The Steam listing for Destiny 2’s upcoming Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack celebrating the studio’s history recently revealed that the game’s big new dungeon will be a throwback to the most famous moment in Destiny history: the loot cave.
Set to go live on December 7 for players who purchase the $25 mid-season update, the latest mini-raid will be called Grasp of Avarice. “Plunder the new three-player dungeon inspired by famed Cosmodrome loot caves of yore,” reads Bungie’s description on the Steam page. “Reveal a tale of riches and regret as you follow an adventurer who traded his humanity for treasure.”
Even if you’ve never played Destiny before, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about the loot cave at some point. Back when the loot shooter series first debuted in 2014, players quickly discovered a small cave near the game’s beginning zone ripe for exploitation. It spawned endless waves of weak enemies that each had a miniscule chance of dropping some of Destiny’s rarest gear. As a result, many players, Kotaku writers included, spent hours of their life firing bullets into the cave until their hands cramped up.
Bungie eventually nuked the cave, leaving behind a small Easter Egg lightly ribbing players for their greed-fueled carnage. The studio later revealed that it wasn’t even the most efficient way to farm Legendary and Exotic drops, just the easiest and most boring. Players have been on the hunt for other loot caves in Destiny ever since. The ones they would find were quickly patched out and never as bountiful to begin with.
All of which is to say I’m way more excited for the new dungeon now than I previously was. Destiny has amazing lore, but its best stories are still the meta-narratives that sprout up around the players who fill its virtual worlds. Destiny 2’s dungeons have also been some of its best content. If Grasp of Avarice is anywhere near as cool as last year’s Prophecy Dungeon, we’re in for a real treat.
The 30th Anniversary Pack is also adding a free six-person activity called Dares of Eternity that everyone will have access to. However, the Steam page revealed that those who purchase the Anniversary Pack will get “additional reward chests’’ at the end of each run. I’m sure a lot of people will have opinions about that, especially following the ongoing discourse around needing to pay to get access to Destiny 1’s returning OP rocket launcher, Gjallahorn. Update: 12/2/21, 12:14 p.m. ET: The extra chests are for cosmetic items only.
Finally, it seems increasingly unlikely that the 30th Anniversary Pack, pitched as a celebration of Bungie’s past, will contain any outright Halo stuff. Still, new screenshots show additional nods to the mega Xbox franchise Bungie originally created, including guns that look like nods to the Spartan assault rifle and Covenant focus rifle. It’s a shame the two companies apparently couldn’t work out a more official collaboration.