Destiny 2 Leviathan Raid gear, gameplay, release time, and more

Exciting. Engaging. Fun. Heartfelt. Challenging. These are some of the words that come to mind when thinking of Destiny 2’s first week. From the timed and somewhat unforgiveable nightfall strike to the endless trackable public events from Titan to Nessus, there has been an abundance of tasks for guardians to undertake. Forthcoming is the Leviathan raid, set to release on September 13th at 1 PM EST in North America, 6 PM in the UK, and starting at 7 PM in Europe. The power (previously known as light) level range is 260-280 for the raid.

What To Expect

Spoiler alert! We are now going to talk about possible raid content. Although none of it has been confirmed, it still contains lore-related information and campaign spoilers, so be warned!

Dominus Ghaul has been slain, and it was pretty clear that the Traveler obliterated his “immortal” soul. So who does this leave us to encounter in the raid? Well, it might still be a Cabal, and his name might just be Calus. According to an article on Pcgamesn, the quest on Nessus called “An Invitation to the Emperor” informs the guardian of a ship that is actually living! It is believed this ship is the Leviathan itself, and Calus is there.

The idea here is that Ghaul and his band of Cabal were actually rebels and rejected Calus. The Destiny 2 Collector’s Edition contains a book about the Cabal, and features Calus asking the person reading the book to kill Ghaul and all those others who went with him. Considering Ghaul is gone, it makes sense that Calus would now want to see the guardian responsible.

Gear

Raids used to be mandated if you wanted to reach maximum light level (now known as power level) but Destiny 2 provides other methods to reach maximum power.

However, it is still reasonable to expect that the raid will be the source for obtaining higher level gear the fastest. As per previous raids, it is likely there will be a specific armor set for Warlocks,

Titans, and Hunters that will somehow relate to the overall theme of the raid, along with raid-specific weapons. Using Destiny 1’s reward system as a guide, it might be the case that while the raid is divided into a normal and hard mode, the armor and guns will be the same, only with higher power levels for the latter.

GAMEPLAY

I expect that gameplay to be fairly similar to the raids of the first Destiny, given the overall mechanical familiarity between Destiny and Destiny 2. There really is not any other information out there concerning its gameplay, and it was only said it was going to be “a place that you believe could exist”. This is somewhat vague though, and leaves questions as to whether this is in terms of graphics, story, gameplay, or all of it. So going off of Destiny 1 mechanics, this means a successful raid team will be one that can coordinate and communicate.

Previous raids have included puzzles, mazes, and platforming sequences (think Vault of Glass and having to jump onto the spires at the beginning, the Gorgon maze, or the jumping sequence in King’s Fall just before reaching Oryx). Although these “puzzles” and such may have become simple over time, they were most certainly a challenge when the raid was new and guardians were unsure how to complete an objective or were mastering the mechanical aspects of a task. Furthermore, expect teamwork to be a requirement, with some guardians being assigned to different roles per objective.

So in sum, the goals for the raid are

1. Be between 260-280 power level or higher
2. Gather five of your friends or make some new ones
3. Do what you’ve always done, wield the light and triumph!