Why is the Heads Will Roll challenge not progressing in Destiny 2?

The Festival of the Lost event has returned to Destiny 2 for 2023, and if you’ve spent any time within the Haunted Sectors activity, you’ve probably noticed something is up with the way the game is currently tracking kills on the Headless Ones.

The main reason to dive into Haunted Sectors may be to acquire Eerie Engrams and Manifested Pages. But as with years prior, players can earn additional rewards by completing event challenges. One of those event challenges, Heads Will Roll, requires defeating 100 Headless Ones in Haunted Sectors throughout the duration of Festival of the Lost.

The problem is that defeating Headless Ones isn’t contributing toward the completion of the challenge whatsoever for the majority of the player base. That’s not good news for players hoping to pick up the Tormentor Mask—the reward for Heads Will Roll—or event newcomers who need to complete the challenges to get the Ghost Writer title.

Fortunately, it isn’t just you. There’s a reason why you aren’t making any progress.

Why is the Heads Will Roll challenge not working in Destiny 2’s Festival of the Lost?

Festival of the Lost’s Heads Will Roll event challenge is currently bugged in Destiny 2, according to a post released by Bungie Help. Defeating Headless Ones in the regular Haunted Sectors playlist is not currently counting progress toward Heads Will Roll—an issue that Bungie is investigating as of Oct. 17.

Players who still want to make progress toward the 100 Headless Ones eliminations required for Heads Will Roll will be able to do so via the Legend Haunted Sector until the bug is fixed. This is the workaround that Bungie recommends in the meantime.

While it’s a frustrating bug to deal with, it won’t actively harm your ability to get this event challenge done before the conclusion of Festival of the Lost. The event is available in Destiny 2 for three weeks, and each Haunted Sector run has a maximum of 12 Headless Ones that can be defeated. This is a fairly easy maximum to reach from our experience, meaning you’ll only need around 10 Haunted Sector completions to finish the challenge.