Destiny 2's Revamped Trials Of Osiris Kick Off Today

With all the other announcements that went on during Destiny 2's big reveal of the Witch Queen expansion last month, you'd be forgiven if you missed talk of what's going on with the Trials of Osiris. The new Trials go live today, and if you missed it, it's a good time to take another look at what Bungie wrote about the ultra-competitive PvP mode a couple of weeks ago.

The primary goals of the Trials revamp are to make them more accessible, regardless of your skill level or fireteam size; to make them more rewarding, regardless of your win rate; and to make them more engaging, by introducing new modes and making changes to existing modes. The reason for all the changes? Population issues, or as Rituals Lead Alan Blaine put it, "to help support more players with more in-game goals." I guess they never heard of WildStar and how marketing your MMO content to the ultra-hardcore pretty much never works.

Trials access is now based on lifetime Valor ranks and kills and you can queue without a full team. To combat cheaters and other bad elements, however, you will need to have purchased the most recent expansion. Round time has been reduced to combat stalling and heavy and special ammo won't carry over into subsequent rounds.

Those are the major gameplay changes. In terms of rewards, those are now granted at match completion, based on the number of rounds won on your ticket, up to 20, and there are significant changes that allow you to progress even if you don't win. You can also earn a Trials engram for your efforts, which decrypt into a random selection of armor or non-Adept weapons.

Skill-based matchmaking is also part of the new season of Trials of Osiris, and later weekends will see three variations on the mode, through the Labs feature previously seen in the Crucible. Finally, Bungie has implemented stricter security measures in Trials of Osiris, including BattlEye anti-cheat, which you can read more about in its dedicated article.