Great moments for PC games A bite-sized celebration of some of our favorite game memories.
Destiny 2
(Image credit: Bungie) Developer: Bungie
Gjallarhorn was everything for everyone in Destiny. If you had it, you couldn’t touch it. If you didn’t have it, you spent your day trying to get it. It was an exotic rocket launcher, so it was very powerful and became a golden ticket to endgame content. In many respects, it ridiculed Destiny’s own checks and balances.
What made the Gjallarhorn special in a game built with fantastic weapons? Simply put, it rinsed all bosses instantly. Equipped with Gjallarhorn, the 3-6 Fire Team was a DPS machine that could quickly destroy even Destiny’s most striking endgame bosses.
The rocket launcher comes with a unique perk called the “Wolfpack Round”. This caused a single rocket, its payload, to explode into many small explosives that gathered on the target. You didn’t really have to be good at aiming. It tracks erasure targets and is a powerful tool for both PvE and PvP.
It is wonderful. Anyone reading this who played Destiny will love the memories of the heyday of Gjallarhorn. But it wasn’t too rosy for everyone. The Gjallarhorn relied on Destiny’s RNG system as an exotic weapon. This system awards rare weapons after high levels of activity. To get it, you had to perform tough weekly activities or buy from exotic vendor Xur.
Xur briefly sold the Gjallarhorn in the second week of Destiny’s release. It was a bit of a joke that Xur would never sell a rocket launcher again. And when he finally sold it, in August 2015 the Destiny community celebrated it like a national holiday.
(Image credit: Bungie) Another option was to try your hand at Nightfall, a much tougher version of the game’s strike, or complete the raid. To do this, two well-trained companions had to come together. These activities didn’t provide in-game matchmaking (and Destiny 2 doesn’t yet). So if you don’t have any friends who have played the game, LFG (looking for a group) is one of Destiny’s web-based matchmaking systems. At LFG, other players looking for a group posted upcoming activities to allow other players to join. This was a great way to get involved in more team-based activities or to get someone to join a Sherpa in a difficult part of the raid.
However, there was a problem with LFG. Most groups of LFG only accept players who own the Gjallarhorn. The rocket launcher is so powerful that it can significantly reduce the time required to complete high-level activities, so players trying to maximize their run cannot play without the rocket launcher. You were a little confused if you were performing these activities to get the Gjallarhorn.
(Image credit: Bungie) Performing these high-level activities did not guarantee that you would get the Gjallarhorn at the end. In fact, it was incredibly unlikely. As with many exotic raid legendaries, the drop rate was low, but the Gjallarhorn was another level of rare. So imagine the relief, happiness, and pure joy that you feel when that Gjallerhorn finally falls.
After months of raids and strikes, I remember the exact moment it fell for me. My partner, friend, and I decided to take on Crota’s End Raid only as a trio. This was the easiest and most cheese-friendly raid in the game, and even solos weren’t too painful to perform. We rushed deep into the darkness, surrounded by slaves, jumped over bridges, and swiftly passed all birdhouses. Finally, I gave the final challenge to Orix’s son, Crota. We tapped him a bit in an instant and popped up a Gjallarhorn on my screen.
(Image credit: Bungie) The feeling of relief was immeasurable. Members of my raid group were really in tears when this rocket launcher finally dropped for them. Me too. In retrospect, it’s interesting that the items in the game have a lot of meaning, but that’s the whole raid group for the first time. When we went hunting with the Gjallarhorns, we had whales of the time. We put it in the upper layers of Destiny and achieved the impossible.
The trials of Osiris turned out to be impossible to reach the lighthouse, but that’s another story.
