The king has returned. Destiny’s most infamous exotic weapon, the Gjallarhorn rocket launcher, has been brought back into the game as part of Bungie’s 30th Anniversary event. Follow our guide and you’ll be able to unleash the full fury of Gjallarhorn’s swarming Wolfpack Round on the enemies of the Light. And the good news is, you can easily unlock the weapon in a single session. Here’s how.
What you’ll need
In order to acquire Gjallarhorn, you’ll need to own the Destiny 2: Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack. Once that’s installed, open up the director menu, click on the new Eternity destination, and then select the Xur’s Treasure Hoard. Acquire the quest called And Out Fly The Wolves. There are eight steps in total, but most are pretty quick and straightforward.
Step 1: Investigate the Loot Cave for Shaw Han
Visit the vendor called Shaw Han in the Cosomdrome. He’s located right next to the only landing zone, so you can’t miss him. He’ll tell you to complete the new Grasp of Avarice dungeon. The dungeon is also launched from the Eternity destination on the Director map. And unless you’re an absolute chad, you’re going to want a fireteam.
If you don’t have any willing friends online, I recommend using the PC LFG Discord to find a couple of players. Make sure you post your join code in the ‘Dungeon’ channel. As for the dungeon itself, the video guide from Fallout Plays embedded below will help make short work of it. You only need to finish on normal difficulty to acquire Gjallarhorn, which also means you won’t have to face the Champions which do appear in Master mode.
Step 2: Bring the Wolfpack Round to Shaw Han
Head back to the Cosmodrome to hand over the item you received from completing Grasp of Avarice.
Step 3: Collect Wolfpack Rounds by defeating powerful Fallen in the Cosmodrome
Shaw Han will now ask you to kill a bunch of powerful Fallen. Happily, this can be done in a single run of the Exodus Garden 2A lost sector, which is located in The Divide area. Again, normal mode will be enough to get it done so don’t bother selecting Master or Legendary if those happen to be available that day.
Step 4: Return to Shaw Han with the Wolfpack Rounds
Step 5: Visit Banshee-44 in the Tower
Next, pay another visit to Shaw Han in the Cosmodrome, then take a trip to see the Gunsmith in the Tower for some more chit chat. After that, there’s one more task involving some light shooting.
Step 6: Clear out one of the Fallen’s old hideouts
Banshee tells you the final component you need to rebuild Gjallarhorn can be found in a Cosmodrome lost sector. And wouldn’t you know, it’s our old friend Exodus Garden 2A. Head back to the Divide, complete the Lost sector, and you’re almost done.
To finish the quest, fly back to Shaw Han but this time you need to go into the room on the ground floor of the building opposite him. Inside you’ll find a prompt that will enable you to finally put your rocket launcher together. Except of course there’s time for one more chat with Han before we wrap up.
Step 8: Return to Shaw Han to receive your new Gjallarhorn
Job done! Except not quite. Han will give you Gjallarhorn, but in order to realise its full destructive potential, you’re also going to want to complete the exotic catalyst. It’s a little bit trickier, but honestly still absolutely do-able. Upgrading the catalyst will increase the magazine size to two rounds, generate orbs of light on multikills, and final blows with the Wolfpack Rounds will spawn a faster, more powerful missile at the target’s location. So yeah, that’s well worth doing.
How to unlock and upgrade the Gjallarhorn exotic catalyst
In order to acquire the catalyst, you’re going to need to do another run of the Grasp of Avarice dungeon. However, this time there’s a twist. There are three Reaver Vandal enemies spread out through the dungeon, which when damaged will drop an exotic engram that grants you the temporary Burden by Riches debuff. Each time you encounter one of the Reaver Vandals you need to acquire the Burden by Riches debuff and then remove it by opening a nearby chest before the Burden by Riches timer runs out and you die.
The short video below from Ehroar shows where to find the Reaver Vandals and their corresponding chests.
Note that for the last chest, which is placed on top of a Fallen building, the timing is pretty tight so you’ll need to book it. Dunk the burden in all three chests and you’ll be rewarded with the catalyst. As is always the case with catalysts, it now needs to be finished, which requires getting a bunch of kills (400, by our reckoning) using Gjallarhorn. The usual kill farming spots will work, such as the Thrallway area of the Shattered Throne Dungeon, grinding the start of the Shuro Chi encounter in the Last Wish raid, or completing waves of Altars of Sorrow on the Moon.
We’re still not quite finished though. If you want to pimp your Gjallarhorn out with a sweet ornament, you can also grab that.
How to acquire the Hraesveglur ornament for Gjallarhorn
The ornament is unlocked by completing the Richest Dead Man Alive triumph. This also involves running the Grasp of Avarice dungeon, so you can actually do it at the same time as you’re acquiring the catalysts. Here you’re looking for a number of lore entries hidden away in bottles (in keeping with the dungeon’s treasure/pirate theme). The video below from Skarrow9 will walk you through exactly where to find each one. None are especially tricky, and of course as the ornament is entirely cosmetic you’re fine to skip it if the aesthetics aren’t your bag.
How good is Gjallarhorn?
Short answer: very. Bungie knew better than to bring back the iconic rocket launcher underpowered. Its 2021 incarnation is excellent at both burst DPS and sustained damage, placing it alongside One Thousand Voices and Sleeper Simulant as one of the best exotic heavy weapons currently available. Particularly if you snag that catalyst, which grants an extra rocket in the mag. Ehroar ran some of the early damage numbers, which you can see below.
His clanmate Sweatcicle also one-phased Atheon, the boss of the Vault of Glass raid with a team all using Gjallarhorn. So that’s definitely going to be a thing too.