A cornucopia of fresh information on Curse of Osiris, the first of two announced Destiny 2 Year One expansions, was revealed during a preview stream on Wednesday. There’s still a great deal we don’t know about the first D2 DLC, like what sort of PvP content it will contain, but Bungie was surprisingly forthcoming about people and places players will visit when Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris heads to PC and consoles in early December.
According to Bungie, Curse of Osiris will be set several months after the Destiny 2 campaign and continues to deal with the fallout of mankind’s victory over the Cabal in the “Red War.” There will still be plenty of signs that the conflict isn’t fully resolved, like the ongoing presence of The Almighty’s wreckage in Mercury’s orbit, but the next branch of the Destiny 2 narrative will shift the focus to the time-traveling robots known as the Vex. Although we still don't know why the hive-mind driven robots have suddenly surged to the top of humanity’s priority list, the stream did say the explanation would be directly tied to the base campaign’s final cutscene.
We already knew The Lighthouse will return in Destiny 2 but we got a bit more information on the first expansion’s social space this week too. The latest community space will introduce a new facility, called the Forge, that lets players combine special materials into some of the most powerful firearms we’ll see in Destiny 2. The first batch will combine legendary firearms, which we assume means exotic weapons from the first Destiny, which have been altered (by Osiris) to take advantage of Vex technology. Brother Vance will also reside in the Lighthouse and he’ll also become the latest faction representative in Destiny 2. Unfortunately, he’s also accepting tokens in exchange for faction rewards. So one of the least popular aspects of the endgame experience appears to remain unchanged in Curse of Osiris.
The Infinite Forest will also be a major focal point in the expansion. One of the most stunning revelations from this week’s Curse of Osiris preview stream was the size of the sprawling Vex supercomputer, which the Vex built into the hollowed out the core of Mercury. Humanity’s robotic adversaries apparently use the Infinite Forest to know when/where they need to travel in their never-ending bid to bring the universe under control of the hive mind. The preview also revealed Osiris has some ability to manipulate time and space while inside the Infinite Forest; however, it’s not clear whether or not player will have similar abilities. The stream did confirm each Infinite Forest mission will have multiple variants, chosen at random when you begin the activity, "hand-built" by the level design team. It's not quite the same as procedurally-generated content but Bungie is hoping to at least give each scenario a longer shelf life. The Infinite Forest is accessed from a towering portal in Mercury’s patrol zone, not far from the Lighthouse, and the facility will let players see (and explore) the past, present and possible futures of the planet.
Raid Lairs also had a moment in the spotlight during Bungie’s Curse of Osiris preview. But the last set of reveals from Wednesday’s live stream are quickly proving to be the least popular with Destiny fans. Bungie says there won’t be any new raids in Curse of Osiris but the DLC will instead add a new “lair” to Leviathan featuring unique enemies and set pieces. The lair will be shorter than the original raid but the Destiny 2 team says we'll earn new rewards, including new armor and shaders. There will only be one new lair, "Leviathan, Eater of Worlds", in Curse of Osiris. But Bungie says a second lair will be included, in lieu of a new raid location, in the game's second expansion.
For more on what we’ll see in Curse of Osiris, check out the archive of Wednesday morning’s preview stream. Then head down to the comments and let us know what you think of Bungie’s plans for the first Destiny 2 expansion.
Destiny 2 is currently available on PS4, Xbox One and PC. The game’s first expansion, Curse of Osiris, debuts Dec. 5.
Be sure to check back with Player.One and follow Scott on Twitter for more Destiny 2 news in 2017 and however long Bungie supports Destiny 2 in the years ahead.
