How to get Dead Man’s Tale in Destiny 2

Destiny 2’s Dead Man’s Tale is easily one of the most stylish Exotics in the game and also had one of the most legendary ways of achieving it. This scout rifle is styled after an old-west repeater, in true Tex Mechanica fashion, and it was the terror of PvP game modes for a chunk of Year Four.

This Exotic arrived in Season of the Chosen as part of the weekly Presage quest. This terror-filled mission tasked players with finding the source of an emergency signal aboard the Glykon, a former Cabal ship now in ruins. Dead Man’s Tale wasn’t the only reward for it, though, with players uncovering new clues each week for 12 weeks to uncover a major secret (and get an Ascendant Shard in the process). With the release of The Witch Queen, Dead Man’s Tale was available exclusively through Xûr, with one random roll of it each week.

Presage was thrown to the (Dark) ether when The Witch Queen released, which resulted in the vaulting of most Year Four content. Over a year after the mission became unavailable, though, it made an even more triumphant return—this time, with Dead Man’s Tale as a craftable Exotic and a minor change to its perk pool.

How to craft Dead Man’s Tale in Destiny 2

Starting with Season of the Witch in August 2023, you can get Dead Man’s Tale as it was originally intended: by playing through the Presage mission. Presage will be available through the weekly Exotic mission rotator, which will also reprise Vox Obscura and Operation: Seraph’s Shield. The catch is that you need to own either Beyond Light or Season of the Chosen to obtain Dead Man’s Tale that way.

Your first completion of Presage will give you a Dead Man’s Tale with a red border, meaning you can extract its pattern and start crafting it as soon as you finish the mission. After you’ve obtained it, you can just level it up (either by playing or by spending your resources) and start tweaking it to your taste. You’ll need multiple completions on any difficulty to obtain intrinsic upgrades to it, though, which will also let you select different parts and traits.

Can you get Dead Man’s Tale without playing Presage in Destiny 2?

Dead Man’s Tale was one of two Exotics that could drop with random rolls in Year Four, preceded by Season of the Hunt’s Hawkmoon. This gave players more and more incentive to run Presage every week if they wanted to chase specific perks, such as Outlaw or Vorpal Weapon. Bungie wanted to maintain the possibility for random rolls, so developers assigned Xûr as its new drop source after The Witch Queen.

That possibility, however, is gone: Xûr has stopped selling Dead Man’s Tale each week, though he continues to bring a Hawkmoon roll every Friday. As such, there is no way to get Dead Man’s Tale without playing Presage, which is only available once every three weeks from the Exotic Mission Rotator. There’s plenty of reason to run the mission, though: it can be a fun experience, even if it has been power crept completely, and you’ll also score some season 17 gear at the end of the mission.