Destiny 2 Wild Card exotic quest: How to complete and rewards

After finishing The Final Shape campaign, there's plenty of content still waiting for you, including the Wild Card exotic quest, which you need to complete to access the Excision 12-man activity to put an end to The Witness.

The quest has three steps so it's relatively short compared to other exotic quests and has an amazing reward on top of unlocking more content, the Still Hunt exotic sniper rifle.

So if you want to know how to complete it, here is our full, comprehensive guide, to the Wild Card exotic quest in Destiny 2. For more content, do check out our God Roll guides for both The Call and No Hesitation.

Wild Card exotic quest in Destiny 2: How to complete

The Wild Card quest has a total of three steps, let's break them all down.

Step 1: Investigate an unknown threat with Cayde and Crow

The first part of the quest revolves around completing the Wild Card mission. It can be accessed by dropping from The Last City down to The Landing.

The mission is super easy, as you need to track down and eliminate enemies powered up by dark ether, investigating zones in the process. These are marked on your screen so they're impossible to miss.  You'll eventually fight a War Beast boss.

Once you collect enough ether, you'll have to set up camp in a designated spot. Meditate to trigger the next section, which will see you kill some Taken and destroy blights, again, pretty simple stuff. You'll have to do this five times, with the last two fights involving minibosses, so it's a fun fight. 

For the third section, you'll have to hunt down the Shanks who stole the ether you collected earlier. Crow and Cayde will be waiting at a marked spot, so follow it to trigger the next encounter.

This section can be tedious as you'll need to shoot Shanks from a distance, so take your best scout or pulse rifle with you. Eventually, a massive Shank boss will appear, and you'll have to take two-thirds of its life from afar, as he's down to its last bar the Shank will approach the cave you're in and confront you face-to-face.

The final section of the mission is a boss fight with the beast that's taking all the ether. Once you find its cave and the ether deposit stolen from you, deal damage to the boss to trigger a quick mechanic: you need to deposit 10 ether in the tank, these can be obtained by defeating the explosive Screebs.

Do this two times and defeat the boss to complete the mission and see an incredible cutscene with Cayde and Crow teaming up, which will lead to the Exo Hunter offering Crow the position of Hunter Vanguard.

Step 2: Listen to the radio transmission in the Lost City Tower

Simple enough, go to the radio station in the Lost City to listen to a conversation between Ikora and Zavala, relating to Crow's possible new position as Hunter Vanguard and the decision of the Commander to use Stasis.

Step 3: Talk to Cayde-6

To complete the quest, simply approach Cayde-6 to earn your reward, the Still Hunt sniper rifle.

Wild Card exotic quest rewards

As mentioned, you'll get the Still Hunt exotic sniper rifle. Here are its perks and stats:

• Column 1: Polygonal Rifling
• Column 2: Golden Munitions. This magazine gains bonus ammo whenever a Golden Gun shot is acquired
• Column 3: Sharpshooter. This weapon gains passive bonuses to target acquisition, aim down sight speed, and flinch resistance. The bonus increased when this weapon's super mode is active
• Exotic perk: Cayde's Retribution. Pick up Orbs of Power or land precision hits to charge this weapon's Super bar. Once full, hold reload to fire Golden Gun shots

So that's it! For more content, check out how to get Strange Coins in Destiny 2.