Destiny 2has a new activity featured for the 2025 Guardian Games, and it’s just what the game needs. Rushdown pits players against encounters from Campaigns and other narrative missions, revitalizing content that would otherwise remain unplayed. The only problem with Rushdown? It’s only around for three weeks.
There’s a ton of content inDestiny 2, but only so much of it is regularly experienced. The game has myriad Exotic, Campaign, and other missions, but most players will only play through each once, if at all.Rushdownaims to offer purpose to this graveyard of content, presenting a boss rush activity similar tolast year’s Pantheonbut without featuring Raid content. Guardians race through five increasingly difficult encounters that change daily and vie for the best score, rewarded for fast completion and infrequent deaths.
Rushdown is awesome. My Fireteam has had a blast blindly throwing ourselves against the daily lineup and scrambling to recall old encounters. It seems like the perfect way to keep older or unplayed content relevant, but for some reason, it’s only around forGuardian Games.
The case for more Rushdown
Rushdown seems like a no-brainer: an activity that gives a new lease on life to content players aren’t currently interested in. But it’s more than a trek through what’s already in the game. Rushdown can act as a vehicle for Bungie to reimplement what’s been lost to the Destiny Content Vault. Already, the activity has highlighted encounters no longer in the game, beefed up to pose a threat to current Guardians.
Selections from theForsakenCampaign andSeason of the Hauntedhave already appeared alongside more contemporary encounters like Calus or the reworked Zero Hour Exotic Mission finale. Beyond what’s no longer playable, Rushdown also highlights some of the most iconic fights fromDestiny 2‘s narrative. There may not be much reason to go back and fight Savathun at the end ofThe Witch QueenCampaign, but there’s no denying it’s a phenomenal encounter. I’d love to have a reason to play through it again.
With its score-based reward structure, daily rotation, and massive selection of possible content, Rushdown has legs to stand on. After all, if content can’t persist indefinitely inDestiny 2, why not cycle it in and out of the game through this activity? In a perfect world, I could even see Rushdown working like the PvE equivalent of Iron Banner, arriving for a few weeks throughout each season.
The Destiny Content Vault can be our friend
There are few things that dig up more disdain from longtimeDestinycommunity vets than vaulting. The term refers to how Bungie removes older parts ofDestiny 2to make way for the new. While the studio has said vaulting is necessary, others liken it to selling someone a car and then returning five years later to take back the car’s finished interior. Does the vehicle still work? Yes. Will it be easy to sell this car in the future or convince others to drive it? Not so much.
This exact scenario played out during the onset of theBeyond Lightexpansion when Bungie created the Destiny Content Vault and removed the vanilla campaign fromDestiny 2. Over time, other major parts of the game have also been vaulted, including entire destinations and expansion content. The practice still happens today with seasonal (or Episodic) content, leaving the game at the end of an expansion cycle to make way for more.
While we knowthe Red War Campaign will never return, Rushdown might be the next best thing. If content has to be vaulted, it would be nice to know the process came with the possibility of a return and a spotlight. To that same end, how many players are actively running Empire Hunts orThe Witch QueenCampaign? The activity digs up forgotten encounters so they’re relevant or playable for the first time in years—and that’s valuable to keep around.
Rushdown is too good for Guardian Games
I understand why Bungie would want a great activity as the cornerstone of the Guardian Games. The event doesn’t have the same allure as the Holiday-themed Festival of the Lost or The Dawning, and it feels like the studio is trying to convince players to participate each year. That said, Rushdown is too good to be limited to Guardian Games.
I don’t think Rushdown needs to stick around permanently like Onslaught has, but it should come around for more than three weeks a year. Nothing else in the game repurposes old or vaulted content, and the activity could be part of a solution for the content decay possible in any live-service game.
I’m not ready to let Rushdown go at the end of Guardian Games. Who knows what the future holds, but hopefully, Rushdown (or something else that fulfills the same purpose) eventually becomes a more concrete part ofDestiny 2.
