I’m Quietly Optimistic for Destiny 2’s Freelance: Trials Labs This Week

This week, we’ve got another Trials Labs experiment from Saint-14 to test out. This time around, it’s not a new game mode that we’re messing about in, it’s a new take on the traditional Trials of Osiris game mode. Freelance is a node in which Guardians sign up to be paired with other solo Guardians in a thread of Trials matches. It’s got all the same rules as standard Trials games, but you’re going it alone with a bunch of strangers, and that’s where it could all get very messy.

Traditionally, Trials of Osiris is all about teamwork. You jump into a few matches with your best Guardian friends and try to get one over on the competition. You’ll almost certainly be up against the best of the best in the game, but that doesn’t matter because you’ve got your buddies at your back to help you out in your time of need. As long as you’re well practiced and know how to spot when your friend’s in trouble, you’ll be fine.

Freelance is different. You have no idea what the tells of the Guardian next to you are. They might be a sensible killing machine, but they could also be absolutely mad. If they go off on one and get killed within seconds, you’re likely not going to make it that far through this week’s experimental mode.

However, I think that this week’s Trials Labs has a chance of being something Guardians call for as a staple. I’m really interested to see how Guardians react to it and whether they ask for it to stay. Making Trials of Osiris more accessible is a change that’s been necessary for some time. I think it’ll be better with more Guardians playing, and hopefully, all the pros and super serious Guardians give it a chance too so everyone can enjoy it together.

For me, Trials of Osiris comes across as an elite mode for the Guardians who have all the spare time in the world to get good at this game. That’s not to say that they shouldn’t be proud of their skills, but I think that there should be a way that the game mode can be made more accessible to the general pool of awful Crucible Guardians who don’t know what they’re doing, and this is it.

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.