Destiny's New Valentine's Day Mode Buffs You When Your Partner Dies

Ahead of its launch, Bungie has detailed Destiny's upcoming Crimson Doubles multiplayer mode, which launches on February 9 and will be available until February 16.

This 2-on-2 mode requires that players enter it with another player; you won't be partnered up with a teammate through matchmaking. It's an Elimination mode where the goal is to kill both players on the other team; the first team to do so during five rounds wins. The Valentine's Day-themed twist comes in the form of the Broken Heart buff.

After your teammate dies, you'll receive this buff, which increases your maximum armor, agility, recovery, and weapon handling speed. This will give you an edge in taking on the enemy team and lasts for the remainder of the round, or until you're able to revive your fallen teammate.

Special rewards will be available specifically for the event, including new shaders, an emblem, and Ghost Shells (that go as high as 320 Light level). The emblem, specifically, is earned through a quest, and Crimsons Days-specific bounties can be worked on by both players of a team.

Also as part of the Valentine's Day event, there are new emotes for sale for a limited time, including a fist bump, and a new item called Crimsons Candy. When consumed, this causes all members of the player's fireteam to earn additional experience with their equipped weapons for 30 minutes.

Bungie also devoted some space in today's weekly update to talking about the recent matchmaking changes, which continue to roll out for testing during the ongoing Iron Banner event. More changes are still on the way, and the plan is still to bring these updates into the other playlists. Design lead Lars Bakken says this will happen "when we feel like we have a good solution we're happy with."

Bakken also describes the response to the changes, which focus on reducing lag, as "pretty positive. There are still issues for sure, but even after a few hours of data, we were noticing good things."

One thing that wasn't addressed in today's update was the recent announcement that Bungie's president had stepped down, and that a new CEO had been named. We still don't know the reason for these moves or what impact they'll have on the company.