A chainsword, a gun firing bullets from another timeline, and Destiny 2: Beyond Light's other new Exotics

We should have been playing Destiny 2: Beyond Light by now, but while the expansion's delayed to November we can at least gawp at some of its gear and imagine how cool it might be to use. The answer is: quite cool. Bungie today detailed the new Exotic-quality weapons and armour coming in Beyond Light, and some sound powerful, some sound like they'll open up new tactics, and some just sound great fun. A sniper rifle summoning lightning? Warlock punches spreading contagious poison? My Hunter's dodge becoming a blink? I'm game.

Bungie get into more detail about the Exotics on their site. They are:

• The pulse rifle No Time To Explain returns from Destiny 1 with the same ability to refill ammo on precision hits (plus Stasis-stricken targets this time), and the new ability to... charge up and summon a portal which fires bullets from another timeline? Alrighty then. A bit like a Warlock's Arc Soul, but attached to a gun?
• Cloudstrike, a sniper rifle which makes headshots generate lightning bolts on that spot, and rapid precision hits will summon even more zaps. Please let this fill the hole left in my heart by Thunderlord's nerf.
• The Lament, a honking great saw-toothed sword where, hang on, excuse me, let me quote this directly: "Block with The Lament to rev the blade, then shred through shielded enemies. At its peak, damaging an enemy will heal the wielder." REV THE BLADE? I'm always up for chainswords (or I guess it's like an oscillating electric carving knife), especially when swords are actually good for once.
• Salvation's Grip, a grenade launcher which fires Stasis crystals that will freeze nearby enemies, and you can charge it up to increase the freeze radius and number of crystals. Eh, sure.
• Mask Of Bakris, a Hunter helmet which replaces Dodge with a longer-range Shift, which also temporarily cloaks you. So a Blink? As if my Dodge wasn't already powerful enough.
• Arthrys's Embrace, Hunter gloves which give your weighted knife a second ricochet and where "rapid precision hits gain a damage bonus and can temporarily stagger enemies". Sounds meme-y, maybe, but I'd watch those novelty knife kill videos.
• Precious Scars, a Titan hat which... gives you and nearby pals an overshield aura upon reviving? Mate, I'm not planning to die.
• Icefall Mantle, the Titan gloves which replace the Barricade ability with an overshield. My god, have Bungie created a reason to put points into Resilience?
• Necrotic Grip, a pair of Warlock gloves making your melee attacks "corrupt enemies with increasing damage over time" then killing a corrupted baddie "spreads the corruption to nearby targets and restores melee energy."
• Dawn Chorus, a Warlock hat buffing Daybreak blasts with extra damage and a burn, plus you gain melee damage from burn damage ticks. Sounds unexciting, but the hat looks like a cross between a censer and a mantis so I strongly recommend it.

Without hard numbers and experience to back up the descriptions, it's hard to tell which will be really be great. Hunter blink sounds nice, but Wormhusk Crown already makes my Dodge murderously rude in PvP. What can Cloudstrike offer over Xenophage, especially when it requires me to pssh actually aim? Will Necrotic Grip do enough damage to be fun? Dunno! But I'm dead keen to find out.

The past year's new Exotic armour has been a bit weak so I'm definitely interested in good-sounding gear coming up. And man, I hope some of the new weapons are as fun as this season's Ruinous Effigy, which turns enemies into orbs you can slam-dunk on their mates.

In other Destiny news, the Halloween event started last night. Festival Of The Lost sends us into a spooky version of the Infinite Forest once again with 15 minutes to clear out as many sections as possible, with more difficulty modifiers piling up along the way. Yeah, it's still okay, and I do like the mummified ship and bike unlocked by Triumphs, not to mention a new round of masks, but the actual loot from Forest runs is a bit bum.

Most the chests at the end of the run are locked with keys that drop at such a low rate that it seems bugged. Bungie have said they're investigating the drop rate of these Cipher Decoders. But even if Decoders were more plentiful, the chests still largely drop rubbish items only good for dismantling. It's a shame the new Halloween armour ornaments aren't in this drop pool, as they're only available on Eververse for 6000 Bright Dust or 1500 Silver per outfit. Or at least the Halloween gear from previous years, which are also on sale for Bright Dust or Silver.

The final part of Eris Morn's season-long weekly Interreference quests is now available too, wrapping up that that little story with a livelier mission than usual. This also means we can complete the seasonal title, Forerunner.

Destiny 2: Beyond Light arrives on Steam November 10th. At that point, a whole lot of the game will get removed too. On the bright side, it'll use less disk space?