Destiny 2 Haunted Altars of Sorrow guide: Mechanics, rewards, and softlock workaround

The Haunted Altars of Sorrow is the featured event activity in Destiny 2: Festival of the Lost 2025. Players can choose to take part in the six-player mission for PvE or a rumble playlist with a twist in PvP. Regardless, the main objective is to collect candies, defeat enemies, and get exclusive rewards upon completion.

This article explains the six-player PvE activity, Haunted Altars of Sorrow, and its mechanics for players planning to run it. Note that at the time of writing this article, there is a softlock bug that can manifest itself in the final boss encounter. However, that can be worked around easily.

Basic mechanics of Haunted Altars of Sorrow in Destiny 2

To launch the Haunted Altars of Sorrow in Destiny 2, open the Event Hub from the Portal and click on the second tab on the left that resembles a play button. Here, you will find the two main activities featured for Festival of the Lost 2025. Matchmake for the Haunted Altars of Sorrow, and you will spawn with five other players.

Haunted Altars of Sorrow in Destiny 2 (Image via Bungie)

Before going in and participating in the activity, make sure to get the Masquerader Mask from Eva at the Tower. Equip the Mask and use any ornament you like. This armor piece will help you set it as one piece of any armor set bonus through the mod slot.

Once you spawn into the activity, your first task is to hold a plate to summon a NPC named Sir Skullduggery.

This NPC will stay on that platform, and the activity will start. Next, your objective will change to "Bank Candies."

Now, look for another glowing platform opposite Sir Skullduggery and defeat the enemies to collect candies. Take those candies to Skullduggery, and your character will deposit them.

Deposit spot for candies in Destiny 2 (Image via Bungie)

Once you deposit all the candies, the objective will then change to "Alignments Flipped." For this, look for a Hive symbol beside the plates, followed by Hive crumbs, a Hive Shreiker on top of the plate, and an invulnerable Ogre.

Remove the crumbs and interact with the green glow. This will allow the Hive Shreiker on top of the plate to attack the invulnerable Ogre.

Shreiker shooting the invulnerable Ogre (Image via Bungie)

After defeating the Ogre, repeat these steps two more times before the final boss.

Setting up defenses in between encounters (Image via Bungie)

Between each step, there is a 30-second break for you to set up defenses, similar to the Onslaught activity.

Final boss and how to avoid softlock in Destiny 2 Haunted Altars of Sorrow

After you are done with the aforementioned mechanics across three tiers, the final boss will spawn. You will find Hive circles across the arena, which you have to interact with to progress the fight. Interacting with all Hive circles will activate all the Shreikers on top of the boss, leading them to exhaust its invulnerable armor.

Hive circle in boss arena (Image via Bungie)

You are free to damage the boss now. Note that damaging this enemy too much and draining its health with a burst damage before the second phase will turn the Shreikers off, and its invulnerable shield cannot be erased.

To avoid this, damage the boss slowly, let it shield itself again, and then repeat the mechanics.

Rewards from Haunted Altars of Sorrow (Image via Bungie)

The rewards of this encounter include the Hushed Whisper Bow, Gunburn SMG, Arcane Embrace Shotgun, and a Masquerade Mask. The tier of the loot will be determined by how high your power level is.

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About the author

Soumyadeep is a Journalist on Esports & Gaming at Sportskeeda, specializing in Destiny 2 and Gacha games. He holds a diploma in Computer Science and is also keen on game development. He enjoys spending his free time learning new languages and digging into MMORPGs, manga, and light novels.

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Edited by Soumyadeep Banerjee