Everything You Need to Know About Destiny 2: Into the Light | 9 Most Important Things About Into the Light

Next week’s set to be a busy week in Destiny 2 as Into the Light, the franchise’s second big April update meant to bridge the gap from the end of Season of the Wish to the launch of The Final Shape, arrives for all players. Over the last three weeks, Bungie have been giving us all glimpses and teases of this new update, which has since masisvely exceeded expecations. Originally, many beleived that Into the Light would just be some small, minor update to keep us playing through the 3 month gap until The Final Shape: instead, Into the Light is shaping up to be one of the best content drops Destiny 2 has ever gotten. And it’s completely free for all players.

From a whole new PvE mode, a set of iconic and infamous returning weapons with some dastardly perk combinations, and even a new social space to three new Crucible maps, the return of a classic Shader from Destiny 1, and reprised Exotic Missions, Into the Light is looking to be the shot in the arm that Destiny 2 really needs. In fact, it has so much good stuff that many may be confused about what exactly we’re getting and when.

Here’s everything you need to know about what’s coming with Destiny 2’s Into the Light update next week. 

Want more Destiny 2 content and articles? Then you can find more here on KeenGamer:

1. Destiny 2 Warlord’s Ruin Dungeon Guide | All Encounters Explained
2. Destiny 2 | All Warlord’s Ruin Secret Bonus Chest Locations
3. Destiny 2 | All Bones of Hefnd Locations in Warord’s Ruin (Ahamkara Bones)
4. Destiny 2 | All Season of the Wish Starcat Locations
5. Destiny 2 | How (and When) to Get All Wish-Keeper Catalysts

Into the Light Key Art

New Mode, Onslaught

The big ticket item of Into the Light is undoubtedly Onslaught, a main new permanent mode being added to Destiny 2. Onslaught is the wave-based horde mode Guardians have been clamouring for since back in Destiny 1. Alongside two other Guardians, you will defend key positions on several transformed Crucible maps against an unrelenting wave of Fallen, Hive, and Taken. 

With multiple difficulties, Onslaught has a little something for everywhere, with the base difficulty going up to 30 waves and the harder Legend difficulty going all the way up to 50. To aid in your defence, you will constantly be picking up a resource called Scrap which can used to purchase defensive armaments such as sentry turrets and tripwires. Then, every few rounds, you’ll be sent scuttling into the depths of a Pyramid Ship to rid it of beasts and baddies, culminating in a boss encounter where your skill and strategy determines how much damage you’ll deal.

Bungie has also promised that Onslaught is going to drown players in loot, with a chest every ten waves which awards one of Into the Light’s new weapon set. They’ve also teased that the final set of waves in Onslaught are going to be very intense and something similar to a GM Nightfall, so get your fireteam ready and defend the Last City with all you have when Onslaught launches on April 9th. 

Onslaught Horde Mode

BRAVE Arsenal Weapons

Speaking of weapons, Into the Light’s newest weapon set, the BRAVE arsenal, is a trip down memory lane as Bungie has reprised twelve of Destiny 2’s most iconic, or infamous, guns. For one reason or another, all of the BRAVE weapons have some kind of notoriety and they will be the main reward in Onslaught and Into the Light focused activities. The entire BRAVE arsenal includes: 

• Succession (Deep Stone Crypt Sniper Rifle)
• Midnight Coup (Leviathan Hand Cannon)
• The Mountaintop (Crucible Micro-Rocket Grenade Launcher)
• Hung Jury SR4 (Dead Orbit Scout Rifle)
• Blast Furnace (Black Armory Pulse Rifle)
• The Recluse (Crucible Submachine Gun)
• Luna’s Howl (Crucible Hand Cannon)
• Elsie’s Rifle (Stranger’s Rifle from D1)
• Forbearance (Vow of the Disciple Grenade Launcher)
• Falling Guillotine (Season of Arrivals Sword)
• Hammerhead (Black Armory Machine Gun)
• Edge Transit (Forsaken Grenade Launcher)

The BRAVE arsenal has it all, from Crucible night terrors like The Recluse or Luna’s Howl to meme weapons like the iconic Edge Transit. These weapons have all been updated with new perk pools as well as a powerful new origin trait which awards either Grenade for Light subclasses or Melee energy for Darkness sublasses. If you’d like to see all of the new rolls and perk combinations, check out this in-depth blog post on Bungie.net for more information.

When Into the Light launches on April 9th, six of these weapons – The Recluse, Hung Jury SR4, Succession, Edge Transit, Elsie’s Rifle and Falling Guillotine – will be available right away to farm in Onslaught. As for the other six, they’ll unlock two at a time each week for three weeks so, if you’re target isn’t in the starting roster, be sure to check back each week until it pops up. This will still give you almost 6 weeks to grind for all of the weapons before The Final Shape launches.

Limited Edition “Shiny” Weapons

There’s something else about the BRAVE arsenal that Shiny Hunters and collectors want to know. From Into the Light’s launch until the arrival of The Final Shape, BRAVE arsenal weapons will have a small chance of dropping with a special, limited-edition shader which makes the weapon shine brightly.

Aside from the special shader and the two perks in each column, these weapons are the same as the base variants, just like Shiny Pokemon. If you’d like to have a limited edition Brave weapon as a souvenir, all players can earn one copy of each of the twelve weapons by completing special quests from ARCITE each week. Of course, if the rolls on those copies aren’t to your liking, you can farm Onslaught to your heart’s content in search of your 5/5 God Roll limited edition variant. 

However, if you want to get your hands on these limited-edition weapons, you’ll need to act fast. Once The Final Shape arrives on June 4th, the BRAVE arsenal will continue to drop from Onslaught but the limited-editon shader variants will no longer be available. So, on June 5th, you’ll still be able to grab Mountaintop or Luna’s Howl but you won’t be able to get them with their special shader so, if Shiny hunting in Pokemon has ever had a vice-grip on your life, get yourself ready for a grind.

Limited Edition vs Regular Edition

New Social Space, The Champion’s Hall

So, with a new permanent activity and a new suite of weapons to earn, who’s our Into the Light vendor? Well, it’s none other than everyone’s favourite grenade-lover, Shaxx, who will have a new second home in a social space called the Champion’s Hall. This new space is not only where Zavala and other Tower leaders hide the goodies and decorations for each of Destiny’s holiday events, but it’s also where all of the magic happens when it comes to Onslaught.

Firstly, the Champion’s Hall is full of special chests which you can open by collecting Trophies from successful Onslaught incursions. These chests will drop BRAVE Arsenal weapons alongside pieces of the new Parade Armour sets, touched-up versions of the Destiny 2 Vanilla armour sets. Furthermore, Shaxx will be in the Champion’s Hall as the update’s main vendor and you’ll visit him to pick up rewards as you earn Hype, Onslaught’s unique reputation. His reputation rewards include BRAVE Engrams, Ascendant Shards, and Ascendant Alloys, Exotics and more.

Alongside Shaxx is ARCITE 99-40, one of his trusty Red Jacks, and he’s in charge of giving you special missions which award curated rolls of the BRAVE arsenal. These quests will ask you to complete one of two objectives, such as the Right of Succession quest which asks you to defeat combatants with Sniper Rifle precision hits anywhere in the system OR get kills in Raids and Dungeons with Snipers. Additionally, as we previously mentioned, ARCITE will also hand out one copy of the limited-edition variants of each weapon so be sure to visit them regularly, as well as bounties.

One final major thing about the Champion’s Hall is that it’s here where you can boost your chances of obtaining a specific BRAVE weapon. By interacting with special statues of Shaxx, you can decide which BRAVE weapon you want to hunt. Once selected, that weapon will drop 50% of the time from all chests in Onslaught, giving you a massive boost when it comes to getting your God Rolls.

Superblack Shader Returns

The Champion’s Hall is also home to one more important addition to Into the Light, especially for those who enjoy Destiny’s fashion game. I’m, of course, talking about the return of the Superblack, perhaps the most widely known and most commonly requested Shader in the history of Destiny.

For the uninformed, Superblack is a special Shader players could obtain during one of Destiny 1’s Festival of the Lost celebrations. As the name suggests, it made your Guardian’s outfit completely black. Since we lost Superblack back in 2018 with the launch of D2, edgy Hunters the world over have been scavenging for similar Shaders which could give them that same look but, to no avail.

Well, with Into the Light, Superblack returns in style but, if you want to rock the Black Swordsman look in The Crucible, you’ll need to earn it as obtaining Superblack seems to be a fairly long process. To release the inky black shader from its glass prison (which you can actually see behind Shaxx in the Champion’s Hall), you’ll need two halves of a special key: one half comes from reaching max Hype reputation with Shaxx, whereas the other comes from completing activities for ARCITE. As such, if you want to look your best for The Final Shape, you better get grinding Onslaught.

Superblack Shader

Three New Crucible Maps

It’s been a long while since we got some new Crucible maps, at least ones that the community favoured but that’s, hopefully, about to change with Into the Light. On May 7th, three brand new maps will be joining the Crucible map pool, finally giving PvP enjoyers a chance to frolic, prance, and kill on some of Destiny 2’s recent locals, namely Europa, Neomuna, and a Pyramid Ship. The three maps focus primarily on 3v3 play, meaning that they will excel in modes like Competitive or Trial but they will also feature in 6v6 playlists. 

The first map, Eventide Labs, is set on the snow moon of Europa where Guardians will battle around abandoned Eliksni equipment, domed ice caves which look prime for grenade or throwing knife trick shots, and plenty of CQC engagements. After that is Cirrus Plaza, a lovely interior Nemuna map which looks like something ripped straight from Halo. With tight corridors, wide death pits, and plenty of high-risk, high-reward angles, this is going to be a very interesting map to play. Lastly, Dissonance is set on the Witness’ terraformed Pyramid Ship so Guardians will be facing off against each other among the unfathomably large Pyramid architecture as well as the creeping plant life of the Light. 

All three maps will join the general Crucible rotator when they launch on May 7th. However, for Crucible fans itching to play these new maps and learn all of their secrets, there will be a special Crucible playlist for the first few weeks after the Map Pack launches which only has Eventide Labs, Cirrus Plaza, and Dissonance available. With the recent Crucible balance changes and now these excellent-looking new maps, it seems that the Crucible Strike Team may actually be turning things around for the long-suffering PvP community.

Reprised Iconic Exotic Missions

Alongside new Crucible maps, Into the Light is also dipping its hand into the infamous DCV to unshackle some iconic Destiny 2 Exotic Missions and put them back in the live game. The two missions being reintroduced to Destiny 2 are the incredible The Whisper mission, which originally rewarded Guardians with the Whisper of the Worm Exotic Sniper Rifle, as well as the equally awesome Zero Hour mission, where successful Guardians were awarded the Outbreak Perfected Pulse Rifle. These missions were both huge when they launched as secrets which Guardians quickly unearthed all those years ago.

With their return in Into the Light, both of the missions have been updated, including a big bump to overall challenge and difficulty. Don’t expect the final bosses of either activity to fall over to your might as they once did. Additionally, Bungie confirmed that the location of the secret chests has been moved around and, most excitingly, that both of these missions will drop craftable versions of their associated Exotic Weapon, similar to the recently reprised Dead Man’s Tale. Completing The Whisper will net you a crafted version of The Whisper of the Worm, whereas completing Zero Hour will earn you a craftable Outbreak Perfected. The crafted versions will have new perks, as well as the option to change the barrels and stocks.

Lastly, as a bonus incentive to get new and old players involved, new Exotic Ships are available to earn in both The Whisper and Zero Hour for those who love chasing unique, rare cosmetics. These ships are remixed versions of the two original Exotic ships, including the classic Thousand Wings. As for when these missions will go live, The Whisper will be available as soon as Into the Light launches on April 9th whereas players hoping to grab Outbreak from Zero Hour will have to wait a little bit longer, as that mission launches in May.

Exotic Missions Return

New Endgame PvE Activity, Pantheon

One of the final things Bungie teased during their last devstream was a new endgame PvE mode, Pantheon, which launches sometime after Into the Light. Pantheon is a “Raid Gauntlet” where fireteams face down gruelling Raid Boss in a weekly challenge with escalating difficulty. Aside from that small teaser, other details were quite sparse, but, it appears as though this mode may combine several different Raid encounters from the Raids currently in the game into one activity.

Additionally, Bungie also mentioned that Pantheon will be another source for Raid Exotics, Raid Adept weapons, emblems, and other kinds of rewards. For high-end PvE players, Pantheon is sure to shoot to the top of your most anticipated list when it comes to Into the Light but, as for when we will hear more about it, Pantheon will be the focus of an upcoming TWAB where we’ll certainly hear more about this exciting new addition to endgame PvE in Destiny 2.

The Pantheon Raid Gauntlet

Character Customization and Bungie Name Change

Lastly, several smaller quality-of-life and similar additions are coming on April 9th with Into the Light, including the long-awaited character appearance change feature. After almost ten years, you’ll finally be able to change the way your Guardian looks so that you can breathe in the air of the Tower without your helmet. As announced in a previous TWAB, you can change your hair, body type, face, and markings as many times as you want without a cost, with the only roadblock being that you cannot change your origin. 

Additionally, for those all regretful Guardians looking to remove (Adept) from their Bungie name, April 9th will also bring one additional free Bungie name change for all players. With it, you’ll be able to alter your display name in Destiny 2 and on Bungie.net, which is separate from your actual account name. This is the second free name change Bungie has offered so use it wisely.

Character Customization

Into the Light is looking stacked, to the point where it may even rival the 30th Anniversary. If this is what Bungie can cook up in a few months to tide us over for the delay, it gives me a lot more hope about what they may deliver when The Final Shape launches on June 4th. 

That was everything you needed to know about Into the April, the big April update coming to Destiny 2 on April 9th.