Destiny 2's New Gambit Mode Might Be Reason Enough For Me To Return

Last weekend, Bungie opened the doors to a new game mode for Destiny 2 called Gambit, which fuses PVP and PVE together. It was only up for 24 hours, but it was enough to make me consider jumping back into the lootfest shooter for its second year. 

How it works

Gambit is a 4v4 match in which players are tasked to take down waves of enemies to collect motes, a resource needed to summon their team's Primevil boss. The team that can take down their Primevil first wins the round. Each match is a best of 3 series and Bungie is calling this their first  PvEvP game mode.

Each team is placed in its own respective arena. But the kicker here is that you can send a bothersome enemy called a blocker to the opposing side by banking a certain amount of motes. The opposing team will have to deal with these blockers first before they can bank their own motes safely. It's your way of slowing your competition down, and it feels good to bank the max amount of 15 motes to send over a nasty Ogre blocker on the other side. 

5 Motes banked - Sends a Phalanx Blocker
10 Motes banked - Sends a Taken Knight Blocker
15 Motes banked -  Sends a Ogre Blocker

Then, when a team reaches 25 motes stored, a portal opens up every now and then, allowing one guardian from your team to go the other side and disrupt the opposing team. If you die while holding motes, you lose them, so hearing that an invader has arrived is scary to hear, especially when you're carrying more than 10 motes and still trying to clear the blockers so you can store them. The invader has 20 seconds only to do as much damage as they can, after that, they return to their side. 

Bungie might have something with Gambit

It felt like utter chaos during the first match, but after a few matches I started to see the potential in Gambit. I can see the strategies planned with my friends, and the risk of holding motes for too long in order to hit 15 motes. I find the fun in invading to just weaken the enemy team, just enough that they are taken down by the enemy cabal. It's a fun race to see who can burst down their boss first. You need to keep moving, kill enemies, and clear any blockers spawning so that your team won't have to hold on to motes for too long. 

Should I use my super now to clear blockers? Or head to the other side and use my Golden Gun to wipe out 2 enemy guardians, giving us more time to catch up? I was constantly worried about multiple things at once. It felt like if I slowed down even a little the match would go out of control for us. I never felt this much excitement since the first Destiny released The Prison of Elders, a co-op game mode that came with the House of Wolves DLC. That's probably one of the best DLC content released by Bungie for this game, which gave me hope back when I was still heavily invested in the game.

Gambit is giving me the same feeling. What Destiny 2: Forsaken has in terms of content is promising, and Gambit is proof of that. With the new weapons overhaul and more changes to the game's end game, I'm really tempted to jump back in. But the price tag to return makes it hard for me to take the leap, since players are required to own the first DLC expansions plus the base game before acquiring Forsaken.

Destiny 2: Forsaken goes lives on September 4 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. 

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