A player has soloed the Destiny 2 Vault of Glass raid and its final boss Atheon using a combination of great skill, patience, luck and in-game glitches to accomplish what is normally a multiplayer co-op task. The Vault of Glass raid, returning from Destiny, was released earlier this year with the Season of the Splicer.
Although originally released in 2017, Destiny 2 has been continually updated with new content and is scheduled to continue receiving content updates at least until next year's Witch Queen expansion. The Season of the Splicer is the current season of content, though it is now near the end of its lifespan. The expansion added more than 30 new weapons, armor and quests as well as the Vault of Glass raid to the game. Each week of the season featured new challenges for players to complete and rewards for doing so. Though a lot of the content was free for everyone, players who purchased the Season Pass for this season had access to more rewards, seasonal gear and armor, challenges, and unlimited use/attempts of Override, a six-player matchmade activity.
Destiny player VoteForShifu was able to defeat the Vex villain Atheon at the end of the raid without any other players running it with him. Completing the Vault of Glass raid requires a multipayer team to complete just based off of the mechanics of the raid (via Kotaku) and he was able to use a glitch to do this by himself. After a certain length of time fighting him, Atheon forces players to travel to another area where they are forced to communicate with teammates to complete a challenge before continuing the fight. When using a finisher on a damaged enemy in Destiny 2, a short animation begins. In the fight, VoteForShifu activates this animation and, at the end of it, instead of being transported across the room, he doesn't go anywhere and is able to walk back and forth through the portal to take out the Oracles. Not only did he need to perfectly time the finisher, he also had to retrieve a relic that cleansed a cloudy-vision debuff and kill the gatekeeper to open the portal before the animation finished.
In addition to timing the finisher and completing all those things during the animation, VoteForShifu had to have the right Destiny 2 armor, weapons and mods. It was also essential to kill Atheon in four damage phases to avoid a different instant-wipe mechanic occurring, making the right combination of gear even more necessary. According to a number crunch by PC Gamer, it took VoteForShifu more than 1600 tries to successfully solo Atheon. A raid is meant to challenge players and their builds by attacking them with numerous enemies and multiple bosses with varying difficulties. More than just gunplay factors into raids, and VoteForShifu showed not only his skills but perseverance and dedication to the game through his numerous attempts.
Destiny raids are notorious for being challenging, but the Vault of Glass is one of the most difficult raids in Destiny 2. Bungie, the game's developer, has a close relationship with the community and works hard to make the game better. Seeing the dedication that players have to the game four years later, its easy to see why. At any point in time, any small factor could have thrown off VoteForShifu's entire run and forced a restart, but the player showed that a whole lot of work does pay off.
Destiny 2 is a free-to-play game available now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, Stadia, and PC.
Source: Kotaku, PC Gamer, VoteForShifu/YouTube