Destiny 2’s new Pathfinder system will unify ritual objectives, drive players out of their comfort zone

Destiny 2‘s ritual activities often felt like three distinct realms, but Bungie’s new Pathfinder system is aiming for more cohesion between them with The Final Shape. The developer broke down how the system works in a blog post today, highlighting the Pathfinder systems for ritual activities and the new destination.

Today’s This Week in Destiny blog post outlined the new Pathfinder system in more detail. It aims to consolidate the Destiny 2 experience, give players more agency, make decisions matter more, and reduce barriers, according to the blog post. In practice, this translates to a series of objectives that are related, though the dwindling options push players into different activities or playstyles if they want to complete their Pathfinder track.

The Pathfinder node will be available both within the Pale Heart and as a consolidated spot for all ritual activities, with different goals for each. It will allow you to reset your “card” multiple times per week, though they’ll get a fresh slate once the weekly reset rolls around. Progress seems to be shared account-wide.

Both types of Pathfinder have 20 objectives split into five tiers, with the latter levels having fewer options. Clearing the last tier will award players with the biggest rewards for that week, with diminishing returns until the weekly reset. You only need to complete one objective in each tier to advance.

The Destination Pathfinder has a myriad of patrol-like objectives specific to the Pale Heart, at least for now. They include three types of activities: calibrations, field assignments, and ventures.

Calibrations are your garden-variety bounties, asking you to defeat specific enemies or using certain weapon types and elements. Field assignments are custom encounters that seem similar to Heroic patrols. Ventures are the rarest type and only appear in the final reward.

The ritual node, on the other hand, brings objectives from different ritual activities at once. These bounties may be specific to an activity—for instance, summoning Primevals in Gambit—or may be completed across all rituals.

The system encourages players to “complete objectives that may otherwise be out of their comfort zone,” Bungie says. The funneling nodes by the end of the track challenge guardians to “‘engage with a particular activity, mode, or playstyle” if they want the rewards, according to the developer.

Completing a Pathfinder is supposed to be comparable to finishing a weekly vendor challenge, Bungie said, including Bright Dust and Prime Engrams as rewards. Your first three completions grant you 150 Bright Dust, a Prime Engram, and 25,000 XP. Though the Bright Dust remains the same, the XP shrinks to 4,000 XP and an Enhancement Prism until you reach 10 completions. At this point, the rewards drop to a meager Enhancement Core, 30 Bright Dust, and 4,000 XP.

Bungie teased the Pathfinder system in the lead-up to The Final Shape since the State of the Game address in August 2023. The model was conceived with a focus on the Pale Heart and a promise to expand to ritual activities after the next expansion, but Bungie confirmed the ritual Pathfinder will be released alongside The Final Shape.

The Final Shape is bringing a multitude of drastic changes across its systems, though it’s too early to tell what their combined effects will be to the sandbox, economy, and the game itself. The Pathfinder system debuts along the expansion on June 4.