What You Need to Know About Destiny's Crimson Days event, and the New 'Hotline Bling' Emote

Destiny developer Bungie provided details today of the game's next seasonal event, the Valentine's-themed Crimson Days, and it seems that the event will focus entirely on Crucible play.

Bungie announced Crimson Days last week, saying the event would introduce a two-on-two Crucible mode called Crimson Doubles. It will be an Elimination-style mode, a best of five rounds, with rounds ending only when both members of one of the teams are dead. The twist is a buff called "Broken Heart," which is activated when your teammate goes down: Inspired to avenge your fallen comrade, you'll get maxed-out ratings for armor, agility, recovery and weapon handling. In the spirit of friendship and love, your kills will count toward your teammate's bounties.

Lord Shaxx will hand out a Crimson Doubles-specific quest, "Crimson Bonds," along with new bounties for the mode. Players who complete the quest will receive a unique emblem, and Crimson Doubles rewards include new shaders and two sweet Ghost Shells: a pink one, and one made of chocolate. And since Valentine's Day wouldn't be Valentine's Day without candy, players will be able to consume Crimson Candy to boost XP gains on weapons for everybody in their fireteam. Plus, Tess Everis is restocking the Eververse Trading Company with five new emotes for Crimson Days, including a dance that appears to be inspired by the music video for Drake's "Hotline Bling" and a fist bump.

Crimson Days will run for just one week, from Feb. 9-16, because Bungie "didn’t want it to overstay its welcome and drift away from its 'small and fun' goal," said senior designer Leif Johansen in a blog post today. For more details and some screenshots, check out Bungie's Crimson Days site.

Bungie also provided an update on its connection-based matchmaking tweaks to the ongoing Iron Banner event. The studio is still collecting data and performing additional tests — a third update just went live — and according to design lead Lars Bakken, the team will push the new matchmaking to other Crucible playlists "when we feel like we have a good solution we're happy with."

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