Competitive Destiny 2 players have new cause to celebrate as the classic player-versus-player mode Trials of Osiris returns in March following a two-year hiatus.
As many fans previously speculated, Trials of Osiris was unlocked as part of the game’s Empyrean Foundation. The community finally hit the project’s end goal late Tuesday night, donating nearly 10 billion fractalines along the way.
Once completed, players were treated to an in-game cutscene that showed their Guardian ascending the series’ classic Lighthouse location, a building that’s fundamental to Trials of Osiris.
Alongside the teaser, Bungie released a short video confirming the new mode and revealing additional details about it. The three-versus-three elimination mode will be familiar to long-time Destiny players. Trials will only be playable on weekends and power levels will be enabled, just as they were in the original Destiny.
Bungie is bringing back a great deal of nostalgia with the update. Destiny 2 will get three player-versus-player maps from the first game when Trials launches: Cauldron, Exodus Blue, and Anomaly. Those will be playable with Destiny 2’s Trials-specific maps.
Trials-themed armor from the first game will be added to the mode’s loot pool. Bungie said that players who get a flawless win streak in the mode will receive a special glow for their armor, which serves as bragging rights.
Trials of Osiris (dubbed Trials of the Nine in Destiny 2) was removed from the game in 2018, drawing criticism from the game’s competitive community. At the time, Bungie said it wanted to focus on reworking the mode and indicated that it would come back eventually.
Delivering on its promise to fix Trials, the main improvement comes in the form of matchmaking tweaks. Game director Luke Smith confirmed that the new version of Trials features “connection-based and card-state matchmaking” to ensure that players are always facing opponents who are in a similar position as them.
To end his Twitter thread, Luke Smith posted a teaser image for Destiny 2’s upcoming season 10 update, which features an Ikelos sword. Bungie already announced that swords would receive a major overhaul when the new season goes live.
Details about the new season remain scarce, but Trials of Osiris will be a big piece of it. Season 10 begins on March 10, with the first weekend of Trials starting on March 13.
