Destiny 2’s Shadowkeep expansion is launching in less than two weeks, and both players and the team at Bungie have to be getting antsy about Destiny 2’s forthcoming new year. Antsier than many is the field of competitive Destiny 2 teams planning to race for world-first completion of Shadowkeep’s raid, the Garden of Salvation.
On October 5th Bungie will open up the raid for all Shadowkeep players, and the race will begin. In preparation, today Bungie revealed the first details regarding the Garden of Salvation World First competition.
To start, Bungie confirmed the limitations that will be placed on Garden of Salvation raiders for the first 24 hours after the raid’s launch. This “Contest Mode” is in place to ensure as balanced and fair of a race as possible. Teams won’t be able to simply grind out max power levels for an advantage.
During Destiny 2’s Contest Mode, Power is capped at 890 for all encounters except the final boss, which has a Power cap of 920. After the first 24 hours, the Power caps will be removed and players will be able to grind Power to make the raid easier overall. It’s unlikely the race will last that long, however.
Next is Bungie’s planned rewards for the Garden of Salvation World First competition. As is now tradition, Bungie will be providing the winning raid team’s individual players with their own World First title belts. These are belts not unlike those worn by champions in professional wrestling, boxing, or MMA. That’s it for rewards, however. Destiny 2 won’t be dropping an exclusive Exotic reward for the first team to finish, having learned from its mistakes. Instead, Bungie will verify completion times outside of the game and then declare a winner. Note that players will have to be the first team to “complete the raid and return to orbit.”
Beyond the World First competition, Bungie does have a reward for everyone taking part in the competition. All teams that finish the Garden of Salvation raid within the first 24 hours will receive an exclusive emblem. There’s also a special emblem for players who complete the raid at all. It should be enough to encourage raid fireteams to make the attempt on day one. That exclusive emblem will be a visible prestige item, after all.
There’s plenty left for Bungie to reveal regarding Destiny 2’s upcoming Shadowkeep expansion. Raid details probably aren’t on Bungie’s agenda, beyond perhaps a teaser. Most of the fun is in players discovering the raid’s secrets on their own, after all, but the world and story around the raid are likely fair game. Expect more information Shadowkeep and its looming threats, like the Veil, in the days leading up to the expansion’s launch.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Shadowkeep releases October 1.
Source: Bungie
