So, you’ve taken down the eight Scorn Barons and had your final showdown with Uldren Sov, but Destiny 2: Forsaken is really only just beginning. Once those more immediate threats are out of the way, you begin a lengthy quest to unlock access to The Dreaming City – the homeworld of the Reef Awoken and endgame destination for the latest expansion.
It’s a beautiful if damaged place and positively brimming with secrets. So many that we’re not really sure if everything has been uncovered just yet. Even so, now that we’ve had some time to poke our sparrows around every corner of this new patrol zone, we’ve picked out four of the most interesting activities to explore in The Dreaming City. It’s important to note, too, that many of these are intertwined somehow, meaning progress you make on one activity may also help you towards accessing another.
Complete bounties for Petra Venj
As with the majority of Destiny 2’s destinations, The Dreaming City has its own unique vendor who you can speak to in order to acquire bounties for the surrounding area. Petra Venj fulfills that role here, offering a selection of daily and weekly tasks that you can complete for useful resources and powerful gear that’ll come in handy for other activities we’ll discuss later. Given some of the tougher missions on offer elsewhere, it’s likely the place you’ll want to start too.
The ones you’ll want to steadily work towards are those weekly bounties. Heading here immediately after finishing up the campaign may find you a little under-leveled, but you should slowly increase in power as you tick off a lot of the endgame challenges that pop up once you hit level 50. Some are definitely much easier to get done solo, including gathering resources, killing enemies and looting lost sectors, though more difficult tasks will benefit from being in a fireteam.
Participate in public events
What did we just say about needing a fireteam? Another staple of the Destiny 2 grind, public events of course make a return in The Dreaming City. This time you’ll be participating in the Rift Generator event, which tasks you with defending a generator core from multiple waves of enemy attacks. It is very easy to get overwhelmed here, so tackling this challenge with a fireteam will give you an advantage, though you’ll likely find many other players just roaming around who will be willing to join in.
Either way you approach it, there are some important things to remember. Like many tower defense games, enemies will attack from multiple directions, so be sure to keep your head on a swivel to ensure a rogue Scorn or Taken isn’t lazily chipping away at the core while your attention is elsewhere. The good news is you can restore some of the core’s integrity by grabbing orbs that drop from tougher abomination foes. Deposit them to give the core a boost.
Also, if you maintain a high health percentage through the event, you can initiate the Heroic mode. Do this by destroying the Blights that appear nearby. After three of them go down you’ll be teleported into the Ascendant Realm (more on that later) where you’ll have to fight more enemies and defeat the boss inside.
Tackle the Blind Well
As you’ve been completing the above tasks, you may notice you’ve been awarded Dark Fragments. Petra Venj will be very interested in these, offering you items in exchange that can be used in the zone’s major event: Blind Well.
This functions similarly to the Court of Oryx from The Taken King or Escalation Protocol from the Warmind DLC. First, you’ll need to get a Charge of Light. The Tier 1 version of this can drop randomly as you complete public events and lost sectors, but you can also get them from trading Dark Fragments to Petra. Once you’ve got one, head to the Blind Well in the centre of the map and deposit the charge inside.
That’ll begin the event, which requires you to defeat five waves of enemies while staying within the safe zones that pop up in the arena. In addition, you’ll want to keep an eye out for a specific foe called the Servant of the Plague. This spawns with an impenetrable damage shield that can only be removed while under the Harmony buff. To get this, you’ll need to find an enemy called the Anathema somewhere in the area. Killing it will grant you a 10-second buff that will allow you to damage the shield.
Overall, Blind Well can be very difficult, especially on lower light levels, so make sure you bring a fireteam or group up with some fellow guardians if you want to take it on. The potential rewards, however, are spectacular – especially as you go further up the Tiers, though you’ll want to be around light level 560 before you attempt Tier 3.
Enter the Ascendant Realm
Throughout the campaign of Destiny 2: Forsaken, you’ve made repeated visits to the Ascendant Realm. This dark and foreboding otherworld is a frightening place to be, but with its connection to The Dreaming City it also hides untold rewards for those brave and clever enough to enter it.
To access it, though, you will first need a Tincture of Queensfoil from region chests or public events that will allow you to see secret platforms in The Dreaming City. Following these precarious pathways will lead you to Ascendent Chests, which contain more loot than many of the game’s standard boxes of shinies.
What can be even more exciting, though, is finding a portal to the Ascendant Realm where you can partake in Ascendant Challenges. Only one of these will be open each week and inside you’ll find a difficult unique task to complete in order to receive a reward. For now, it’s up to you to figure out how to solve them, so don’t expect to just stroll in and pop a boss with a few rockets to get some extra loot. Some might require your perfect aim, but others could require some masterful platforming skills or a dash of smarts to unlock their secrets.
