Five Things To Know About Destiny’s Trials of Osiris

A recent visit to Bungie provided the opportunity to dig in and explore the House of Wolves expansion, including several hours of devoted time in new Crucible PvP. While I really enjoyed the four new maps that Bungie is adding this time around, I have to say that I was surprised how much I loved the new Trials of Osiris event.

The Trials of Osiris are set up to be an endgame activity for devoted players, akin to raids for PvE enthusiasts. As such, the level of time commitment and competition is expected to be pretty high, but with appropriate rewards that put you on par with the most powerful gear in the game.

Here’s the scoop on the new regularly scheduled event.

The Event 

If you plan on engaging with Trials of Osiris, you should think about clearing your weekends beginning later in May. That’s because the new Crucible event is scheduled to run every week, from Friday until the weekly reset very early on Tuesday morning. You must own House of Wolves to participate in the Trials. Like the arrival of Xur every weekend, Trials of Osiris will be something to look forward to, especially since the rewards you can shoot for sound like they are set to change every weekend.

On any given weekend, the Trials of Osiris will play out on a single map, rather than a selection of different maps. This structure is in place to force players to learn the intricacies of any given environment, and use what they learn to help their team succeed.

Entry and Scoring

To enter the Trials, you’ll need a Trials Passage. However, they’re not hard to get. You receive your first Trials Passage in one of the expansion’s intro quests, and Bungie says that you can get subsequent Passages by handing in your previous one. Even if you didn’t have a Passage to turn in, I’m told it will only be a minor cost to purchase a new one.

The purpose of the Trials Passage isn’t to be a barrier for entry, but rather to act as a scorecard. Any one Passage completes when you have attained nine wins, three losses, or the weekend’s tournament ends. Once you’ve completed your passage, you’ll head back to the Reef (the new social space) to turn it in.

To enter, you’ll also need to track down two friends (or online allies off of the inevitable LFG websites) with whom you can join up. Trials of Osiris will not let you enter solo, and won’t automatically match you with allies. You should think carefully about who you bring with into the fight, as like in Iron Banner, your power and level is factored in during Trials matches.

While you need to find your own allies, Destiny will match you up against an enemy team. Rather than look for a team that is perfectly matched to your skill level, Bungie says that enemy match-ups will be slightly more random, forcing you to confront teams of all skill levels, and prove that you can stick it out. After a match, unlike in a normal Crucible competition in which you might face the same team repeatedly, Trials matches will throw you against a different team each time.

Elimination

The Trials of Osiris introduces a new game mode as its centerpiece. The 3v3 Elimination mode will always be the game type during Trials, but the new mode will also occasionally show up as an option in other Crucible play lists.

Elimination is played in a series of rounds, and the first team to five round wins is the victorious team for the match. A single round is completed when all three members of one team are dead. You can revive your allies after they’re killed, but you can never revive yourself. That means that as long as one of your teammates is still alive, there’s still a chance for victory.

If you quit out of a match at any time, it counts as a loss. Stack up multiple match wins, and you’re in the running for some sweet gear.

The Rewards

The rewards from this new game mode are varied and plentiful. New gear pieces sometimes drop as random rewards at the end of a match. In addition, when you complete your Passage (read: scorecard) you can return to the new NPC, Brother Vance, to see which rewards you qualify for. Bungie described four reward tiers. Stone tier demands two wins, Bronze takes three wins, Silver comes from six wins, and Gold tier requires eight wins. Bungie didn’t comment when I asked them about what you might get (if anything) for nine wins.

No matter which tier of rewards you hit, you are then able to purchase anything from Brother Vance that is available at your tier or lower. For instance, a silver tier might allow you access to a chest piece you’ve had your eye on, but you won’t be able to buy the gold tier scout rifle you’ve been coveting. Regardless, new gear and weapons are purchased with relatively small amounts of glimmer.

Some tiers provide Passage Coins as a reward, and these in turn can be used to buy Trials Supplies. I saw three distinct Supplies available for purchase. A Favor of Osiris can be used to start your Passage with one win already marked on your scorecard. A Mercy of Osiris forgives your first loss in your Passage. A Boon of Osiris makes it so that one win counts as two wins. By using these different Trials Supplies, committed players can get to those higher reward tiers over time, even if they’re not winning as many matches as they might hope.

You can re-enter the tournament as many times as you want over the course of a given weekend (with a new Passage), and hopefully do well enough to get that armor or weapon you’re shooting for. Between random match drops and purchases from Brother Vance, Bungie promises two full sets of armor gear for every class, along with a broad spectrum of new weapons. This new gear will be at the new level cap for gear, and I was also told that much of the gear has specific perks that help out in Crucible matches. Plus, in case you haven’t noticed, the Trials gear has a cool Ancient Egyptian vibe that should look great when worn as a set.

Hands-On Impressions

I’ll be the first to admit that my time in Destiny leans more towards PvE than PvP. Cooperative nightfalls and raids are my cup of tea, and my time in the Crucible has mostly been driven by the completion of various exotic weapon bounties.

With that said, I fully intend to dive into the Trials of Osiris at the first opportunity. Not only are the rewards excellent, but I really enjoy the new Elimination mode and its quick, tactical tone. The matches I played were fast and deadly, and learning the twists and turns of the map was a lot of fun. When I played, the Trial played out on Mercury’s Burning Shrine map, and the tight confines of that 3v3 area forced cooperation and smart flanking decisions from my teammates. Later weekends will feature other maps.

The reward structure and scoring system strikes me as challenging but fun, and I love that even if I have a disappointing Passage, I can easily hop back in for another run later in the weekend. I also appreciate the way that purchaseable Supplies can help an individual find success, even if someone is not the best player in the world.

I also think it’s great that Bungie is investing in increased end-game PvP options for its players. Based on my experience, the Trials of Osiris are highly replayable. I’ll be eager to see the conversation that grows up around each map as teams develop distinct strategies for victory.

I’m honestly disappointed that Bungie has chosen not to allow for allied matchmaking in the Trials of Osiris, as I foresee numerous situations where gathering a team of three might be difficult. It’s my only complaint in what I otherwise found to be a great new addition to the Destiny repertoire.