Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more

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The Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost start time is almost upon us. But what will Bungie’s annual Halloween event have in store for players this year?

Here, we’re going to answer exactly that, and cover the Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost start time, end time, how it works, and what you can get from it. Alongside the weekly Nightfall and weekly Eververse store, the coming week in Destiny 2 is set to be packed.

When does the Festival of the Lost 2023 start?

Festival of the Lost will begin on October 17 at 6 PM BST/ 10 AM ET, following the weekly reset. After updating your game, you’ll be able to jump in and enjoy everything the event has to offer. As usual, The Tower will see some big visual changes as it’s overhauled with decorations to celebrate the duration of the event.

Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: A Guardian looks out over the Halloween decorations of the Tower.

When does the Festival of the Lost 2023 end?

Festival of the Lost is set to be a three week long event, and will come to a conclusion on November 7, 2023 once the weekly reset occurs. Once this happens, the custom events, engrams and loot will go with it, and any activities or quests you might have been in the process of completing will either expire or need to be finished next year.

Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: A guardian in the Tower during the event.

Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 explained

There’s plenty returning this year, and some new features coming as well. Whether you’re new to the Halloween event or a veteran of the game’s spooky season, we’ll next go over everything you can expect from this year’s festival of the lost. To start off, here’s a list of everything coming with Festival of the Lost 2023.

  • Eerie Engrams
  • Haunted Sectors
  • Legend Haunted Sectors
  • Hocus Focusing for legendary and exotic gear
  • Lost Pages
  • New Memento
Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: A Guardian wearing a Festival mask.

Eerie Engrams

Eerie Engrams are a new feature for Season of the Witch’s Festival of the Lost. This new type of engram can be earned through completing event-related bounties and activities. Of course, higher difficulty activities like the new Legend Haunted Sector will grant a higher chance for Eerie Engrams to drop.

You’ll be able to do a couple of different things with Eerie Engrams. If you want, you can convert them straight into Candy, the event’s special currency. You can also save them up and use them for engram focusing with Eva Levante. You can also just decode them immediately for a random weapon reward.

Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: A Guardian wears the Masquerader's Hood fashioned after Clovis Bray.

Haunted Sectors

A mainstay of the Festival of the Lost, Haunted Sectors are your primary activity for the event. Essentially, you’ll traverse an expansive, three player lost sector, battling hordes of enemies, and charging up summoning points. Each summon will spawn in a Headless One miniboss, who will drop large amounts of Candy on defeat. This will eventually culminate in summoning a powerful boss, who you’ll need to defeat to complete the Haunted Sector. Haunted Sectors playlist this year includes:

  • The Moon
  • Nessus
  • Europa
  • The EDZ

Completing Haunted Sectors will be the core gameplay loop for finishing Event Card challenges to unlock special rewards. Each completed sector will have a chance to drop an Eerie Engram as well, though these will be most common from Legend Haunted Sectors.

Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: The Event Card for Festival of the Lost 2023.

Legend Haunted Sectors

A new twist this year is the addition of Legend Haunted Sectors. This will be a higher difficulty version of the Haunted Sector, demanding a much greater challenge from Guardians who dare to attempt it. In exchange, you’ll receive better rewards, including more Eerie Engrams and Candy. Make sure to bring your best PvE weapons along for this experience.

Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: A guardian poses inside a Haunted Sector.

Hocus Focusing

For this year’s Festival of the Lost, you’ll have access to a focusing mechanic with Eva Levante. In exchange for a set amount of candy and Eerie Engrams, you’ll be able to not only focus engrams to get particular legendary weapons from the event, but also exotic armor.

Currently, we know the costs for each type of focusing will be as follows.

  • Exotic Arms – 1 Eerie Engram, 2500 Candy
  • Exotic Legs – 1 Eerie Engram, 2500 Candy
  • Exotic Helmet – 1 Eerie Engram, 2500 Candy
  • Exotic Chest – 1 Eerie Engram, 2500 Candy
  • Randomised event weapon – 1 Eerie Engram, 500 Candy
  • Specific event weapon – 1 Eerie Engram, 1000 Candy

There are a couple of things to note here. For expansion-specific exotics, players will need to own the DLC in question in order to be able to focus an engram for it. It also seems that there won’t be any type of exotic weapon focusing, so if you’re hoping to get your hands on Centrifuse or Ex Diris through this method, you’re out of luck. That of course extends to exotic weapons that have quests in-game, even though Wicked Implement might be aesthetically on-point for this event.

Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: The Hocus Focusing menu screen.

Lost Pages and the Book of The Forgotten

During Festival of the Lost, you’ll be able to collect so-called Lost Pages for special rewards and to finish particular challenges. Wear your Masquerade Mask during any ritual activities, and you’ll be able to acquire Spectral Pages. Then run Haunted Sectors on any difficulty to convert these Spectral Pages into Lost Pages, which you can spend at the lectern in the tower to actually unlock the pages themselves.

Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: The Lost Pages menu in the Book of The Forgotten.

New Memento

Mementos are special items you can use when crafting a new weapon to give it a specific look or design, and there’s a new one coming with Festival of the Lost 2023. From what we’ve seen, this sleek black Memento will be earnable as a random drop for the duration of Festival of the Lost, so it may require some grinding.

Festival of the Lost weapons and masks

It wouldn’t be much of an experience without some loot, would it? Festival of the Lost 2023 will include four weapons – one of which is new – which you can earn throughout the event. There’s also an array of new masks to unlock.

The weapons you can collect are:

  • Acosmic – A heavy void grenade launcher.
  • Horror Story – A primary stasis auto rifle.
  • Jurassic Green – An energy solar pulse rifle.
  • Mecharbre – An energy arc sniper rifle.
Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost 2023 start time, end time, event details and more: The void grenade launcher Acosmic.

This year’s masks include:

  • A Clovis Bray mask
  • A Tormentor mask
  • A Pouka mask
  • A Calus mask
  • A Mara Sov mask
  • A Nimbus mask

Alongside them are plenty of returning masks from previous years, from Rahool to Riven of a Thousand Voices.

Festival of the Lost armor

This year’s Festival of the Lost also includes a new armor set for each class, voted on by the community. The “Creepy Crawlies” sets take inspiration from beetles and spiders to create some striking arachnid designs, and should be unlockable during the event through Eerie Engrams.

That’s everything we know about this year’s Destiny 2 Festival of the Lost start time, end time, and event contents. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as the celebrations unfold. In the meantime, why not make sure you’re up to date on the best PvP weapons, best Hunter exotics, best Titan exotics, and best Warlock exotics in the game right now?

How long will Festival of the Lost 2023 last for?

Festival of the Lost 2023 will last for three weeks.

Does Festival of the Lost have unique loot?

Festival of the Lost in Destiny 2 offers unique loot, including a selection of new guns.

About the Author

Finlay Cattanach

Fin is a Guides and Reviews writer for Videogamer.com. He's worked previously with Startmenu, The Loadout, and more. He plays everything from strategy and sandbox titles to FPS and souls-likes.

Destiny 2

  • Platform(s): Google Stadia, PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Web, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X
  • Genre(s): Action, Adventure, First Person, Massively Multiplayer, Shooter
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