The Nether is a new activity added into the game as part of Episode Heresy. This brings back The Dreadnaught, a large ship once home to The Taken King Oryx, and now it’s the location for our brand new roguelike activity. Today I’m going to run through how The Nether works, plus I’ll go through my initial impressions of this mode.

How to access The Nether

You can access The Nether via The Last City during Episode Heresy. It’s unclear whether this is going to stick around post Episodes, but I hope so. It’s one of the most interesting and different activities Bungie has added into the game for a long time, and could provide us a look into the future of the game.

The Nether

The main thing to know about The Nether is you can’t regen health like you can in other areas of the game, instead of standard heath regeneration there are random boons which affect your gameplay experience. While not being able to regen health sounds bad, if you’re going in with a team it’s OK. Solo is a different story, so I would stick with a fireteam until you’re comforatble with the mechanics.

The Nether is also very rewarding. There are loot chests all over the place, out in the open and tucked away in hidden corners of The Dreadnaught, and they can provide the new seasonal weapons, plus new adept versions too. These are weapons with additional perks, so you’re more likely to get a great roll.

Bungie are really leaning into the rougelike mode with The Nether. They have experimented before, but this is taking it pretty much to the extreme of what they can do in a first person shooter, and the results switch up the standard gameplay mechanics inside Destiny 2, something long-time fans have been asking for.

Here’s a run down of the modifiers:

• Health – You don’t regenerate health. Enemies do drop health orbs, which help a little. Other sources of regenerating health are also restricted.
• Boons – Encounters grant boons. These boons enhance your build, although some come with penalties.
• Famine – Ammo drops can be reduced and you may need to rely on mods and breaing pots to find ammo.
• Extinguish – The Nether uses revive tokens. Run out of revives and the activity will end.

Health

You can regenerate health, and regular sources of HP e.g. a Warlock healing well, have been significantly nerfed. Aspects, Fragments, and weapon perks can help, for example Devour, Recuperation and Cure. Look out for healing orbs dropped from enemies and pots, they will restore health. It’s a good idea to customise your build around damage resistance going into the Nether, this will help you survive longer. Some weapons and perks are great sources of health e.g. Unrelenting, Rat King with the catalyst (Exotic Sidearm) and Crimson (Exotic hand cannon).

Pressure encounters

While exploring the Dreadnaught you’ll notice a notification saying the “pressure inside the Dreadnaught is building”. After a couple of minutes there is a wipe mechanic, and to prevent this you ned to clear the Taken Blights. Keep an eye out for the message, and take down those blights before the timer runs out.

Difficulty variants

The Nether has a couple of difficulties; Advanced and Expert. Advanced has matchmaking, and Expert is much harder with Champions, Banes, Overcharge and no matchmaking. There is also an exploration playlist where you go in solo. In exploration there’s no pressure mechanic, but it’s much harder given all enemies are focused on you.

The Nether guide

The Nether is similar to previous activities like Deep Dive or The Coil. It’s roughly a three phase roguelike, where you take on enemies, defeat bosses and hunt for secrets. Each area in the Dreadnaught is broken into three objectives, which you can complete in any order. They aren’t marked on your map, but if you get out your chost they will give you some guidance. If you ever get lost, pull out your ghost and it will help you know where to go next.

Encounters in the Dreadnaught will depend on which part of the ship you’re on, but there are some common encounters in each room:

Defend the objective: A couple of plates or marked defense locations need to be captured. Stand in the area and fight against waves of Dread.

Deposit relics: Grab any floating relics in the area and deposit them at nearby statues.

Subjugator duo: Defeat a pair of Subjugators defending an area. Only one will be vulnerable at a time.

Spore destruction: Look for orange spores on the wall and destroy them.

Tormentor boss: Collect Darkness shards to make the Tormentor vulnerable, then defeat the boss.

Don’t focus solely on encounters while you’re exploring. Aboard the Dreadnaught are a plethora of hidden chests, materials, and other hidden secrets that award seasonal weapons. Any chest you open will award Sigil Shards. These are used to upgrade your Tome of Want, this season’s main progression system that offers permanent buffs to your Nether runs. For now, just know that these Sigil Shards are important and you should be grabbing them.

Each run has three rooms and ends with a boss fight. The final boss doesn’t have a timer, but keep an eye on those revive tokens and make sure you don’t run out, otherwise you will wipe. Play more cautiously than normal, given the restrictions on health. Defeat the boss, grab your loot from the chest and rinse and repeat for more loot.

Rewards

You’ll find seasonal weapons in chests throughout the activity, and you’ll also get more weapons from defeating bosses. Opening chests and defeating bosses also grant Sigil Shards, which are useful for additional upgrades to improve your Nether experience. You’ll also get tons of Heresy seasonal weapons, armor, and upgrade materials.

Resources

You’ll find resources in The Nether call Metasized Essentia. They look like balls with tentacles. Collect them and then interact with the item in Eris Morn’s apartment in the Last City for reprised Season of Arrivals loot.

You will also get Sigil Shards from The Nether runs. Interact with the Seasonal vendor in Eris’ apartment in the Last City to get additional upgrades that help you on Nether runs. For example, your first death won’t remove a revive token. Collect as many Sigil Shards as possible to get the best upgrades.

First impressions

The Nether gives a great first impression. The gunplay mechanics are the same, but the removal of health is a very interesting additional to this game mode and I like it. You have to be more tactical in your play, not rush in, think about things a little more. The activity itself is very generous when it comes to loot, plus the addition of the shiny versions are learnings from Into The Light. The boons and additional modifiers are good so far, and I don’t find myself getting frustrated with the lack of health regen.

Bungie have been experimenting with the way they deliver narrative before this episode, but now they are starting to experiment with the core gameplay mechanics. At the end of the day this is still Destiny, but they are trying new things and so far I am enjoying The Nether.

Let me know in the comments what you think.