An Ode to ‘Deep Stone Crypt’

It was November 2020. After an excruciating long season with Arrivals that had been constantly foreshadowing the coming Darkness and the only end-game activity that hadn’t been run into the ground was the Prophecy Dungeon (and it was certainly reaching that point after several months), I, and the rest of the community, were chomping at the bit for a new raid. Even since Vault of Glass, raids represent the pinnacle of Destiny content. During these 6-person activities, players are put through the paces through both mechanics and thumb skill. Even the ones deemed “lesser” for whatever reason are still iconic parts of the franchise. The yearly interval between major raid releases make it a whole occasion: a weekend to a weekend of cultivating several different loadouts for several different scenarios, trying to find a balance of survivability and lethality that only really matters during the first few raid clears and the highest elective difficulty content.

The last raid, Garden of Salvation was a visual spectacle, but it was a raid that history would view with mixed feelings. With a finicky tether mechanic juxtaposed against one a visually stunning set piece, Garden paled in comparison to the masterpiece that was Last Wish. Furthermore, the challenges were particularly pain inducing and while everyone was thankful to have a deterministic quest to get the raid exotics, the multi-part puzzle that immediately disrupted any sort of rhy…