Destiny 2: Lightfall's new Titanfall pistol comes with its own Titanfall time trial, and it rules
The spirit of Titanfall's Gauntlet lives on thanks to Strand
To the surprise and delight of many Destiny 2 players, last night Bungie unlocked all the previously time-gated Fragments for Lightfall's new Strand subclass. Once you acquire them all, you can then unlock the Exotic quest for the new sidearm Final Warning, and that quest has in turn led players to a parkour time trial which absolutely whips.
Final Warning is a Strand primary weapon with a few special abilities. You can hold the trigger to mark enemies in range and fire a volley of special bullets which track marked enemies. Players quickly learned that the tracking on these rounds is pretty aggressive, and quite possibly a problem in PvP (where the gun has infinite ammo, being a primary).
👀 Final Warning exotic sidearm is insane! That tracking!! pic.twitter.com/YqaXl0eybiMarch 3, 2023
Once you've marked something with Final Warning, you can shoot from the hip for more tracking and increased body shot damage, or aim down sights for high-velocity rounds that deal extra headshot damage. It's a neat little Exotic, one of relatively few Strand primaries, and it's seen a lot of fair comparisons to Titanfall's smart pistol.
It turns out the Titanfall overlap doesn't end there. The best part of the short quest for Final Warning is Headlong: Time Trial, a mission on Neomuna. This activity is exactly what it sounds like: a parkour time trial where you race to the finish using your newfound Strand abilities. Given Final Warning's design, this feels like a throwback to Titanfall's Gauntlet. It's also a great way to get comfortable with Strand's grappling hook, as the mission provides easy access to the Strand-empowering threads – my friends and I have just been calling it "the juice" – dotted around the campaign.
You're given an extremely generous amount of time to clear the gauntlet in order to unlock Final Warning, but the platinum trophy time of 1:30 takes a little practice. Here's a clip from my best run so far – 1:16. The middle chamber is a bit sloppy, but I'm pretty pleased with the finish.
You can bet speedrunners will blitz through this thing in under a minute using all manner of tricks, though I don't think we'll ever reach the rocket-jumping absurdity of Titanfall's Gauntlet.
Check out our Destiny 2 Lightfall review in progress for our early impressions of the new expansion.
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Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with 12DOVE since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.