Destiny's Halloween event adds masks, quests, and the Thriller dance

The Festival of the Lost has arrived with moody candles blazing in Destiny Year 2, which means new quests, objective-based loot, and a tasteful garnish of microtransactions. There's a whole lot more to the seasonal celebration than Jack-'o-Lantern helmets and bat respawn buffs this year.

Click through the gallery above for a quick preview of the new emotes and goodies you can buy for real money from Tess Everis (of course they added the Thriller dance, and of course it will cost you roughly $7). But even if the thought of shelling out real cash for seasonal, digital trifles makes your skin crawl, the Festival of the Lost has plenty for you to do.

First off, visit official Guardian grandma Eva Levante to collect your Empty Candy Satchel. Then fill it up by getting kills while wearing a mask in PvE or PvP. Oh, right, masks: they run the ranks of Destiny notables from Eris Morn to the Cryptarch to jolly old Oryx himself, though their Rare variants will all expire at the end of the Festival... unless you upgrade them into Legendaries by applying some paper glue. No, really.

Eva will start you off with one for mask for free, and the rest you can earn by collecting candy, finishing quests, or buying goodie bags from Tess. Several of the quests require you to complete activities while wearing a specific mask - including my new favorite Destiny objective of all time: fall off the Tower while dressed up as Atheon - so you'll want to build up your collection fast.

Bungie even added a special Crucible map to the rotation just for this occasion, which is cool, but really makes me wonder what the studio will do for the holidays. I can just imagine exchanging fire over the production line at Nicholas-14's arctic workshop…

Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!