Everything you need to know about The Reckoning.
Our Destiny 2 Reckoning page contains everything we know so far about this Season of the Drifter Pinnacle activity and its ties to Gambit Prime.
Destiny 2’s Season of the Drifter expansion is all about, well, Gambit. It’s brought with it an overhauled, more competitive version of the mode called Gambit Prime, which features unique armour sets to collect and gameplay tweaks which’ll make it a more intense affair.
On top of this is The Reckoning, though. It’s part of Season of the Drifter’s “gameplay loop” according to Bungie, meaning that you’ll play Gambit Prime, earn rewards, take them into The Reckoning, earn ‘stuff’, which you’ll then bring back into Gambit Prime. So it’s meant to be a fun, grindy circle which promises supremely powerful rewards.
Below we’ve gathered everything we know so far about this activity so you can get a better idea of this endgame activity. We’ll continue to update this page as it evolves, so stay tuned for all the latest!
Make sure you check out our Season of the Drifter guide for an overview of all the content arriving with Destiny 2’s latest DLC.
How to enter The Reckoning
To gain access to The Reckoning, you’ll need to complete a match of Gambit Prime.
Once you’ve done so, you’ll want to head back to The Drifter and he’ll give you a Weak Synthesizer item which’ll go straight into your inventory.
This will then trigger the next stage of the quest which involves completing one run of The Reckoning. You’ll be able to access this area by using the Director, selecting the Gambit icon, followed by The Reckoning symbol at the top of the screen.
How does The Reckoning work?
First, you’ll need to make use of the Weak Synthesizer you’ve been given by The Drifter.
In matches of Gambit Prime, you’ll occasionally get “Synths” drops. They look like that green Gambit Token which the Drifter holds, but in a variety of colours. From what we can tell, they’re largely random rewards at the end of matches, however, some Gambit Prime bounties offer them as rewards too.
Video by Esoterickk
Synths correspond to different Gambit Armour. For example, “Collector Synth” for the Collector Gambit Prime Armour set, “Invader Synth” for the Invader set, and so on…
You’ll then need to decide what armour pieces you’ll want to chase. Say you want to earn the “Collector” armour set, you’d go ahead and use a Collector Synth you’ve nabbed in Gambit Prime to do so.
Hover over your Weak Synthesizer, interact with it and use the Synth. It’ll then drop a special mote in your inventory.
Head into The Reckoning, wander up to the mote bank and deposit this special mote.
Jump into the portal, follow the objectives and do your utmost to survive the onslaught of enemies. If you manage to succeed, head to the mote bank and collect your armour piece!
It’s worth mentioning that each armour drop is random, so duplicates are a possibility.
How to upgrade your Synthesizer
To kickstart the process of upgrading your Synthesizer, you’ll need to complete one round of The Reckoning. This will, in turn, complete a quest step given to you by The Drifter.
He’ll then reward you with a weapon and start stocking a whole host of weekly bounties. It’s these weekly bounties you’ll want to complete as they’ll reward you with Synthesizer upgrade components, as well as armour upgrade materials too.
Manage to upgrade your Synthesizer and it’ll open up access to even more powerful Gambit Prime Armour.
The first “Weak” Synthesizer you’re given by the Drifter grants you access to “Illicit” Gambit Prime gear which is – naturally – the weakest you can get your hands on.
Grab the second Synthesizer and it’ll allow you to spend two Synths and create a “Middling” mote, instead of a “Weak” mote. Insert this into the Reckoning’s mote bank and you could earn yourself “Outlawed” armour upon successful completion.
The Reckoning Tier 1 Tips
Below we’ve put together some pointers to help you complete Tier 1 of the Reckoning.
- First off, you’ll want to be around 630+ Power if you want an easier time with The Reckoning. It’s tough as nails if you’re coming in at the minimum Power Level requirement.
- We found sticking together is the key to success. Going it alone often resulted in our demise as enemies would often swarm and isolate us. Instead, travelling in a pack meant we were all in range to revive one another quickly and use our abilities to complement eachother.
- Warlocks Healing Rifts and Well of Light buffs are incredible for the Reckoning. They allow you to sit back and defeat waves of enemies without getting burst down, and in terms of the latter, help generate Orbs of Light too.
- Try not to use all of your Supers at once. It’s best to stagger their usage so you clear more mobs and generate orbs for eachother, effectively allowing you to string together Super, after Super.
- From our experience, Tier 1’s modifiers seem to change on a daily basis. Always be aware of what they are and make sure you embrace the playstyle they demand. For example, take the “Restorative Light” modifier. This requires you to pick up motes of light from fallen enemies in order to regenerate your health, otherwise you won’t heal up at all. With this in mind, try travelling as a pack, eliminating enemies and rushing through their corpses to pick up the motes of light so you’re constantly regenerating health. Playing from a distant won’t benefit you, as you won’t regenerate health if you don’t collect the motes.
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The Reckoning: Everything we know so far
Here’s a roundup of all the info we’ve got on The Reckoning:
- It’s a Pinnacle PVE activity, meaning you’ll take this on at very high Power Levels (near max) and will reward players with some of the best loot in the game.
- The developers have said it’s going to be an incredibly tough challenge with a countdown timer involved too.
- From the looks of things you’ll face off against increasingly difficult hordes of enemies. Perhaps you’ll need to survive? Or maybe it’ll be similar to the Infinite Forest, in that you’ll race to progress as far as possible through a randomly generated map?
- One of the images from the video above seems to show the mote bank in The Reckoning itself. Maybe it’ll be a race against the clock to bank as many motes as possible, or reach a certain goal?
- You’ll be able to take your Gambit Prime loot into The Reckoning and risk it for rewards. It’s unclear how this will work, but we’d imagine you’ll be able to upgrade your armour pieces or weapon drops from Gambit Prime in The Reckoning.
- So far Bungie has specified that we’ll be able to unlock armour and perks which will boost our Gambit Prime prowess. No word on weapons or other drops just yet.
- The Reckoning will be split into multiple tiers. The higher the tier, the higher the difficulty.
- On launch day we’ll gain instant access to Tier 1 of The Reckoning, and as the season progresses additional tiers will unlock. Presumably they will require high Power Levels to access and contain variations on the map, along with much harder enemies.
- The Drifter’s ship is lugging around a mysterious ball. The Reckoning takes place in this ball.
- From a lore perspective, it’ll provide insight into the Drifter’s relationship with the Nine.
That’s all we have for our first iteration of The Reckoning guide. We’ll be sure to update this page once we’ve got hands on with the mode, so stay tuned for a big overhaul very soon.
