Destiny 2’s New Crucible Modes Explained

The Season of The Seraph has arrived, Guardians. Many remain hopeful that this season will prove to be better than the lackluster Season of Plunder. But one place that has so far seen improvement is the Crucible. Long time players will know that the Crucible has frequently felt stale, with limited maps and limited modes.

But on December 6, Bungie has released several new Crucible modes which might bring that much needed freshness back to PVP.

Destiny 2’s New Crucible Modes Explained

Competitive

Finally, Bungie has brought a new PVP mode to Destiny outside the Trials of Osiris. Trials has always been a mode that has garnered a lot of controversy, because it’s incredibly difficult to complete a card and go Flawless, and because of the likelihood of encountering a stack of highly skilled players who seem to live and breathe Trials. While Bungie has made strides to make Trials more approachable, the number of participants has steadily decreased for months.

To that end, it seems that Bungie has decided to take a new approach and implement Competitive. Competitive pits two similarly skilled fireteams of three against each other. Solo players who are worried about being put into matches of paired players needn’t worry. There’s also Freelance: Competitive, in which every player is solo. This significantly levels the playing field and, as a Solo player, I’m grateful for the addition.

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To get your skill ranking in Competitive, you’ll need to complete 7 placement matches, which will determine your starting point on the current Season’s rank ladder.

The game modes you can expect to see in Competitive are Showdown, Survival, and the newest game mode, Rift.

Rift       

A brand-new play mode reminiscent of capture the flag. In this mode, two fireteams are pitted against each other. Your objective is to take a neutral charge at the center of the map and deposit it in the opposite team’s zone.

You can only interact with the charge after twenty seconds, and after that a player from either team can pick up the charge. Note that picking up the charge isn’t immediate. You’ll have to opt to do so, holding down your action button for a second or two before you obtain it. Once you have it in your possession, you’ll need to deposit it in your enemy’s zone. But it’s your enemy’s job to kill you before you reach it.

If you die, you will respawn, but with a five second counter. So, try your very best not to die. And that might be a tall ask, when the maps you’ll play on are close quarters, making them perfect for the classic slide-and-shotgun maneuver that’s haunted the Crucible’s meta for months.

The addition of these new modes bodes well for the future of Destiny. Let’s hope we’ll see evolutions in the competitive meta as well.