Of all the strange decisions Bungie has made over the course of Destiny's existence, one of the strangest has to be its reluctance to add a true Horde mode. Sure, we had seasonal activities like Escalation Protocol and The Menagerie, which were almost a horde, but never a real deal where you could hide and defend. That changes on April 9th with the release of the free Into the Light update, which includes the new Onslaught mode, pitting teams of three against up to 50 waves of enemies with increasing difficulty.
Revealed today during the first of three Live streams Leading up to the release of Into the Light, Onslaught sees the Guardians defend the Last City from the invading forces of The Witness (particularly Fallen and Hive). In practice, that means you're dropped onto a Crucible map – they used Midtown for the demo – to defend a macguffin called the Advanced Defense Unit (ADU).
The quest giver and hype man for whom Onslaught is Lord Shaxx, who also serves as the voice of The Crucible. You'll be supported on the ground by his robotic Redjacks and can also purchase upgradeable defensive items.
The three types of defense are a turret (of course), a decoy (in the form of a sweeper robot) and a laser-activated tripmine. Each can be upgraded three times, adding health, damage, etc. However, if your level 3 tower is destroyed, you will need to purchase a brand new level 1 version. Likewise, trip mines are unique and must be replaced between waves. The currency you spend in the Onslaught shop is called “Scrap”. The acquisition is shared across the team and then divided equally during the spending phase.
To stay alive
There are two main versions of Onslaught available. The Onslaught Playlist variant offers matchmaking and only includes 10 waves. After the first two waves, a “dark zone” comes into effect, meaning if all players are dead, the run is over. If you make it past the final wave, you will receive double the loot. I suspect that Destiny grinders will find the challenge variant more attractive, where the stakes are increased to five sets of 10 waves each, with the defensive position changing after each set to keep things fresh.
In the stream, Bungie activity designer Noah Lee said that while it's possible to load into challenge mode alone, he doesn't expect a player to be able to complete all 50 waves alone. This is the kind of gauntlet throwing that gaming communities love, so I suspect PvE gods like it Esotericism will make it his mission to prove Lee wrong.
Watching the stream, it was difficult to estimate how strong the later waves would be. Bungie emphasized that the enemy composition of the waves will vary significantly, so you may end up with one consisting entirely of Hive Ogres and Exploder Thralls. They also said that Ultra tier enemies appear periodically and that Champions are included, meaning you have to bring breaking weapons and skills to deal with their shields. As far as buildcrafting goes, you'll want to focus heavily on AoE add-clear, with some single-target burst damage for high-threat enemies and plenty of healing for when things get really overwhelming. Oh, they also clearly hinted that tormentors will show up, which I hate for us.
We saw a guard carrying a replica Midnight Coup hand cannon with the perk combination Firefly and Kinetic Tremors.
To add variety, mini-objectives will appear during waves, meaning you'll have to move around the map instead of just milling around next to the ADU. They are also periodically teleported to one of the pyramid ships that hover over the battlefield, bringing the battle back to the Witness's forces. The developers said this sequence is intended to feel like a “victory lap,” with players mowing through enemies before firing a spark at a Glyph Guardian (just like scoring in Rift PvP mode) to return to Earth.
What was notably missing from this first stream was a real breakdown of the rewards. That's because Bungie plans to focus on the new weapons that will be added as part of Into The Light in next week's stream (on March 26th at 10am PDT). However, we did see a guard carrying a replica of the Midnight Coup hand cannon, which had the spicy perk combination Firefly and Kinetic Tremor. If the other weapons are anywhere near as good, you can count on the mode to provide plenty of gameplay.
Bungie has said that loot will drop after each wave and that it will be doubled on Legendary difficulty. Promisingly, they pointed to this year's The Coil promotion as an influence, which was praised for giving players gear. One question mark I had while watching was whether the first few rounds would be fast enough to not feel boring after playing a lot of Onslaught. But for all of Destiny 2's current woes, the fact that 100,000 people watched on Twitch alone is a positive sign, and assuming the loot is good – which, let's be honest, it all depends on – then this is the kind of content I'm after I've been craving this game for a long time. I'll report back next week as soon as we know more about the weapons on offer.
