Destiny 2’s latest Episode, Heresy, is out, and so is the latest roguelite activity called The Nether. While many fans were worried the lack of healing would ruin the experience, it’s actually not nearly as bad as you might imagine.
The Nether activity is the new seasonal activity in Destiny 2 that takes place on the Dreadnaught patrol zones. Similarly to The Coil and Contest of Elders, there are multiple rounds of random encounters with escalating difficulty. This mode’s main gimmick is there’s no health regeneration, and other healing sources have been significantly reduced. Instead, you must look for healing orbs and ammo in destructible pots around the rooms and collect Boons. On top of that, you get 300 additional base health and 75 shields.

But despite the modifiers, the activity is one of the more fun ones in Destiny 2. I did a few runs on Advanced difficulty, running Gyrfaclon’s Hauberk with the new On the Prowl Aspect, and barely worried about my health. The main thing is to play mindfully and take your time collecting pots for heals and occasional revive tokens. You may also find Boons that help with health regeneration, like those that create healing bursts upon using a set ability.
After figuring out the loadout for the activity, The Nether is enjoyable. There are multiple rooms with different objectives, sudden side objectives that wipe you if you don’t complete them, and a lot of secret chests. Some encounters are more challenging than others, like the Tormentor boss fight, but that is to be expected. The Nether feels replayable, which is the biggest praise the activity could get.
At the end of the day, failure is an option. You get a bunch of loot from rounds, secret chests, and the Tome of Want, so even if you don’t make it until the end, you walk away with something. The only thing left is to try again for a true roguelite experience. As Destiny 2 players pointed out on Feb. 4 on Reddit, The Nether is the “first Destiny activity that successfully feels like a roguelite/roguelike, and it’s been a joy to run so far.”
It does seem that some weapons and abilities heal better than others, though. I only ran Gyrfaclon’s Hauberk, but players reported that Knockout on Titan works week while most of the other subclass healing is significantly reduced. This feels unbalanced, especially for Warlocks with healing class abilities tied to Recovery as a main part of their kit. Destiny2Team posted that the developer wants to take a balance pass to address healing-centric builds and options that are not working as intended.