Destiny 2 – Festival of the Lost Tips! Where is the Haunted Forest and Cipher Decoder locations

Festival of the Lost is back in Destiny 2 today for the next 3 weeks, meaning we can don spooky masks and run around the Haunted Forest looking for candy and Chocolate Strange Coins. There are a few steps to get through before we can access the forest, so stay tuned to find out more about how to access the Haunted Forest in Festival of the Lost 2020.

When you first load up Destiny 2 today you’ll get a notification saying that Festivals of the Lost is live. The first thing to do is head down into the tower and have a chat with Space Grandma to get the festivities going.

Eva seems a little pensive this Festival of the Lost. I don’t know whether it’s because some huge Pyramid Ships have parked near our planets and moons, or it’s because Beyond Light was delayed, but either way, she’s got a quest for you called ‘Festival of Masks’. The first step is pretty straight forward and that speaks to Eva herself!

The next step of the quest is to pick up one of the masks that Eva offers, and they come in 3 flavours – Arc, Solar and Void. Pick the one you want and then put it on. They’re all 750 power, so it’s going to lower your overall power level. Once you’ve picked up the mask from Eva, put it on. Don’t forget because this is going to be key to completing the introduction quest as well as getting all the goodies from the Festival of the Lost.

Now you have the mask you can browse Eva’s wares and you’ll see the bounties, masks and rewards.

Pick up the bounties for XP and Bright Dust rewards, and they are normally pretty generous during this kind of events. Also, you could save them for Beyond Light and keep if you are planning on hoarding bounties.

The masks are ornaments for the mask you just picked up from Eva, so once you have enough chocolate strange coins you can trade them in for these new mask ornaments. You can also use ones from previous years if you have taken part in any Festival of the Lost events before.

The rewards this time include the sparrow, ghost and ship which all have that mummified look and feel to them. There’s also a bunch of ornaments in the Eververse Store, so if you want to pick up any of the Halloween Costumes this time then head to the store. The hunter looks pretty damn good, but I could take or leave the others, to be honest.

Now you’ve had a chat with Eva, it’s time to speak to Spider for the next step of the quest. You’ll want to head on over to the Tangled Shore and have a chat with Spider who is in his normal place. Spider wants you to hunt down the caches (chests at the end of the Haunted Forest) and open them with Adaptive Ciphers which are dotted around the solar system.

To get your first Cipher you’re going to need to complete a Strike, Crucible or Gambit match. Make sure you are wearing your mask while you’re doing this activity! In fact, just wear the mask all the time while you are taking part in Festival of the Lost. For this part of the quest I did a quick strike and then the Cipher dropped for me.

Now you have the Cipher, the Haunted Forest is going to open up for you. You can access this from the Director in the Tower (it’s near Eva), or you can walk in the tower and interact with the icon next to Eva. Again, make sure you’re wearing your mask throughout runs of the Haunted Forest.

The objective of the Haunted Forest is to get through as many waves as possible. Run through the Forest, notice the percentage bar going up in the bottom left-hand corner and you’re objective is to get that bar to 100%. Once you do, you’ll then face off against a mini-boss, and then it’s time to do the whole thing over again. The enemies will get progressively harder as the waves go on, and enemies start to hit pretty hard. Get as far as you can before the timer runs out, and then collect your prize at the end.

I don’t know if it’s just me, and this may be a thing this year, but I got a pretty good stat roll exotic in the middle of my first run. I don’t know if this is just luck, or the haunted forest this year is going to be giving out decent stat rolls on exotic armour drops. Keep an eye out for me and if you get anything good in the Haunted Forest let me know down in the comments.

When it does complete you’ll be faced with a platform to the loot. BE CAREFUL as the platform disappears and you fall into a pit with what looks like Dark Blade. Jump out of the sides and then go and collect your rewards.

Once you’re finished with your run head back to Eva. You can trade in the candy for the rewards like the mummified Sparrow, ship or ghost. There are masks you can buy with the strange coins and there are the auto rifles to farm from the haunted forest itself.

One final thing, you can jump up the tree in the tower for some hidden candy and chocolate strange coins, so make sure you don’t miss out on those freebies.

Let me know what you think down in the comments. Are you going to be farming for auto rifles and masks, or are you just waiting for Beyond Light at this point?

That’s it for this guide on how to access the Haunted Forest in Destiny 2.