With the announcement of the House of Wolves details, including the Arena, we've learnt that the Arena isn't a raid as such, but more so a "horde mode". This got me thinking a little bit. If you've played Xbox, you've most likely hears about, or seen Halo 3 ODST AND Halo Reach's Firefight modes. I personally enjoyed these modes a lot, spending some time doing them with friends. If Bungie is bringing back horde mode, one would assume they would try and replicate that which has already been done, and worked. How could this be translated into Destiny, however? Destiny doesn't use a lives system at all, anywhere in the game? It does, however, use a Darkness Zone, and Player Revive system. I think the arena could be similar to a nightfall in how the deaths would go about. Having a full fireteam die out could cause the match to end, and then be kicked to orbit, much like a nightfall, or similarly, cause a restart of the arena, such as with the Vanguard Strike Playlists (how it goes to the next strike after a certain amount of time). It would be assumed, as such with raids and strike, that most if not all the entire arena would be a Darkness Zone. "A horde mode gametype usually has some sort of lives system though" I hear you say? Well, this can be easily addressed. Call of Duty players would be familiar with the Zombies mode in the game, where if you get damaged too much, you go down, and wait for a team mate to up you in a certain amount of time. With the way destiny works, this could easily be translated into the Arena. Guardians already get "downed" and have the ability to revive (either after 5-7 seconds or 30 seconds). This would work simply and easily in the "easy" version of the horde mode. With the Hard mode, however, player revives would simply be switched off, like in Crota's End, and then players would be revived after a wave or round or set ends (like completing an area in a strike or raid and being auto revived). Simple enough. Now Firefight in Halo work simply like this. 5 Waves to a Round, 3 Rounds to a Set, unlimited Sets. How could this work in Destiny though? Well. It technically already does essentially. In two ways. Way #1: In the Strike Devil's Lair, there is a section where you have to fight off three waves of progressively harder enemies while your Ghost unlocks he mesh field. Very similar to Firefight, with a fireteam pinned down fighting off enemies. Way #2: if you have ever done the Public Event to Defend the Warsat? Have you ever noticed how near the end of the public event, some of the enemies are Majours? There is a hidden mechanic with the public event where the enemies, coming in waves, progressively getting harder by rank. Now this can be easily translated into a Firefight scenario. Seeing how House of Wolves is a Fallen based expansion, I'll explain it using Fallen enemies: Wave 1 Round 1: Fallen Dregs and few Vandals Wave 2 Round 1: Fallen Dregs and somewhat more Vandals Wave 3 Round 1: Dregs and Vandals of equal amount, Shanks arrive Wave 4 Round 1: One or two Dregs Majour, Minor Dregs, Vandals and Shanks Wave 5 Round 1: Half of Dregs are Majour, one or two Major Vandals, and Shanks Using that methodology, we can look into the next two rounds Round 2 introduces Captains, and more vandals become Majour later on. Round 3 introduces shielded Shanks (as seen in the Sepiks Prime Nightfall) with Major Dregs, Vandals, and Captains (similar to the mesh room in Nightfall Sepiks. Now in Firefight, there usually is a Bonus round, where enemies just flood in. This could be either similar to the WARSAT public event, or take a different turn entirely. The other option it could be (seeing as the Arena is located in the Prison of Elders) a boss battle, between the fireteam and, for example, an Archon Priest. Once the set is done, players get rewarded highly. Players would be rewarded after each round, either shards and energies, or armour, while sets give off big rewards like the Weapons, Ships, Shaders, etc. The end of set fight would essentially be that of fighting a raid boss, with that amount of health and difficulty. During that time, player revives would be active, but after 30 seconds. As the fireteam play through longer and further, they get guaranteed better rewards, such as exotic armour and weapons, or other stuff (like the ever elusive Ghost Shells). Once the fireteam dies, they'll simply be sent back to orbit. If they leave early, there won't be an option to continue from the last point they were at, but instead the beginning of the last set they were playing (I.e if they wet on Wave 3 Round 2 Set 2, they would start from Wave 1 Round 1 Set 2) until they subsequently die in Arena, or chose to restart from the start. This is all my take on how the Arena could work, so it's all fan theory and speculation. Don't take all this as a confirmation of what the Arena would be, as I don't know anyone from Bungie, nor have I been given any details on it. Let me know what you think!