mind that you’ll not only protect the ADU, but all of your defenses as well. So you’ll have to think twice your strategy before placing turrets. Whether you should upgrade one of them to level three or put three level one turrets in different spots.
Scrap is earned by the fire team, but you can spend it individually. So you can coordinate and spend it how you want, but one Guardian can’t spend all the scrap at once, leaving none for you. You can use your scrap to upgrade someone else’s defenses though. So if they put down a Turret at level one, you can make it two or three.
Onslaught Versions
The activity have a Normal and Legend playlist versions.
Normal and more casual playlist version will be 10 waves of the activity and only one ADU to defense. And then you’re done — with matchmaking enabled.
You then have the Onslaught Legend version, even more challenging mode. Here we have five sets of 10 waves, meaning 50 total. And each set or 10 waves will move the ADU around the map. The challenge version is not matchmade, but you will be able to use fireteam finder to find some players if you need.
The main difficulty in the Legend version is that the ADU moves around the map, while all your defenses stay where you put them. They will continue to draw the attention of the enemy, which will inevitably lead to their destruction while you are busy defending the ADU. So you’ll have to buy new turrets every time the ADU moves. And hope that when you rotate back to the previous area, they’ll still be intact and you can upgrade them.
Onslaught Bosses
Every 10 waves you board the Pyramid ship again and there will be a boss encounter. You need to kill that boss to advance through the activity. Augments and standing in the well can help you to increase your damage in the boss fight. There also will spawn a Wizard you need to kill. This will generate a spark of Light to then dunk into the Rift, which would deal massive damage to the boss. At the end of this boss wave a chest with rewards will spawn.
So, Destiny 2’s Onslaught three-person horde mode delivers a rich gameplay experience, blending intense wave events mechanics with strategic gameplay elements. It challenges Guardians to fortify the elasticity, harness new powers, weapons, and prepare for an impending battle against the witness in the Final Shape. Hope it was usefull. Thank you for reading, and see you in the next guide, Guardians.
