Raid

Raids are a six-player cooperative activity. Raids are very difficult and complex, requiring communication and high-level abilities and gear.

Gameplay
Unlike story missions and strikes, raids give players only the bare minimum of guidance and objectives and instead challenge Guardians to figure everything out as they proceed. Because of the necessity of communication and coordination, raids do not support matchmaking.

Raids typically have two difficulties: normal and hard. Normal mode focuses on learning the raid's mechanics, communicating with the team, and strategizing. Hard mode increases the difficulty in several ways, including deadlier enemies, new behaviors for raid mechanics, and a harsher death penalty. The hard mode for a raid can be unlocked after it is first completed on Normal mode.

Raids can be exited and resumed later through a checkpoint system; upon re-entering a raid, the fireteam will appear at the encounter where the fireteam leader ended their last raid session. However, all progress will be lost after the weekly reset each Tuesday unless the player is still in the raid at that time, in which case they will not lose their checkpoint and they are still eligible for rewards. The only exception to this is if the difficulty of the raid the Guardian is playing cannot be revisited if they exit it.

Destiny 2 introduced raid lairs that share the same ideas as regular raids by incorporating 6-player cooperative activities but are built to have fewer encounters and an overall shorter completion time. Originally, raid lairs did not feature a Prestige mode (the hardest difficulty), but that was later added in the Destiny 2 event, Solstice of Heroes. The Prestige difficulty for Leviathan, Eater of Worlds was added on July 17, 2018 at 11 AM PDT, while Leviathan, Spire of Stars received its Prestige difficulty a day later, on July 18, 2018 at 10 AM PDT.

Loot
Each raid has exclusive loot, typically consisting of a complete set of armor, a class item, and one legendary weapon of each type. Some items will only drop on the hard mode variant. Raids also have a high likelihood of dropping exotic weapons.

Once a player receives loot for an encounter, that character is locked out from receiving any further loot from that encounter until the weekly reset each Tuesday. Encounter loot drops have an independent weekly lockout for each difficulty, meaning that the hard mode drop for a specific encounter can be received during the same week in which the normal mode drop has already been received. However, this also means that if the Guardian completes an encounter, they will not be eligible to obtain rewards from any difficulty lower than the one in which they completed the encounter. For example, if a raid is run on hard mode in a given week before it is run on normal, each loot drop will deliver both the normal and hard rewards together. Chests found within raids do not have separate lockouts and will only grant rewards once per week.

In Destiny, completing the Weekly Featured Raid along with its associated challenges can yield an extra chance at the basic encounter completion loot in addition to exotic versions of legendary primary weapons that are obtainable throughout the raid as well as Age of Triumph ornaments that can be applied to raid gear.

Destiny Raids
The following is the list of available raids in Destiny and the difficulties they were introduced with.

In update 2.6.0 of Destiny, an additional 390 Light difficulty was added for each raid that utilizes the same changes from their original hard mode counterparts. However, this difficulty replaces the 380 Light version of Wrath of the Machine and is only accessible while it's the Weekly Featured Raid.

Destiny 2 Raids
The following is a list of available raid activities in Destiny 2 and the difficulties they can be played on.

Trivia

 * Destiny 's raids are designed by Luke Smith.
 * Luke Smith described every raid as having a unique "heartbeat" that distinguishes it from other raids. Vault of Glass is about spreading players out and then bringing them back together. Crota's End is about creating "hero moments," where a single player is relied upon to carry out an important task. King's Fall is about movement and positioning. Wrath of the Machine is about action and "glorious combat." Leviathan is "a place that you believe could exist."