The drip feed of new information and details from Destiny’s upcoming House of Wolves expansion pack continued today with a live gameplay reveal for the Trials of Osiris. This particular game mode has long been mooted and speculated over by the community, but we now know much more about what this will actually entail, once it is released.
Running from Friday to the reset on Tuesday of each week, you must buy into the event via its vendor, Brother Vance, obtaining the Trials Passage scorecard. Each passage – and you can play through multiple passages, if you so wish – lets you play the new Elimination game mode earning up to 9 wins, 3 losses or until the week’s play ends, whichever comes first. In other words, you need to be on a hot streak of wins in order to unlock the top tier of potential gear from Brother Vance’s weekly selection.
Don’t worry though, you’ll still be able to get the new Trials of Osiris gear dropped for you as you play, and in two forms. In terms of armour, there’s the more standard looking gear, which can ascend to level 34, but then there’s the rather cool Ancient Egypt themed gear, which is at level 34 right off the bat.
Starting with getting two wins in a passage, you’ll get the Stone Tier, going up to Gold for 9 wins. These tiers are randomised as you buy them, so you don’t know what you’ll be getting, but a piece of armour will be available for 5 wins and a gun for 7 wins, so you have clearer goals to work towards. Thankfully, the tiers that you can buy are determined by the best passage you have played that weekend, and not just the one that you are currently on, and you can buy supplies from Vance that let you quash a loss, gain a win and have a bonus win for you first, which cost Passage Coins that are earnt through play.
But how well you do will come down to who you are playing with, as you character’s level counts, just as in the Iron Banner, and Elimination is a 3v3 game mode without fireteam matchmaking. It will find you teams to play against, interestingly based upon having comparable internet connections rather than ability, but you will need to bring your own fireteam into the fray. That’s partly because this will be an intensely teamwork oriented game mode.
Each match is played to the best of 9 rounds, but while you cannot respawn, as the name suggests, you can revive your team mates, as in the existing Skirmish game mode. With lots of reviving and extended rounds possible, there is a sudden death time cap of 2 minutes, after which a control point must be captured to win or the other team eliminated. Once one team has won three rounds, a heavy ammo round gets thrown into the mix to spice things up.
To see the game mode in action, check out the archive from Bungie’s stream:
Tony Cawley
I thought it was an excellent reveal and I’m really quite looking forward to giving the trials a go. Also looking forward to next week’s reveal for the prison of elders.
Tuffcub
It all sounds a little too much like faffing about to me.
Forrest_01
All sounds very elitist/exclusionist to me – So you need a fireteam to just get into the damn thing & if you don’t do well, you get nowhere. So that’s me out.
I’m actually a little annoyed by this – A game mode I have pre-paid for that I will likely never play. Granted, that’s what you get for buying a season/expansion pass ahead of time I suppose, but it’s still a little frustrating.
Iron banner is kind of the same for me (in that I never play it), except it was included in the vanilla game, so I don’t feel a little ripped off in not playing that.
I had hoped for something along the lines of the last DLC with House of Wolves, but just with some actual decent content this time around.
… & just to top it off, no new raid either. Yaay.
Tony Cawley
Prison of elders sounds to me like it could be a similar experience to raiding, just 3 man instead of 6. Suppose we’ll find out more next week in its reveal but I’m liking a lot of what they’ve done with HoW.
Forrest_01
See, I’m not getting that from Prison of Elders at all – Everything I have heard so far screams horde mode, which (as you well know) is definitely not akin to raiding.
Can’t say I am a fan of anything they have announced so far other than the gear upgrades tbh. :(
In fact, I am not even sure what they are planning to release will draw me in at all. Sure, I’ll take a look (may as well as I have already bloody paid for it!), but I think once I am done taking a look, Destiny may well be shelved.
Which is a shame, as it’s my most played game in a while. Possibly ever in fact.
Matthijs
I’m on the same page as you Forrest_01. I’m not too excited as to where they are taking it. I wish they would go more in depth on the story and add some missions, strikes and a raid. The trials sound like something for people with a lot of time on their hands. I have a hard time in the crucible as is.
Most of the story missions that involve locked doors are like hore mode to me so if the prison is like that I won’t be too happy.
I’ve played destiny more that I have Mario bros on the NES but where it’s going now is not up my alley.