Remember When Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost Awarded Thunderlord?

Festival of the Lost in Destiny 2 wasn’t always as good as it is in 2021. In fact, it used to be pretty rubbish. There was a time when Bungie simply put out the same event year after year without much in the way of rewards, expecting Guardians to jump in and play simply because there was something new to take on. For a while, it worked, but it didn’t take that many years for all of us to get sick of the repetition, and that forced Bungie to make a change. Thankfully, that change was one of the greatest things ever seen in the game, and in this article, I’m reminiscing about it.

One year, Bungie pulled an absolute blinder and dropped a totally new Exotic weapon as part of Festival of the Lost. This weapon was Thunderlord, and technically it was actually a legacy weapon that had been revamped and brought over from Destiny 1. The highlight for this whole thing was the quest that led you to Thunderlord, which unlocked over a series of weeks.

This was the first sort of weekly quest progression we’d seen in the game. Each week, we had to go out and complete a new part of the quest that we ultimately knew was going to lead to Thunderlord. The thing was, we didn’t know how it would end. It turned out that the final part of that quest was a love letter to Destiny 1 Guardians, but also allowed everyone who wanted to to walk around a Crucible arena.

Once you’d picked Thunderlord up, you really got to feel its power. This Exotic did all sorts of mad stuff, like summoning lightning from the sky and obliterating enemies all around you. Unfortunately, I think the weapon has fallen out of favor, but that’s Bungie’s fault. There’s no focus on Machine Guns in Destiny 2, and that’s a crying shame. These weapons are the most fun to use, and setting Guardians up with them so that they can go out and cause all kinds of havoc is really what Destiny 2 should be all about. After all, you could clear a room full of enemies in seconds with Thunderlord.

Let us know if you remember getting Thunderlord for the first time in Destiny 2 in the comments.

Jamie Moorcroft-Sharp

I'm an avid Destiny 2 fan and player. I fell in love with Destiny 1 during the early alpha and have been hooked by the universe ever since. I really enjoy playing with other Guardians, speculating about the lore, and writing about as much of the Destiny universe as I can.