It took a lot of confidence for Bungie to bring back Festival of the Lost. It’s always difficult to imagine how the decisions are made for which live events to do each year. For instance, we didn’t have the Valentine’s Day Crimson Days event during year 3 of Destiny 1 despite its relative success in year 2.

The year 2 content drought dampened spirits, but the event was executed well. The game mode Crimson Doubles was a fun twist on Skirmish. Festival of the Lost was introduced in year 2 of Destiny 1 to great success. The masks were a huge hit!

Bungie brought the event back in year 3, however they shifted things to almost require the purchasing of the signature event masks. They removed the masks you could earn from the previous event, and that left a sour taste in players’ mouths. So much so, that the event was dubbed “Festival of the Cost.” It was definitely not a good look.

The Festival was not featured in year 1 of Destiny 2, and I’m glad it wasn’t. The game did not have the structures in place to deliver the experience we received. With the first half of year 1 too heavily focused on Eververse micro-transactions, the event would have surely failed again.

Festival of the Lost was a 3-week live event, running October 16th to November 6^th. The event brought decorations to the tower, new cosmetics to earn, and at its core is a brand new limited-time activity named The Haunted Forest.

The Haunted Forest

This past Solstice of Heroes event raised the bar with re-imagined story missions, however replaying the missions because tedious and repetitive. I went through them at least 7 or 8 times each, while also helping clan mates through. For the Festival, Bungie re-purposed the infinite forest introduced in the Curse of Osiris Expansion to create a randomly generated multi-wave activity called The Haunted Forest.

The activity throws you and your fireteam into a dark and spooky version of the forest. In The Haunted Forest you progress by clearing enough enemies in a “branch” of the forest to eventually teleport to a boss room. Defeating the boss teleports you to the start of a new branch. The objective is to see how many branches you can clear in 15 minutes.

The activity is tense and action-packed, and as an added scare-factor, a large indestructible and unrelenting Hive Knight may appear every now again and chase you down with it’s enormous axe.

Clearing branches awards you with a new limited-time currency item called Fragmented Souls. You can use these souls to purchase new masks or save up to purchase a limited-time legendary auto rifle called The Horror Story. The holiday vendor Amanda also has daily and weekly bounties available, sending you to complete the games various challenges while donning Festival Masks.

Masks & More

The masks made a return in this year’s event. However, similar to Solstice of Heroes, the masks came with built-in leveling. The masks also allow you to select 1 of 3 perks that allow you to progress through the Haunted Forest a bit easier. This allows you to clear more branches and earn more souls. The perks only work inside of the haunted forest, which makes sense, but it would have been awesome to have something a bit more permanent to take away.

The good news is that there is at least one permanent special piece of gear, and that is the event-exclusive auto rifle, Horror Story. The gun is a clone of Origin Story from year 1, with the addition of a second trait, zen moment, and all the additions of a year 2 mod slot. The weapon is even better than you remember from Origin Story, and the addition of zen moment on top of rampage is a perfect combination for this weapon.

The cosmetics this time are particularly good. Some of my favorites include the Nine Lives ghost shell which looks like a paper craft cat, and the new exotic ships. Bungie took a note from the success of the past 2 live events and made the event engrams a bonus reward for leveling up, allowing you to earn everything as you play your usual activities.

The Festival items are even using the same knock-out system used in Solstice of Heroes. This guarantees you new items from the festival engrams until you’ve acquired everything. The event also features several triumphs for the completionists.

Overall this year’s Festival of The Lost was a smashing success, and The Haunted Forest is by far the more impressive activity implemented in a live event. The event showcases the importance of the foundation Forsaken laid down. Bungie has showed us with Solstice of Heroes and this Festival of the Lost that they have a good grip on how these live events should be put together. This gets me excited for the rest of the year’s events and beyond.

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