BungieDestiny 2 Episode Heresy is right around the corner, and it’s shaping up to be the first stage of a drastic shake-up the looter shooter sorely needs in 2025.
As the third and final Episode before Bungie goes full send on Codename Frontiers in the summer, Heresy is expected to not only wrap up loose ends with the Hive Pantheon but also serve as a prologue, of sorts, for Apollo.
While the narrative structure likely won’t change too much from previous Episodes, teasers indicate that Heresy will be the most feature-rich, packed with new content and massive QoL improvements to evergreen features.
Here’s everything we know about Episode Heresy, including its release date, new Aspects for all three classes, and more.
Episode Heresy Act 1 release date
Heresy Act 1 goes live on February 4, 2025, with Destiny 2’s weekly reset. Based on previous Episodes, players can expect each of Heresy’s three Acts to run for around one month.
For a convenient reference, here’s when Destiny 2’s weekly reset takes place in a variety of time zones:
- Pacific Time (PT): 09:00 – Tuesday
- Eastern Time (ET): 12:00 – Tuesday
- Greenwich Mean Time (GMT): 17:00 – Tuesday
- Central European Time (CET): 18:00 – Tuesday
- Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST): 03:00 – Wednesday
Sundered Doctrine – New Dungeon
Sundered Doctrine goes live on Friday, February 7. While Bungie hasn’t revealed any of the endgame activity’s loot just yet, the studio did confirm it will see Guardians return to Rhulk’s Pyramid Ship, last seen in Witch Queen’s Vow of the Disciple Raid.
For more information, check out our guide to Sundered Doctrine’s world-first race, including how you can get your hands on a free emblem just for watching the race.
New Exotic Weapons
Episode Heresy will introduce two new Exotic weapons: Barrow-Dyad and Lodestar, which you can learn more about by checking out the section below.
Barrow-Dyad
Dexerto- Archetype: Strand SMG
- Exotic Perks: Panic Response, Taken Divergence
- Catalyst: TBC
- Source: TBC
This bizarre Exotic is an SMG that generates blight as it deals damage. This blight is used to either rapidly refill the reserves when not firing or to bore through enemies when you are. The weapon is also described to “resonate with your choices,” but what exactly that entails is still unknown.
Lodestar
Dexerto- Archetype: Arc Trace Rifle
- Exotic Perks: Starlight Beam, Arc Alignment
- Catalyst: TBC
- Source: TBC
The Lodestar will be the first primary ammo Trace Rifle since the weapon type was converted to Special ammo in Forsaken. As for its effects, you can expect it to be a much better version of Symmetry, with Arc Alignment allowing it to Jolt enemies to deal massive damage and debuff them.
New Legendary weapons and armor
As with every season, Heresy will introduce a wave of weapons and armor to earn through seasonal activities and elsewhere. Bungie hasn’t revealed all of these just yet but has shared concept art of several Hive-themed weapons, including a Sidearm and Fusion Rifle.
Likewise, concepts for Titan, Warlock, and Hunter armor share a similar aesthetic not dissimilar to those earned by ranking up in Witch Queen’s Patrol Zone. Check them out in the gallery below.
Outside of the above, Gambit, Vanguard Ops, and Crucible (including Competitive) will have no arms to earn, including Redrix’s Estoc, the first PR-55 Frame Pulse Rifle to be introduced since the BXR-55 Battler.
You can also expect the Vault of Glass weapons to get reprised in Heresy Act 1, seeing the likes of Fatebringer and Corrective Measure receiving brand new perk pools. Likewise, several Season of Arrivals weapons will also be getting reprised, including Cold Denial, False Promises, and Whispering Slab.
Heretical Arsenal
Per Bungie’s End of Year 2024 developer update, Heresy will see the introduction of a so-called Heretical Arsenal. The developer described these as a “new tier of seasonal weapon,” that “will be clear when they hit your inventory that they’re worth inspecting.”
Details remain slim beyond that, though based on the description, Heretical weapons sound not dissimilar from Into the Light’s BRAVE weapons – rarer versions of standard weapons with a unique skin and the ability to roll additional perks.
However, unlike BRAVE weapons, everything in the Heretical Arsenal can also roll as an Adept weapon, meaning they can use Adept Mods. These unique variants will also have an extra Origin Trait called Willing Vessel, which boosts key stats like stability and reload speed whenever you deal damage.
The Nether activity – Return of the Dreadnaught
BungieThe Dreadnaught, Oryx’s flagship first introduced in the original Destiny’s Taken King expansion as a Patrol Zone, returns in Heresy in the new seasonal activity – The Nether.
This will be a three-player activity with random encounters. The big twist is that it will offer a “roguelite experience,” as Bungie revealed in the Heresy Act 1 developer stream, meaning you’ll be able to become gradually more powerful by picking up upgrades as you progress.
Additionally, Guardians will not regenerate health in The Nether, but you have increased damage resistance to compensate. You’ll either need to collect upgrades or use builds focused on sustain and self-healing to avoid this being an issue, especially on higher difficulties.
However, not everyone wants to stress about being challenged, and Bungie is well aware of this. To make The Nether as accessible as possible, the new activity will feature an easier mode that encourages exploration and allows you to explore the Dreadnought’s secrets in your own time. Who knows, maybe there will be something hidden within.
Trials of Osiris Rework
Big changes to Trials of Osiris are coming in Episode Heresy, with Bungie hoping that they can bring back casual players by luring them in with better loot and a much more forgiving reward system.
The full list of changes coming is huge, but the gist is that you won’t need to go Flawless anymore to earn loot, the matchmaking will be more favorable to solo players, and the modes have been adjusted to be less objective focused – making your ability to get kills the main factor at all times.
New Aspects & Arc Keyword
Titans, Warlocks, and Hunters will each get access to a new Aspect in Episode Heresy alongside a substantial overhaul of Arc subclasses in general. You can read more about the upgrade in our dedicated coverage, but the key takeaways are below, per Bungie’s January 16 TWID:
New Arc Keyword – Bolt Charge
- While you have one or more stacks, from any source — Aspects, Fragments, weapon perks, etc. — dealing damage with any weapon increases your Bolt Charge stack count. Each time a stack is gained, you gain a chunk of melee energy. At 10 stacks, your Bolt Charge is ready, and any ability damage — Arc or otherwise — summons a powerful Arc bolt, dealing roughly the same amount of damage as a Solar Ignition with a smaller area of effect. Different from Ignition though, Bolt Charge is tuned to have more consistent and predictable uptime.
On the Prowl – Hunter Void Aspect
- Entering invisibility marks a nearby enemy as a priority target for you and your team.
- Defeating priority targets creates a weakening cloud of smoke that makes you and allies invisible when passing through it.
- When priority targets are defeated, you and nearby allies gain increased weapon reload speed and stability for a short duration and are granted grenade, melee, and class-ability energy.
Storm’s Keep – Titan Arc Aspect
- Cast your class ability to grant a moderate number of Bolt Charge stacks to you and nearby allies. While behind your Barricade, you and allies gain stacks of Bolt Charge over time and any weapon damage will discharge max stacks of Bolt Charge.
Ionic Sentry – Warlock Arc Aspect
- Defeat targets with Arc abilities or weapons to charge up an Ionic Sentry.
Activate Grenade: Deploy a powerful Arc turret that Blinds on impact and sends out bolts of lightning that chain to nearby enemies and grants stacks of Bolt Charge when it defeats enemies.
Buffs & nerfs
DexertoHeresy will mark the arrival of massive changes to the sandbox aimed at bringing up the power of underused Exotic weapons such as D.A.R.C.I., while reining in the power of overperforming archetypes, such as Rocket Sidearms.
Several existing Exotic armors for Titans, Warlocks, and Hunters are also being rejuvenated for Heresy, including a long-awaited rework of Geomag Stabilizers. For more information, see our breakdown of all the balance adjustments Bungie’s shared so far.
Star Wars collaboration
BungieDestiny 2 is teaming up with Star Wars to bring three new armor sets that will be available for either Silver or Bright Dust as soon as Episode Heresy goes live.
These are themed around the soldiers of the Galactic Empire, with Hunters becoming Death Troopers, Titans becoming Stormtroopers, and Warlocks getting to dress up as the Royal Guard.
The exact pricing of these sets hasn’t been confirmed yet, but based on similar events in the past, you can expect them to cost around 2,000 Silver each – the equivalent of $14.99 USD.
Seasonal artifact – Tablet of Ruin
The full Episode Heresy artifact hasn’t been revealed yet, but we did get a glimpse of what’s to come in the dev stream hosted on January 28, 2025.
Here are some of the standout artifact perks confirmed for Heresy Act 1, with the Tablet of Ruin focused primarily on Arc and Void:
- Maligned Harvest: Rapidly applying Volatile causes your next instance of Void weapon damage to create a weakening burst.
- No Bell: Rapid Glaive melee final lows grant Special ammo Glaives additional ammo. Blocking damage with Glaives increases their melee damage to targets.
- Particle Reconstruction: Dealing sustained damage with Fusion Rifle or Linear Fusion Rifle partially refills the magazine from reserves and grants them bonus damage for a short duration against that target.
- Defibrillating Blast: Stunning a Champion grants maximum stacks of Bolt Charge. Triggers an Arc bolt that heals you and jolts combatants that it damages.
- Void Flux: Defeating weakened targets with a Void weapon applies Volatile to nearby targets. Powerful targets increase the radius of the explosion.
For more Destiny 2 content, check out our tier lists ranking all the best weapons to use in PvE and PvP, as well as how to unlock Episode Revenant’s finale, Kell’s Vengeance.
