Here’s what’s coming in Destiny 2’s Warmind expansion

In today’s Twitch reveal stream for Destiny 2: Warmind, the second expansion for Destiny 2, Bungie confirmed that players will be returning to Mars in this add-on. But this time, they’ll be exploring the planet’s thawing ice caps, not its red deserts. The Warmind Rasputin has awoken, and awaits players on the red planet. You will fight alongside Ana Bray and take on a formerly frozen Hive army known as the Grasp of Nokris in order to reach Rasputin’s core.

Warmind also brings quite a few updates to PvP, offering ranked modes for competitive (Glory) and casual (Valor) play. This new Crucible setup offers a real leveling experience for players in either mode. However, the competitive playlist will see you move up and down the ladder as you succeed or fail. Finally, each season will have a PvP-exclusive gun for players to chase after.

Inside the new Hellas Basin, the landing zone for Mars, players will be able to take on a brand-new type of public event. But unlike previous events, this one is triggered by players whenever they want, similar to Court of Oryx in Destiny: The Taken King. In this new event, called Escalation Protocol, groups of Guardians on Patrol will face off against seven waves of Grasp of Nokris Hive, each more difficult than the last. On the seventh wave, players will face down one of five unique bosses that will rotate each week.

In terms of rewards, Bungie made it clear that Escalation Protocol has its own, exclusive armor set and weapons. Each weekly boss will also offer unique loot, meaning that you may have to wait a full five weeks between opportunities. Normal Public Event rewards will drop after waves three and five, but the real rewards hit after the final boss and wave seven. You can see six screenshots of Escalation Protocol below.

Grid View

• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision

Bungie has also been teasing a few much-needed exotic buffs for Destiny 2 weapons over the past few weeks, and the studio finally showed off a bit more in the reveal stream today. In addition to the updates we’ve already seen for Sturm/Drang, Graviton Lance, Skyburner’s Oath and Rat King, the team showed off improvements to Fighting Lion, Riskrunner, Crimson and Hard Light.

The design team tweaked almost every exotic for Warmind, according to Bungie, leaving only a handful of items in their current state. And in case you missed it in the teaser video yesterday, the beloved Suros Regime will return from Destiny.

Warmind will also include two new strikes, Strange Terrain and Will of the Thousands, and an exclusive one for PS4 players called The Insight Terminus. The second raid lair for the Leviathan raid is called Spire of Stars, and will likely launch shortly after Warmind, assuming Bungie continues with its raid release strategy. The prestige version of Eater of Worlds, the raid lair from Curse of Osiris, will also arrive alongside Destiny 2 season three and Warmind.

Bungie/Twitch

Finally, Bungie showed off a much-requested cosmetic change for Destiny 2: Players will now be able to customize their own emote wheel in the menu. Now you can map your fancy exotic emotes to the four directions of the D-pad.

Destiny 2: Warmind, which is being developed jointly by Bungie and Vicarious Visions, launches May 8 on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One. You can check out 15 screenshots from its new campaign in the gallery below.

Grid View

• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision
• Bungie, Vicarious Visions/Activision