Destiny 2: Season of the Haunted - Nightmare Containment guide

Nightmare Containment is an important new aspect of Destiny 2: Season of the Haunted. Public event set in The Leviathan, you’ll be spending a lot of time completing these as you power through a variety of new content in the season - including the main seasonal quest. However, how the public event actually works isn’t especially easy to understand.

To help you get to grips with it, we’ve written this Nightmare Containment guide. It includes how the event works, how to earn Vestiges of Dread, how to bind nightmares, and rewards.

• What is Nightmare Containment
• How to earn Vestiges of Dread
• How to bind nightmares
• Nightmare Containment rewards

What is Nightmare Containment

Nightmare Containment is a public event unique to the Castellum on The Leviathan. You can find it occurring naturally as you zone in, or you can choose to enter an instance for Nightmare Containment from the destination screen.

Nightmare Containment is composed of three phases: two focused on waves of PvE combat, and a the third being a fight against a powerful boss. The first two phases require a progress bar to be filled by you and other Guardians, which is done by killing smaller enemies for shards of dread and cashing in Cores of Dread. These cores drop from mini-boss enemies marked with a red diamond on your hud, and must be deposited back at the glowing red nightmare harvester for massive progress.

Once you cash in a Core of Dread, a special relic weapon will spawn next to the harvester. This is the Scythe that’s plastered all over the seasonal promotional material, and for good reason! It’s a super powerful weapon that you can use to clear out enemies quickly for continued event progress.

One thing you’ll want to watch out for are Devourers, which are elite enemies that appear to spawn alongside the scythes. These do a lot of damage and can hamper your progress if they get close to your nightmare harvester so be sure to focus them asap!

In the third phase, a boss will spawn that you’ll have to take down. Doing so will finish up the public event, granting rewards and lifting safety protocols in The Castellum. This allows you to unlock certain doors hidden around the area, which contain chests that you can loot for a bit of extra loot!

How to earn Vestiges of Dread

Vestiges of Dread are a seasonal currency earnt from completing activities, killing enemies across the various zones in Destiny 2. However, they are most often found on The Leviathan, from completing patrols, looting chests, completing events etc.

You can find this material in your inventory and it stacks up to a max of 2,500. As such, if you notice you’ve accumulated the cap, it’s time to head back to Leviathan to cash these out.

You do so by activating the nightmare harvester at the end of the Nightmare Containment event. You need at least 500 to do so, and activating it provides a range of seasonal rewards including Opulent Energy (used to focus umbral engrams), Bound Presence used in Sever quests, and Opulent Keys.

How to bind nightmares

Binding Nightmares refers to activating the Nightmare Harvester following the tier 3 stage of the Nightmare Containment event. Activating it once binds one nightmare, so if you want to bind multiple you’ll need to head back to The Leviathan and continue completing Nightmare Containment events.

Nightmare Containment rewards

Complete Nightmare Containment rewards always rewards you with Glimmer and Crown of Sorrow reputation. It can also occasionally drop a legendary weapon or piece of armour, with the former having the possibility of deepsight resonance applied to them.

These public events are central to the overall Season of the Haunted experience, and play major roles in several quests including The Leviathan Returns and Bound in Sorrow.

That concludes our guide on Nightmare Containment! For more guides on the season check out our pieces on how to get the Jotunn Catalyst, and every Solar Fragment and how to get them.