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Destiny 2 Hawkmoon Guide: How to get the Exotic hand cannon

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If you’ve been a fan of the series since the beginning then you’ve had plenty of reasons to be excited with Destiny 2 recently. Starting with bringing back old zones to explore again, Bungie has also reintroduced some fan-favorite Exotic weapons back into the pool in the Beyond Light expansion. This came as a major surprise, with no mention or lead-up for players to prepare for the popular Hawkmoon Exotic hand cannon’s return. Aside from Beyond Light, you will need to own the Season of the Hunt to start the specific questline you need to complete to earn this old exotic once again. But this is a long and complex quest that even experienced players might struggle with. This guide will show you exactly how to complete it so you can reunite with this classic gun.

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Starting the quest

This quest begins in the Tangled Shore by speaking to Spider, the Fallen merchant. Check his inventory and select the As the Crow Flies quest to set the quest in motion. The first phase will involve tracking down five paracausal feathers, even though the description won’t tell you as much. There are a couple of hints buried in the lore text of the quest as to where you will need to look to find all five, but we’ve got all their locations right here for you.

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First feather

Destiny 2 first feather
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The first feather you will pick up is mercifully close to Spider’s lair. Just walk out, turn left, and look on top of the boxes by the entrance. You should spot the golden glowing feather no problem.

Second feather

Destiny 2 second feather
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Next stop is the EDZ. Specifically, you want to touch down in The Sludge up North. In the ravine with a large boulder bearing a white mark, face the opposite direction and jump up onto the broken-down scaffolding-type structure. The feather is right on the edge.

Third feather

Destiny 2 third feather
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Fly over to The Steppes in the Cosmodrome next and take an immediate right and jump up onto the tall pillar of concrete and metal. Way up top is the third feather.

Fourth feather

Destiny 2 fourth feather
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Now we’re heading into The Divalian Mists of the Dreaming City. Take your Sparrow toward the entrance to the Blind Well and stop by the massive gates. There are little raised platforms on either side of the gate, and this feather is resting right on top of the left one.

Fifth feather

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Our fifth and final feather is the most difficult to find. Going to the Eris landing zone on the Moon, make your way down into Archer’s Line to reach the temple of Crota. You’ll want to take the detour into the Hive’s Hall of Wisdom and traverse the hall until you hit the Shrine of Oryx, where the final encounter takes place in the Season of the Hunt’s starting mission. The feather is slightly obscured near the stairs of this room on the very far left side of the room.

Let Loose Thy Talons

With all five feathers in hand, return to Spider’s lair and speak to The Crow this time. He will give you the next step in the quest that begins with the simple task of completing the Cry from Beyond mission.

Cry from Beyond

Destiny 2 Cry From Beyond
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This is a straightforward mission that you start by going back to The Sludge in the EDZ. Just follow the main path, killing or ignoring the basic enemies, until you spot a glowing hawk outside a small cave. Head inside and navigate the tricky platforming sections until you reach the end, where you will be ambushed by a bunch of Taken. Wipe them all out and you will be prompted to pick up the broken Hawkmoon. Take it back to Crow and he’ll update your quest once again to your next task.

Generate 50 orbs of power

Just like almost any other quest involving restoring an item in Destiny 2, you will need to grind out some orbs of power to get the process started. Thankfully this is an easy, and quick, task as long as you have a Masterwork weapon ready. Two easy ways to do this is to go through the Kingship Dock Lost Sector on the Tangled Shore, or head to the Moon and participate in the Altars of Sorrow public event. With this task checked off, Crow will send you off to your next location.

Investigate the coordinates

This isn’t nearly as cryptic or challenging as it might sound. The location you need to head to on the EDZ is already marked for you, so fly on down to the Trostland area. Just follow the quest, making sure to pick up all the feathers along the path as you go, but don’t worry when you realize you can only get four out of five feathers. You will get the final one after defeating the boss at the end of the quest. With this step complete, you guessed it, we need to go talk to The Crow again. This is where the quest starts to get a little difficult.

Kill Champions or Guardians

Destiny 2 Let Loose Thy
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You have a choice of how you want to do this: Either enter the Crucible or Gambit to get kills on other Guardians or hunt down Champions. Every Guardian kill is worth half a percentage point, meaning you will need to grind out 200 kills to fill up the bar. If you really like PVP, and are really good, then there’s nothing wrong with this method. No matter how good you are though, it is going to be the slower of the two ways.

Champions are worth 3% per kill, coming out to only 34 you need to beat to fill up the progress bar. The obvious downside is how tricky finding them can be at times since the Legend Empire Hunt and Legend Lost Sector change every day and week. Just check what is available, grab some friends, and blow through them as fast as you can. Once the bar is filled, it is finally time to restore the Hawkmoon.

Repair the Hawkmoon

Thankfully, we don’t have to visit The Crow again and can go straight to The Sludge in the EDZ for the final steps in the quest. You will need to repeat the previous step, running through the Cry from Beyond Lost Sector again, only this time the golden hawk will lead you down a different route. You will jump up a cliff off the main path into a new series of platforming challenges that ultimately lead you to the same boss arena as the first time. Take out the Taken once again and the Hawkmoon will appear in your inventory partway through the battle. Feel free to use it to make the rest of the battle a little easier.

The Hawkmoon’s new stats

This version of the Hawkmoon isn’t identical to the one you remember from the original Destiny. The most notable change is the Paracausal Shot perk. This makes every final blow and precision hit buff the Hawkmoon’s final shot up to seven times. If you manage to stack all seven charges up, the final shot is strong enough to seriously damage any yellow and orange health bar bosses, or even one shot for an enemy Guardian in the Crucible.

Jesse Lennox
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jesse Lennox covers all things gaming but has a specific interest in all things PlayStation, JRPGs, and experimental indies…
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