Destiny 2: Hawkmoon Exotic hand cannon - As the Crow Flies and Let Loose Thy Talons quest guide

On Dec. 8, Bungie launched a surprise quest in Destiny 2: Beyond Light for Hawkmoon, the returning hand cannon from the original Destiny. The gun directly ties to the Season of the Hunt story, and sees players dropping in to speak with Spider. You need to own Season of the Hunt to go after Hawkmoon.

Here’s a step-by-step breakdown on how to get the returning hand cannon and what it can do.

Speak to Spider in his lair

The first thing you need to do for Hawkmoon is drop into Spider’s lair in the Tangled Shore. Land on the Shore and navigate your way into the big man’s den. After a short popup, you’ll need to pick the quest up from Spider’s inventory. Now you can officially start As the Crow Flies.

Step 1: Search outside Spider’s lair

Image: Bungie via Polygon

The first step in this quest is to search outside of Spider’s lair, but the game doesn’t tell you what you’re searching for. You’re looking for a Paracausal Feather, which looks exactly like the golden feather that marks the quest’s tooltip.

To find this first feather, make your way out of Spider’s lair and turn left out of the door. Stop before you reach the Sparrow buffer and look at the Fallen box next to you. On top, you’ll see a golden feather resting against the box. Pick it up.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Step 2: Find the second feather

Image: Bungie via Polygon

You won’t find the second feather on the Tangled Shore, and will instead need to look in the lore section of the quest if you want a hint.

But you’re not here for hints. Open your director and select the EDZ. Land in The Sludge in the northern part of the map. Walk forward and into the little gully. Walk left and climb the bluff. There’s an old warehouse on the right.

Face toward the forest and then turn left, you’ll see a broken walkway with a triangular roof. If you look closely, you’ll see the second feather glowing on the ground in the walkway. Climb up and grab it.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Step 3: Find the third feather

Image: Bungie via Polygon

For the third feather, you want to drop into the Cosmodrome via The Steppes landing zone. This one is pretty easy. As soon as you land, turn right and you’ll see a giant concrete pillar. Jump up and you’ll find the third feather.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Step 4: Find the fourth feather

Image: Bungie via Polygon

For this feather, you want to land in the Dreaming City via the Divalian Mists landing zone. Drive forward toward the entrance of the Blind Well. As you approach the giant gates, look to your left and you’ll see the feather resting on the giant pillar. Grab it.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Step 5: Find the fifth feather

Image: Bungie via Polygon

This feather is a bit more hidden than the rest. Make your way to the Moon and land on Eris. Take your Sparrow left and into Archer’s Line. But instead of continuing to the Hellmouth, go down into the Moon via the doorway in this zone. Follow the path until you can turn left and down the path to the Shrine of Oryx — like you did in Season of the Hunt’s opening mission.

Push through the Moon tunnels until you reach the Shrine itself — the scary structure with the small room underneath. On the far side of the room, next to the stairs, you’ll find the final feather.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Step 6: Speak to Crow

With the feathers in hand, go talk to Crow in the Spider’s hangout in the Tangled Shore. He’ll give you a new questline: Let Loose Thy Talons.

Step 1 of Let Loose Thy Talons: Cry from Beyond

Uldren will give you a new task. You need to complete the Cry from Beyond mission in the EDZ. Head back to The Sludge and start the mission at the glowing bird. Follow the crow through the mission until you reach the effigy of Hawkmoon. Pick it up to end the quest.

Step 2: Return to Crow

With the mission done, head back to Crow and chat with him about what you learned. He’ll give you the next step of the quest.

Step 3: Generate and collect 50 Orbs of Power

Crow wants you to power up the Hawkmoon effigy. Put on some Masterwork weapons and run the Kingship Dock Lost Sector in the Tangled Shore until you’ve gotten all 50 points. You’ll earn one point for generating an Orb (get a double kill with a Masterworked weapon) and one point for picking that Orb up.

Step 4: Talk to Crow again

With all of those Orbs in your hands, head back to Crow and give him an update. He’ll send you back to the EDZ for another adventure.

Step 5: Investigate the Coordinates

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Head back to the EDZ, this time over where Devrim Kay hangs out in Trostland. Follow the marker up into the abandoned building. A new door is open up here. Commune with the bird to complete this step.

Step 6: Feather’s Collected

For this step, you just need to follow the path and collect feathers as you go. The mission is pretty linear and the feathers show up like resources on your screen. The boss in the end room will drop the final feather. Grab the feather and head back to the Tangled Shore once the quest tells you you’ve gotten them all.

Step 7: Speak to Crow

With another group of feathers under your belt, head back to Crow and chat with him. He’ll give you the worst step in this entire questline.

Step 8: Kill Champions or Guardians

This is the worst step in this entire Hawkmoon quest. Here, you need to kill either 200 Guardians or a handful of Champions. If you love to PvP, we recommend you have a relaxing evening doing that. But if you want to actually get this quest done quick, we recommend you focus on Champions.

You have a few options here, and unfortunately they change per day and per week. We recommend you pick a Legend Empire Hunt or a Legend Lost Sector depending on what you have unlocked and what the featured mission of the day or week is.

Once you’ve killed a ton of Champions or Guardians, it’s time to reforge the legendary Hawkmoon.

Step 9 and 10: Hawkmoon reforged

Head back to The Sludge in the EDZ. The bird is sitting on the same rock as it was in Step 1. Talk to the bird and play a kind of reprisal of the first mission. When you get to the boss room, you’ll need to defeat glowing enemies and chuck orbs at Taken to remove their barriers. Eventually you’ll get Hawkmoon. Use it to defeat the final boss and you’ll be done with this Exotic quest!

What does Hawkmoon do?

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Hawkmoon’s primary Exotic perk is Paracausal Shot, which causes kills and precision hits to give Hawkmoon a buff. On the final bullet, Hawkmoon consumes the buff to deal massive damage. This turns Hawkmoon into a boss killer. You won’t be taking on the raid boss with this, but yellow and orange bar enemies are toast if you’re accurate.

Transformative is a little odd. And, at the time of this writing, Hawkmoon is a too new to truly understand it and its potential. It seems that after you first earn Hawkmoon, you can get it again from random Exotic drops or from Xur. Instead of the Transformative perk, you’ll instead get a normal weapon perk like Rangefinder or Killing Wind.

Here’s a Tweet with some of the datamined perks.

So while your first Hawkmoon definitely won’t be the best, every Hawkmoon after will be unique.