At an hour all too early this morning, the Destiny community finally obtained and verified the last necessary piece of the puzzle to solve the Corridors of Time puzzle. The reward, after nearly a week of community sourcing, data entry, spreadsheets, programming map builders, and sleepless nights, was the quest for the Exotic Kinetic fusion rifle, Bastion. While many in the community are thrilled at what was accomplished, others remain disappointed that the reward was a weapon that was already on the roadmap, a known prize for an unexpected puzzle.
Some brief history: on Tuesday, January 14, at reset, Destiny 2 players noticed a new quest available from Osiris, along with some odd symbols on each of the destination Obelisks. The quest allowed Guardians to explore the Corridors of Time freely, but the confusing maze was a seemingly endless loop that led nowhere. People soon figured out that the symbols were a sort of map, guiding players through the Corridors by directing them through certain doorways.
Reaching the end of each of these symbol paths led us to a tomb in the “Timelost Vault.” A tomb that we couldn’t approach and many theorized to be our own (more on that in a moment). Here, players could obtain lore and get a unique symbol pattern shown reflected beneath the floor. Players quickly became aware that these symbol patterns were puzzle pieces, and the Obelisk symbol paths switched out every hour. After 19 hours, players could have all lore and the complete “maze,” leading to a whole new set of symbols to run. Running this set of symbols led to the same room but this time granted us an emblem and a brand new piece of a puzzle. Things were just getting started.
Corridors of Time Puzzle Solutions
Here are all of the lore routes, as well as how to get the emblem:
#1: Plus, Snake, Clover, Hex, Snake, Plus, Diamond
#2: Clover, Clover, Hea, Hex, Plus, Diamond, Snake
#3: Plus, Clover, Diamond, Diamond, Snake, Diamond, Diamond
#4: Diamond, Clover, Plus, Hex, Clover, Hex, Clover
#5: Diamond, Plus, Snake, Hex, Hex, Diamond, Plus
#6: Diamond, Hex, Snake, Hex, Clover, Clover, Plus
#7: Diamond, Plus, Clover, Hex, Snake, Hex, Snake
#8: Clover, Plus, Clover, Hex, Clover, Diamond, Snake
#9: Clover, Clover, Clover, Snake, Diamond, Hex, Diamond
#10: Plus, Hex, Clover, Hex, Plus, Diamond, Hex
#11: Snake, Hex, Snake, Hex, Diamond, Hex, Snake
#12: Hex, Snake, Plus, Hex, Snake, Hex, Plus
#13: Clover, Plus, Clover, Diamond, Snake, Snake, Hex
#14: Hex, Diamond, Snake, Plus, Hex, Plus, Plus
#15: Clover, Hex, Plus, Diamond, Plus, Snake, Diamond
#16: Snake, Hex, Hex, Hex, Plus, Diamond, Diamond
#17: Clover, Diamond, Hex, Clover, Plus, Diamond, Plus
#18: Diamond, Plus, Plus, Clover, Snake, Plus, Diamond
#19: Hex, Plus, Plus, Diamond, Hex, Snake, Snake
Emblem: Diamond, Clover, Snake, Plus, Hex, Hex, Plus, Hex, Diamond, Clover, Snake
The community quickly realized that players were seeing unique puzzle pieces and that they would need to come together in a massive community effort to crowdsource the jigsaw puzzle, an enormous new maze that would lead to yet another series of emblems and finally solve this quest. The community created spreadsheets, submission forms, map building tools, and spent sleepless days and nights hammering away at sourcing screenshots of the pieces and building the 5040-piece maze. Then the moment of truth. Early Monday morning, January 20, the map builder had enough pieces for a verified path and spit out a 30-symbol long code. Nobody knew what would happen, but everyone following along and contributing grabbed the code and ran it, bated breath as they approached the last door.
Here’s what the final maze puzzle looked like, as well as the symbol order to run, courtesy of Niris:
Spoilers for the rewards from the Destiny 2 Corridors of Time puzzle and quest follow
When players passed through the final doorway, they were once again met with the tomb in the Timelost Vault, but this time they could approach it. An ethereal voice is heard, Saint-14 giving a eulogy for a legendary Guardian, us. Those who are legacy players on console get additional dialog touting their accomplishements throughout the history of Destiny. And then Saint mentions that we were buried with the shattered pieces of our favorite weapon, saying that no one will ever again touch it, except if by some miracle we were to return. And through the Corridors of Time, we have returned, back to the future to reclaim our favorite weapon from our own cold, dead hands. At this point we get a Core, and the quest for the Exotic kinetic fusion rifle Bastion begins.
Bastion is a weapon out of time, or at least its core is. It’s Saint-14’s weapon, and we use the core that we apparently got from the future to rebuild Saint’s original frame, one that a series of quests sends us to find on the Tangled Shore after it was stolen by a Fallen Captain. Now that the community puzzle is complete, getting Bastion is relatively easy. It’s an involved quest that takes a bit of time to run through, but there are no overly difficult hurdles in the way. I was able to get mine within an hour or two of the puzzle being solved.
Now that the Corridors have been mapped, Bungie is making it easier for all players to obtain Bastion. Instead of needing to run the 30-symbol sequence yourself, all you have to do is speak to Saint-14 at reset on Tuesday, January 21. He’ll have the Exotic quest available for everyone to run now that the community efforts have unlocked it.
The Corridors of Time have been successfully navigated.
Thanks to the hard work of countless community members, the new Exotic Quest will be available directly from Saint-14 on Tuesday’s reset. pic.twitter.com/w8ngnNPQHS
— Bungie (@Bungie) January 20, 2020
While the Corridors of Time puzzle and Bastion are all too fresh right now, the community—myself included—is still trying to figure out exactly how it feels about these rewards for one of the biggest community efforts in Destiny history. Many were thrilled just be a part of the journey, a memorable week for the Destiny community that will live on in infamy. It’s a pretty awesome gun, to be fair, but it’s kind of like getting a surprise package on your porch only to find out it was the Amazon subscribe and save necessities that you already knew about. However, the lore regarding our own death perhaps pushes the narrative of this year even further forward and is potentially the bigger reward here.
