Destiny 2 Rushdown Guide - Boss Rush Challenge, Rewards, And Encounters Explained

Similar to the Pantheon in structure, but not in difficulty, the Destiny 2 Rushdown mode is brand new for Guardian Games 2025. Players take on five bosses, each one more difficult than the last. There is no downtime or rally flags between bosses, so having a strong but well-rounded loadout is essential. You'll want to ensure your fireteam has good synergy, as well as good communication. Your performance directly impacts your score, so the faster you get through each encounter, and the fewer deaths you have, the higher your score will be.

Bosses are made up of encounters from campaigns, seasonal stories, and Exotic missions that can be tackled at Warm-Up, Standard, or Expert level. Standard and Expert level both feature modifiers that make each encounter more difficult, as well as revive tokens, so keep an eye on those to ensure you're not close to running out of them.

Using fewer revive tokens also contributes towards a higher score. While we'd recommend running Rushdown with a fireteam of friends, it does feature class-based matchmaking if you can't manage to put a team together. There is a timer, but completing an encounter extends it, and it doesn't add too much pressure. We completed our first run of all five bosses in a little over nine minutes on Standard difficulty.

To access Rushdown, firstly speak to Eva Levante in the Tower, otherwise any progress made in the activity will not count towards your class score total for Guardian Games. If you want to access Expert mode, the only prerequisite is completing at least one Standard or Warm-Up run through.

Destiny 2 Rushdown bosses

During the first week of Guardian Games, the five bosses will change each day at reset. We'll be sure to update this guide when we know all of the bosses included in the Rushdown activity. For each encounter, you're teleported to the original location of that boss fight, meaning you can find yourself back at the end of the Witch Queen campaign, or deep in the haunted sections of the Moon.

So far, Guardians can expect to face Praxis, the Voice of Riven, Nightmare of Dominus Ghaul, Nightmare of Zydron, and Savathun, the Witch Queen. At the end of each boss fight, players need to run to a Guardian Games flag to begin the next one. The timer will constantly deplete in this interim phase, so it's better to head there sooner rather than later.

Destiny 2 Rushdown modifiers

There is a selection of modifiers applied to Rushdown, which are:

• Randomized Banes - Combatants are granted random banes
• Escalating Difficulty - With each encounter completed, combatants will grow more powerful and aggressive
• Arach-No! - When defeated, Fallen Vandals spawn a web mine at their feet
• Scorched Earth - Enemies throw grenades significantly more often
• Hot Knife - Shanks now have Solar shields
• Martyr - Exploder units have more health
• Fire Pit - When defeated, Acolytes spawn fire pools that cause damage over time
• Empath - Enhanced radar. Take increased damage from melee
• Denial - Taken Vandals summon their shields significantly more often
• Epitaph - Taken combatants generate blight geysers when defeated
• Raider Shield - Scorn Raiders now have Void shields
• Pestilence - When defeated, Psions spawn Void grenades at their feet
• Shocker - When defeated, Goblins spawn Arc pools that cause damage over time
• Air Superiority - Flying units do increased damage

Destiny 2 Rushdown rewards

As always with Guardian Games, there's a brand-new weapon to get your hands on. The Keraunios is a powerful Arc trace rifle. If you skipped Guardian Games in 2024, the Allstar Vector Skimmer is back up for grabs, too. As with last year, you'll be given a temporary version of the Skimmer to play with throughout Guardian Games, but if you want to permanently add it to your Vault, you'll need to complete the Drop In quest.

Finishing three encounters in any Rushdown mode guarantees a Guardian Games weapon to drop during that run. There are five scoring levels: bronze, silver, gold, platinum, and diamond. Reaching high scores in Expert mode gives an increased chance of fully Masterworked Guardian Games weapons to drop.