Destiny 2’s new Encore Exotic quest brings a handful of secret chests alongside its new auto rifle, Choir of One. These chests make the new weapon more powerful either by improving its intrinsic or granting you catalysts.
Choir of One’s unique effect causes it to use Special ammo, but it deals a good deal of damage with great ammo economy (at least until Bungie patches it). The weapon feels incredible to use, and even better if you can equip one of its three catalysts to make it even stronger.
To unlock those catalysts, however, you must open some secret chests throughout the Encore: Overture mission. Here’s where you can find their locations in Destiny 2.
How to unlock secret chests in Encore in Destiny 2
You must first finish the Specimen ID:NES007 quest before hunting the secret chests in Encore: Overture. You can complete the mission at any time, but the confluxes needed for the puzzles will not appear until you wrap up that quest.
As a short checklist, getting the catalyst and opening the secret chests requires you to:
- Pick up the Choir quests from Banshee-44 before opening secret chests.
- Complete Specimen ID: NES007 before you can solve the puzzles leading to the chests.
- Open the corresponding chest after obtaining the Choir quests.
- Complete Encore on Expert at any time.
- We finished the activity on Expert before opening the secret chests, then did an all-secrets run on Normal and still got the catalyst since we had Choir: Eternal in our log before attempting it on a higher difficulty.
- This also retroactively ticked off the objective for an Expert run on the subsequent Choir missions.
All secret chest locations in Encore in Destiny 2
The secret chests in Encore: Overture, Concerto, and Coda have the same locations. We found them thanks to 360GameTV, though the solutions are our own.
| Mission | Chest and location | Where to find? | Reward | Solution |
| Overture | First secret chest (Nexus) | In the area after the first major jumping puzzle (Nexus), head left instead of right | Triumph | Shoot the large cube that has a small cube below it |
| Overture | Second secret chest (Planetary Core) | After the puzzle with the Partition module, in the area with the first Planetary Piston | Intrinsic Upgrade (Commander Frame II) | Follow the beams of light from the Conflux and shoot five Vex devices. |
| Overture | Third secret chest (Ishtar Research Facility) | The lab on the Ishtar Research Facility, where you hear Maya experimenting with Chioma Esi | Catalyst (Subsistence Refit) | Use the portals to reach certain nodes on the floor above you and destroy them. Each portal has a line connecting you to where it leads. |
| Concerto | Planetary Core (Same location as the second Overture chest) | In the same location as the Overture portal, but take the teleporter in the middle | Specimen ID: NES008 Intrinsic Upgrade (Commander Frame III) | Use the gateway to reach the portal with the node above it, then shoot the Conflux with the node in front of it. |
| Concerto | Ishtar Research Facility (same area as the third in Overture) | Same location as the Overture portal, but take the one on the left | Destabilizing Rounds Refit | Collect four unknown specimens around the area using the Deletion, Access, and Partition buffs. |
| Coda | Planetary Core (Same location as the second Overture chest) | Go through the left portal just like in Overture | Intrinsic Upgrade (Commander Frame IV) | Kill the Minotaurs within the time limit. |
| Coda | Ishtar Research Facility (same area as the third in Overture) | Go through the last Overture portal and take the teleporter on the right | Onslaught Refit Specimen ID:NES009 | Use the Connection buffs and the Arc Cranium to connect the conduits. |
All secret chest puzzle solutions in Encore: Coda in Destiny 2
We’ve only found two secret chests in Encore: Coda. One grants you the Commander Frame IV intrinsic upgrade, while the other (trickier) puzzle grants you the Onslaught Refit catalyst for Choir of One and the Specimen ID: NES009 quest.
The first secret chest is hardly a puzzle. Take the portal in the second conflux, in the area after the Partition puzzle. The first Assimilation Piston spawns here.
On the other side of the portal, head to the same portal leading to the entrance to spot a second objective marker on your HUD. Head there, trigger the conflux on your right, and kill all the Minotaurs within the time limit. As easy as it gets.
The second seems daunting at first glance, but it’s easy to figure out what you need to do once you’re in the thick of it. This puzzle has three main elements: the Connection buff, the Arc Cranium, and the glowing plates around the area.
There’s a small, sealed-off lab in the center of the room, with four Connection nodes and four plates. The nodes are in the same position as the cardinal directions, with a plate on the southwest and another on the northeast. There’s an extra blocked Connection buff behind the north one, which is necessary for the solution.
Kill the Hydras that spawn to unlock the plate, then find a Connection buff and an Arc Cranium by killing the enemies that appear. From there, use the buff on the south node, then step on the plate and fire to the east (your right). Make sure the beam of light crosses all the marked points. Next, bring the buff to the north node and use the plate next to it to fire the beam to the west (again, to your right). Doing so opens up the second buff behind the north node.
After that, activate the south and west nodes and step on the plate between them. Fire to the north (in front of you) so the beam of light can ricochet and hit the nodes on the other side. In our case, this was a bit to the left of the reflexive plate.
Mirror the process once more by dunking the buff on the north and east, then shooting the Arc Cranium in front of you until you hit the nodes. The flashing hit marker indicates you’re in the right position, so hold fire a little longer.
All secret chest puzzle solutions in Encore: Concerto in Destiny 2
Encore: Concerto only has two hidden chests, and they’re located in the same location as the last two in Overture. Make sure to trigger the first Conflux after reaching the Nexus area of the mission.
For the first puzzle in Concerto, open the portal in the Planetary Core area and head inside, then go through the middle gateway to find a new area—and a new enigma.
This is a simple one: look for the portal with the square above it, then use the Access Module buff to open the correct portal and reach the area. Once you’re up there, look for an Oracle with a small square near it. This opens up the boss to a damage phase. Do this until the boss is down to unlock the Specimen ID: NES008 quest and an intrinsic upgrade for Choir of One.
Figuring out which gate leads to what can be a bit time-consuming, so we’ve compiled a shortlist of how they worked. From left to right, the nodes were connected in this order during our run:
- One leads to four
- Two leads to one
- Three leads to five
- Four leads to three
- Five leads to two
The smaller cubes didn’t always appear for us, so it took a bit of trial and error to complete this puzzle. That’s the solution, however.
The second puzzle is far trickier. You must collect five specimens before you can escape the maze and grab a Choir of One catalyst. The new Deletion module is part of this rotation now, which lets you trigger or remove the red laser walls. Use the proximity scan buff to know the right direction.
Kill the Minotaurs to get the appropriate buffs and look for the specimens in each area, following the gauge on the left of the screen. Defeat the first Minotaur to grab a buff, then dunk that in one of the red boxes to remove one of the deletion walls. You must find four specimens in the area, which we outlined below.
- In the room with the first Minotaur, hidden in a small alcove.
- In the room with the second Minotaur, behind a red wall just past the Module-Keeper.
- Behind the two back-to-back red walls.
- In the room with the Partition Module.
A chest spawns in front of the portal you used to get inside the puzzle area, so backtrack to grab your spoils—including the Destabilizing Rounds Refit catalyst (provided you meet the rest of the criteria). From there, return to the mission and take down the final boss.
All secret chest puzzle solutions in Encore: Overture in Destiny 2
The first secret chest is simple. To get past the first major jumping puzzle, you must drop down a shaft with purple light and reach an area called the Nexus. Go to the side path on the left and interact with the Conflux. It spawns a series of cubes, and all you must do is shoot the one with a smaller square underneath it.
The second secret chest in Encore: Overture appears in the same area as the first Planetary Assimilation Pylon, after the puzzle with the Partition buff. Interact with the conflux to lead you back to the entrance, where you must interact with another Vex Conflux to trigger a mini-event.
This puzzle is like the Vex Conflux hidden events in Neomuna. Look for the beams of light coming from the zone, then shoot down the five Vex nodes in the area. We’ve compiled their locations here.
Though you can find it with a glance at the Ishtar Collective laboratory, the third puzzle in Encore: Overture is the trickiest. Go through the first portal after opening the Conflux and take another portal to reach the right area. You must use the teleporters in the room to reach the upper level and destroy some nodes.
Each portal has a line above it which points to where it leads you. In our experience, we tried to find the right nodes to destroy, follow the line that stems from them, and enter that matching portal to break them. This did the trick for us, which gave us the Subsistence Refit catalyst for Choir of One.
