Tomb of Elders released this week in Destiny 2, a redesigned activity called Prison of Elders brought up to Destiny 2 standards. With this new activity Bungie is giving us a preview of the future of PVE activities in Destiny 2, and some of the contents of the new Fireteam operations that will be coming with Destiny 2 Frontiers in 2025. Today I want to run through Tomb of Elders, plus look at it in the context of The Portal, Solo Ops and Fireteam Ops coming in next expansion in Destiny 2.

Tomb of Elders was added into Destiny 2 this week with Act 2 in Episode Revenant. This is a revamped version of Prison of Elders from Destiny 1 and offers up a repeatable PVE activity that allows us to take on hordes of enemies, plus we get a decent amount of loot along the way.

You can unlock Tomb of Elders through the Act 2 story with Episode Revenant. We have to speak to Eido and Mithrax, and we get sent into the Tomb of Elders for an initial run. Once we get through that we’re introduced to the more difficult variant, The Context of Elders, which is similar in terms of gameplay, with the difficulty ramped up a notch. You can find Tomb of Elders via the Director, navigate to the Last City and once you have unlocked both modes via the story you’ll be able to select Tomb of Elders and Context of Elders from the menu there.

Tomb of Elders is a 3 player matchmade activity, similar to other seasonal activities like the Menagerie, Savathun’s Spire, Riven’s Lair and The Coil. We have to complete a couple of combat encounters that are dense with enemies, we have some traversal inbetween encounters, then we face a boss before collecting some loot.

The main difference with Tomb of Elders is we have combat modifiers which adjusts the combat difficulty in each room, similar to the original Prison of Elders. Here’s some examples:

Counterfeit: When defeated, combatants can drop explosives disguised as familiar items.
Grounded: Incoming damage is greatly increased while airborne.
Brawn: Your HP is massively increased but does not regenerate. Defeating challenging combatants will recover HP for you and nearby allies.

These modifiers reset upon completing an encounter.

The activities are straightforward, you and your fireteam have to complete the combat encounter to proceed through the Prison. The objectives can be broken up with sub-objectives like destroying generators or collecting explosives. Complete the encounter to unlock the next one and then repeat.

Complete two rooms then it’s time to fight the boss. You have to remove the bosses shield before you can damage it, and removing the shield will differ for each boss. For example, The Mechanist requires you to collect spare explosives and rig one of the nearby Ether Canisters to explode. The Cabal boss requires you to destroy a Thresher first and eliminate floating Psions. In any case, the boss will become vulnerable for a short duration once the mechanic is done. Try to kill the boss in this window to finish the activity.

Some of the encounters have a bonus objective you have to complete against a short time frame, for example killing enemies with a Scorch cannon or heavy ammo. Completing the bonus objective rewards Tonic reagents that are exclusive to Tomb of Elders, e.g. Tomb Flakes. Some boss encounters have critical objectives that must be completed within time. If you fail to complete these objectives then your fireteam gets a debuff until the end of the encounter.

Contest of Elders is a more challenging variant which is set to 2020 power. There are limited revives plus additional combat modifiers and Banes. To balance out the increased difficulty we also have more rewards at the end of each boss fight. Contest of Elders has matchmade and solo variants too.

In terms of the rewards we have Tonic reagents, which allow us to focus farm weapons viathe Tonic system in the Last City next to Eido. We have two new weapons including the Scavenger’s Fate Shotgun and Noxious Vetiver Submachine Gun, as well as the returning Gridskipper Pulse Rifle. We also have glimmer, enhancement cores, plus rarer materials for Tonics.

That’s pretty much it for Tomb of Elders. It’s a peak into the future for Destiny 2 PVE activities, and the upcoming improvements coming in the next major expansion under the codename of Frontiers.

Ever since Destiny 2 was released we’ve had Vanguard, Cruicble and more recently Gambit. Seasonal content has introduced activities like Menagerie, Savathun’s Spire, Riven’s Lair and The Coil, but they tend to go away when new major expansions release. Bungie is introducing something called The Portal in Frontiers which is going to make it easier to jump into a range of activities.

Here’s a brief rundown from Bungie:

The Portal will offer several categories of activities, each with a wide selection of new and updated activities, refreshed every three months with each Major Update.
All activities in the Portal will provide updated and worthwhile rewards, so it will be easy to find something to play.
The Destination map will be cleaned up and focused on world navigation and accessing older activities.

The reason why Bungie are doing this is because The Director has grown to be very unwieldy, making it harder to find specifically what’s current and worthwhile to play, and requiring ever more expert knowledge to navigate to find what you are looking for.

The Portal aims to help with this by providing quick ways to jump into meaningful content.

Solo Ops: 1-3 player activities requiring very low time or social commitments. These activities are designed for solo players, yet are still fun with a fireteam, and are easy to pick up and play for a quick session. Solo Ops will also feature a new activity type which will get a deep dive soon.

Fireteam Ops: Three-player activities for matchmade or premade groups. Designed for fireteams with more cooperation and coordination, these will feature activities like Strikes, Onslaught, The Coil, and new types in the future.

Flashpoint Ops: Six-player activities for matchmade or premade groups. Planned for a future Season, this category will be introduced later next year. It will feature more chaotic six-player combat like Offensives.

Pinnacle Ops: Three-player activities featuring some more challenging content, including Dungeons, Exotic missions, and full-length Onslaughts. Pinnacle Ops have an exclusive reward pool to claim, but success is not guaranteed.

Crucible: A selection of core Crucible playlists for solo players and fireteams, providing an opportunity to test your mettle against other Guardians. An exclusive reward pool is available to claim, with the same depth of tier as other Categories.

Given this list from Bungie, I think Tomb of Elders would go into Fireteam Ops (Three-player activities for matchmade or premade groups). We’re seeing more of these game modes in the game now – Tomb of Elders, Onslaught. These are repeatable activities, and we could see the return of other activities like The Menagerie, Riven’s Lair and The Coil. Personally I’d love to see The Menagerie return, as that was a well-loved activity, particularly during the period when we could gather extra loot, although that has probably influenced the large amount of loot we’re seeing from Tomb of Elders.

Tyson Green did mention new types of game modes in his article called ‘Paving the way for new frontiers’ back in September.

“We are excited to try new things that challenge your idea of what a Destiny experience can be. We are actively prototyping non-linear campaigns, exploration experiences similar to the Dreaming City or Metroidvanias, and even more unusual formats like roguelikes or survival shooters. Each expansion will present a new opportunity to try something different.”

Let me know what you think of Tomb of Elders, and would you like to see more of this type of activity in the future.