Destiny 2’s Revelry event is now live, and one of its standout features is the new Verdant Forest activity. In some ways, the Verdant Forest is similar in format to last year’s Haunted Forest event. However, as we’re about to explain in this guide, there are a few differences you should be aware of.
Destiny 2 Verdant Forest Gameplay Tips
During the Revelry event’s duration, players can access the Verdant Forest activity from the Tower map in the Director. The default activity has three-player matchmaking enabled, but you can also go it alone if you prefer.
Grab Some Bounties
After an introductory Verdant Forest run, you’ll unlock a series of daily and weekly Revelry bounties obtained via Eva Levante. Many of these bounties involve the Verdant Forest so make sure you grab them beforehand. The weekly bounties grant powerful Inaugural Revelry armor drops while the daily bounties award Reveler’s Essence.
Watch Out for Chests
During your Revelry runs, keep an eye out for special chest platforms that can spawn. These chests don’t appear super-often, but they’re worth watching for since they award a little extra Reveler’s Essence.
Understanding Branch Limits and Timers
The biggest way in which the Verdant Forest differs from the Haunted Forest is in how it handles time. Unlike the Haunted Forest, there’s no limit to the number of branches a skilled team can progress through. Every slain enemy adds time to the match timer, and every branch completed adds time to the final boss encounter. However, even though the Verdant Forest is technically endless, there are some unseen caps you should be aware of.
For starters, there’s a hard cap to the amount of bonus time you can add to the final boss timer. This cap is reached once you get to about branch 20 or so. Once you reach that cap, there’s little tangible benefit to continuing along the branches. You can keep going if you’re hoping for more chests or opportunities to complete Revelry triumphs, but that’s about it.
The Final Boss Encounter
Once the branch run timer expires, all players are immediately teleported to the final boss encounter. This encounter plays out the same way in every run, with players having a limited time to defeat five bosses. Additional enemies also spawn during each boss fight, allowing players to increase the timer.
When the timer runs out or all bosses are dead, a series of reward chests will spawn. The number of chests that spawn is tied to the number of bosses that are defeated. These chests can drop Glimmer, Reveler’s Essence, blue gear, and even Inaugural Revelry armor. Defeating more bosses means more chests and thus a higher chance at rare rewards.
For more Destiny 2 guide content, we’ve also got the lowdown on the latest Invitation of the Nine bounty.