Defiant Battleground: Orbital Prison is the third seasonal activity added to Destiny 2 with Season of Defiance. It tasks you with heading out to a Cabal prison ship in orbit that’s impossible to reach from the physical realm but easy to locate and enter through the Ascendant Plane. This guide explains how to complete the activity so you’re not left in the dark as to any mechanics or objectives.
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Defiant Battleground: Orbital Prison walkthrough
To start the Defiant Battleground: Orbital Prison activity, you need to find it on the map in the EDZ. It’s located just above The Farm social space. After you’ve completed it once for the Season of Defiance storyline, you’ll be able to access it from the Defiant Battleground playlist in the Helm.
This Defiant Battleground activity plops you directly into an alternate version of The Farm. This is the only way to run around the area with your gun out, so enjoy it. Your only goal here is to access the Ascendant Plane, which you do via the same portal you must interact with in every other Defiant Battleground activity.
After you’ve entered the Ascendant Plane, you’ll need to provoke and kill lots of Taken. This draws out the bigger enemies that you can kill for Taken Essence. You need to kill nine yellow health bar Taken and use their Essence to destroy the Taken Blights around this arena. It doesn’t take too long, but it is a bit of a slog, so bring your best weapons, and don’t be afraid to pop your Super a few times.
Once all the Taken Blights have been destroyed, you’ll take a man cannon up to a collection of debris. Follow the path through the debris to reach the Cabal ship and return to the physical world. This allows you to travel hundreds of miles in very little time, but it also means you’re in the middle of a prison ship with enemies that want to kill you.
Make your way through the ship, and you’ll eventually come to a large chamber where your Ghost will need to hack the security. This brings every nearby Cabal to your position, and they all want to kill you. Shoot your way through the waves, kill the shining enemies that have the codes you require to keep on hacking, and you’ll get through the encounter. When the shield gate at the end of the chamber finally opens, it’s time to face the boss.
The boss for this Defiant Battleground activity was called Bracus Karavum, Shadow Legion for us, though that name may change for you. It’s a fairly simple boss fight, especially compared to the one in the Defiant Battleground: Cosmodrome activity. The first phase is simple, just shoot the boss until it puts up its shield. This will cause an orange mist to fill the room, at which point you need to head to a Balefire and light it. There’s one on either side of the arena.
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Kill Taken until some more powerful Taken appear. Then, kill those, take their Taken Essence, and use it at the Balefire to create an orb that you can throw at the boss to remove its shield. This is the same as you’d do in other Defiant Battleground activities. The second and third phases of this boss fight are no different, so you don’t need to worry about getting kicked out to the Ascendant Plane again.
Once you’ve killed the boss, you’ll free the prisoners and can claim your rewards. Any Defiant Keys you have will be automatically used when you open the chest. This activity is available for the full year following Destiny 2 Lightfall’s release, so make the most of it while it’s around.
