Destiny 2’s raid is expanding in a massive way in Curse of Osiris

Destiny 2 developer Bungie has been hinting at “new raid content” for a while now, and the studio finally offered details today on what exactly that will mean — a lot of details, actually — in the initial reveal livestream for the game’s first expansion, Curse of Osiris.

Bungie has been legendarily tight-lipped about Destiny’s raids ahead of time, but that’s changing with Curse of Osiris. The studio spent nearly a quarter of its hourlong livestream discussing its plans for expanding on Leviathan, the raid that launched with Destiny 2.

Leviathan itself isn’t changing, although Bungie is raising the recommended power level for it to 300 — the same as the Prestige version of the raid now — and is increasing the level of the rewards commensurately. Curse of Osiris will not include a new raid per se. Instead, the expansion will introduce a new kind of raid exercise that Bungie is calling a “raid lair.”

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“A raid lair is a brand-new six-player raid activity,” said Brendan Thorne, senior game designer at Bungie, during today’s livestream. “It’s an entirely new set of encounters, new puzzles, new loot, completely new places to explore [...] and then we have a brand-new final boss for you to fight.”

Stuart Monske, senior designer on Bungie’s raid team, noted that Leviathan, Eater of Worlds — that’s the name of this raid lair — is “not as lengthy as the original Leviathan.” So it’s an activity of raid-level difficulty that will reward you with raid gear in the form of new armor, weapons and cosmetic items, but it won’t require as much of a time investment as Leviathan does. Eater of Worlds will send players into the depths of the Leviathan spacecraft: “the belly of the beast,” as it were.

Thorne noted that Eater of Worlds isn’t any less challenging than raids typically are, saying, “You’re gonna die a lot.” But for those who are up to the task, there will be a Prestige mode for the raid lair, which Monske called “brutal.” In addition, raid lairs will support Destiny 2’s Guided Games feature, although Guardians will have to be at a power level of 310 to lead others through the activity.

Bungie/Activision via Bungie/Twitch

Asked about the motivations behind developing raid lairs, Thorne said the top one was that Bungie “wanted to make more raids.” Monske added that variety was the main goal, saying that a different exercise like this allowed the team to experiment with “more puzzle-y raids, more sandbox-focused raids.” He said time commitment was a key factor, too: “Sometimes it’s hard to get a full group of six people together for three hours or so.”

Eater of Worlds will be joined by a second raid lair for Leviathan in Destiny 2’s second expansion, which is scheduled to arrive next spring. Bungie will treat the rollout of Eater of Worlds like that of a full raid, setting it live at a specific time and clocking fireteams to see who can be the first group in the world to complete the raid lair. The studio will launch Eater of Worlds shortly after Curse of Osiris itself, which arrives Dec. 5 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One.

You can watch the full raid lair segment of today’s livestream below, starting at the 14:30 mark or so.