Destiny 2: How Vesper’s Host Became the Most Challenging Dungeon Yet – Xbox Wire

In Destiny 2, dungeons are designed to be self-contained experiences often relating to a wider narrative branch of the Destiny universe, but built with their own gameplay mechanics, boss encounters and, most importantly for many, themed loot. The challenges faced within a dungeon require wits and a coordinated fireteam (although the most seasoned players can try to complete it solo), and conquering a piece of high-level content like this is one of the most rewarding Destiny 2 experiences.

With that in mind, they’re also a marvel of game design. When you first enter a dungeon, almost everything is a mystery. There’s no waypoint, no guidance – even finding the right way to go is a test of your intuition, and that’s before you’ve encountered any puzzles, enemies, or high-octane boss encounters.

Destiny 2’s newest dungeon, Vesper’s Host, was introduced at the start of Revenant earlier this month and is an exciting continuation of the dungeon entries. Vesper’s Host takes Guardians into the depths of an abandoned Braytech space station being damaged by a mysterious anomaly, and the setting takes an unnerving horror turn as you uncover its depths.

Inside this atmospheric new environment, you may come across a new set of armor, as well as a fresh pool of weapons that are exclusive to this dungeon. Among them is the returning Exotic Sniper Rifle Ice Breaker, an original Destiny weapon that has finally returned to the game with a set of updated perks that complement the current Destiny 2 experience. With plenty of brand new and returning treats up for grabs, it’s the perfect time to drop in and test your mettle against what lurks in Vesper’s Host, and if you’ve not been following the evolution of Destiny 2’s dungeons, you’re in a for a pleasant surprise.

We spoke to several key designers and developers on the Destiny 2 team to break down some of the core elements of Vesper’s Host,  discuss what goes into drafting and crafting the dungeon experience, and ask about some of Vesper’s Host unique additions that make it the most mechanically unique dungeon yet.

Delving In

Before a dungeon can enter its granular planning stages, several high-level decisions need to be made about its setting, and how it slots into the catalogue of existing dungeons, according to Destiny 2 Design Lead Brian Frank. The team intentionally seeks to create contrast from one dungeon’s theme and setting to the next. The last dungeon, Warlord’s Ruin, took place in a brisk, fantasy-style arena, full of snow-capped medieval architecture – a starkly different setting to the hard sci-fi design of Vesper’s Host.

“Guardians have explored Braytech facilities before, and while previously it’s felt very clean and sterile, a big environmental goal was to take something familiar and twist it into a new context that felt fresh and exciting,” explains Ryan Baker, Senior Environment Artist on Destiny 2. “There’s a theme of space madness with the Fallen spinning this web compelled by an alien mind, something has broken containment and swept through the station.

“We really wanted Guardians to step onto the station and feel like finding an old crime scene after something terrible happened.”

Destiny 2 also shines in its ability to show Guardians the way with environmental nods and intuitive level design, a shrouded ledge or a well-placed light that alludes to a correct path. However, this aptitude is not always used for good – players are often tricked by what appears to be the way forward, only to meet a quick end in a trap or down a hole. The peril is short-lived and of no consequence (unless you’re aiming for a flawless run with zero deaths) but laying out believable paths to send players the wrong way also encourages exploration and quick thinking.

“Using Revenant’s horror theme, we can run with a film analogy [in Vesper’s Host],” Baker tells us. “Our approach is like writing a script. Thinking of the environment as the player journey, we need to identify where to create tension or provide a moment of respite to take in the scenery and get your bearings. The same peaks and valleys come with a good horror movie, and too many traps, like jump scares, could become stale or even tedious. Within the context of the entire dungeon experience, including the surrounding encounters and major emotional beats, we can space traps out appropriately to always feel warranted.”

“A good example: The second encounter is frantic and intense. After clutching the win, Guardians will begin a spacewalk for the second traversal. It is a quieter moment to breathe and absorb the new environmental storytelling. Just as they get comfortable, we start raining down lightning bolts, ramping up the tension by introducing a new environmental hazard spewing from the anomaly.”

A New Encounter

Once you’ve made your way through the winding, haunting corridors of the station, chewed through waves of smaller enemies and familiarized yourself with the dungeon’s mechanics, you’ll land at a boss room. Boss encounters are a core component of dungeons – and there are usually three very different encounters throughout each.

As a basic overview, players will typically be presented with a one large enemy that is immune to damage, and engaging with a set of mechanics or goals will unlock a limited-time phase to deal as much pain as possible before the immunity returns. The aim is to repeat these steps until the threat is taken care of, which sounds easy enough, but on a first run, it’s a tough battle.

“We start all encounter designs by defining an experience statement, which describes the player fantasy for the encounter in one sentence,” explains Chris Manprin, Design Lead on Destiny 2. “They are guideposts to help drive a number of key design decisions, including narrative, boss behaviors, puzzle mechanics, and map layouts.”

With that in mind, Vesper’s Host features a particularly interesting encounter – Raneiks, a Servitor that can shift its form between one large sphere and nine smaller ones. It’s the first dungeon boss that places a premium on area of effect damage that can hurt several smaller targets at once, rather than solely hitting big enemy as much as possible, which is a first for Destiny 2’s dungeons.

“In the Raneiks Unified encounter, being swarmed was a core part of the experience statement,” Manprin adds. “This theme resonates throughout many elements of the encounter design. Players are trapped in a confined space, filled with enemies, then when teleported outside they are immediately surrounded by Shanks. Raneiks bombards players with bombs, and even in death, Raneiks multiplies tenfold.  Almost every element of this encounter ‘swarms’ the player.”

The unique design of Raneiks also in turn inspires versatility in how Guardians choose to conquer it, which, for a game that features over 1000 unique weapons and countless perk possibilities, is always extremely welcoming. With multiple targets to damage, there’s much more room to get creative with those high-level loadouts.

“We’re always looking for ways to react to the evolving meta and create experiences that feel unlike anything players have encountered before,” explains Julia Condemi, Designer on Destiny 2. “With Raneiks, we wanted to build a boss that would reward players for using their knowledge of the game’s sandbox and their collection of weapons in a way they hadn’t thought about previously.

“You’re welcome to use your old reliable favourites, but this boss says, ‘Hey, that Grenade Launcher you haven’t used since you got it? Those Heavy weapons with the One for All perk you have collecting dust in your vault? Those might be great here!’”

A Worthy Contest

The Destiny team also had another ‘first’ to consider during the launch of Vesper’s Host. This is the first dungeon launch to include Contest Mode – which challenges players to complete the dungeon at a heightened difficulty within the first 48 hours of it being live. This mode has typically been reserved for Destiny’s raids – endgame content that challenges a full fireteam of six to complete. That said, the community is still extremely enthusiastic about dungeon completion at launch – seasoned players will still race to be the first to beat it, and the introduction of Contest Mode to Vesper’s Host is an official acknowledgement of such and adds that necessary extra hurdle for Destiny 2’s most practiced Guardians.

“We wanted to reinforce and amplify what was already happening in the community when a new dungeon launched,” says Frank. “Given historical completion times for dungeons without Contest Mode, we knew the difficulty would need to be increased to make the event worthy of the caliber of teams making day one attempts. “

The pressure of competition and a limited time to earn rewards sees these players rapidly develop and refine strategies for overcoming Vesper’s Host’s unique puzzle mechanics, but it’s worth nothing that unlike Destiny 2’s raids, dungeons are designed to be completable solo. This is an incredibly aspirational achievement, the most difficult thing to do in the game by a significant margin, but possible.

“Every encounter is designed with the intent that a single player with mastery over the encounters, sandbox, and buildcrafting can complete it,” says Manprin. “Mechanics that lean too far into coordination or complexity are modified with consideration for the solo experience.

“The addition of Contest Mode came with systemic changes to support it.  We branched the difficulty settings for normal and contest, which allowed for tuning boss health independently between the two versions.”

Breaking the Ice

Dungeons are not built to be completed once – they’re designed to be run multiple times and contain a varied loot pool of armour and weapons, as well as one Exotic weapon with a rare chance to drop when the dungeon is completed. In Vesper’s Host, the Exotic drop is Ice Breaker, a reintroduction of an Exotic Sniper Rifle that dates all the way back to 2014’s Destiny.

Longtime fans of the franchise have been eagerly awaiting the return of the weapon, but the team felt Vesper’s Host’s final encounter made for the perfect place to finally earn it back.

“With us coming into Destiny‘s 10th Anniversary year we’ve been looking at Destiny weapons players remember most fondly, and Ice Breaker is right at the top of that list,” says Chris Proctor, Senior Design Lead. “Given how strong the weapon is in endgame PvE content, it’s fitting it come from a challenging PvE source, and so Vesper’s Host made a ton of sense.”

“We put some time into updating the design of the weapon to match the Destiny 2 sandbox, trying to retain the feel of the original, but making the loop more interesting and giving it the Exotic 2.0 treatment to bring it up to our Destiny 2 Exotic weapon quality bar. At the end of this design process, we had something we were excited to ship, incorporating high ammo uptime and a Solar and Stasis tie-in.”

If you’re itching for a new Destiny 2 challenge or you’re a seasoned Guardian that’s due another run to score the coveted Ice Breaker Exotic, Vesper’s Host is available to play in Destiny 2: Revenant now.