How to complete the Destiny 2 Explore Kepler: Fabled quest

Destiny 2’s Explore Kepler: Fabled mission is a post-campaign quest in the Edge of Fate expansion. It asks you to not only replay several of the campaign’s longer missions on an advanced difficulty, but also to solve several puzzles around Kepler.

In this Destiny 2 guide, I’ll walk you through how to solve all the puzzles for Explore Kepler: Fabled, and leave you with a bit of advice on how to tackle the Fabled versions of the Edge of Fate campaign missions. Let’s start with those puzzles.

Note: This is mentioned on the quest itself, but it bears repeating. You must return each Strangelet Capsule before you can get another. Do not do a Fabled mission back-to-back without returning the first capsule you get to the Caldera or you will be extremely sad. Use the magic of reading to save you and your friends a lot of time.

Exile’s Accord secret Strangelet Capsule puzzle solution

First, let’s get something out of the way: this entire questline will go much better if you grab some pals to play with you. Fabled is significantly harder than the Legendary campaign, but doesn’t quite get to the difficulty of something like a Grandmaster Nightfall or even a Master dungeon (that’s for the Mythic difficulty). Even so, for both the Explore Fabled and Explore Mythic quests, friends will help you dramatically, so it’s worth waiting for your own pals, hitting up your favorite LFG Discord, or using Destiny’s in-game Fireteam Finder.

Anyway, to get to the Curtilage Divide puzzle, mark the big circle on your map and follow the icon. The quest marker on Kepler is notoriously unreliable, but it should be able to get you there whether you’re coming from Caldera or the Exile’s Accord landing zone. You’ll know you’re in the right spot when you find yourself in a large room with a spire in the middle and a laser grid wall leading to the rest of the zone.

Climb to the top of the spire - a grapple grenade will help you generally through this puzzle - and you’ll notice a blue dome shield around a strangelet capsule near the top. To get this open, you’ll need a Relocator Cannon and Mattermorph:

1. Find and grab the Relocator Cannon on the other side of the room, further down, sitting in one of those dome rooms.
2. On the same side of the room as the capsule, look up. You’ll see a domed building with lasers on the front and, across from it, a Mattermorph hive.
3. Make your way up to the Mattermorph, bringing the Relocator with you.
4. Activate the Mattermorph and throw it at some nearby metal to create stairs.
5. Take the Relocator up the stairs and fire it into the dome across from you. This should connect you with a portal, which you can take via the teleporter on the platform you’re already standing on.

6. Once inside, deactivate the lasers by activating the Fallen device. It’ll say “Activate System Purge".
7. Return to the shielded Strangelet Capsule and drop down right next to it to find another Fallen device. Activate it as well and get ready for a fight. You’ll eventually get a prompt saying that an “Exile Leader has stepped out of the shadows".
8. Drop a Rally Banner and start blasting away at the Fallen boss. Periodically, they’ll summon some mines in addition to more enemies for you to fight. Mines should be your priority as they only have 20-25 seconds for you to disarm them. Note that they do not always start with the same amount of time left on them, so be sure to defuse the shortest fuse first, and split up if you’re in a group.
9. When the boss is down, the shield around the Strangelet Capsule will disappear, letting you grab it and return it to the Caldera.

Outer Steppes secret Strangelet Capsule puzzle solution

The Outer Steppes secret Strangelet Capsule is, mercifully, simpler than the Exile’s Accord one (and more fun, if you’re asking me).

Mark the location on your map, just like before, and drop into the Outer Steppes landing zone, which is just on the tail end of The Stacks. Follow the quest marker to the side area to the right (as in, not the direction you went in the first campaign mission). You’ll need Mattermorph to unlock the way.

When you reach the other side of this passage and enter the long, gulch-like area with some buildings, you’ll see the Strangelet Capsule immediately to your left. But, much like with the last one, you can’t just grab it and call it a day. Instead, you’ll need to solve a quick puzzle:

1. Push on past the buildings and into the area where Fallen and Vex like to hang out.
2. Grab the Relocator near here and head back toward the shielded capsule. To your right (if you’re facing the capsule, it was to your left when you walked in), you’ll see a building with a door halfway open and a laser grid barring you from going in.
3. Shoot the Relocator through the gap (you’ll probably need to jump as it’s super finicky) and then run back over to where you first got the cannon to find the teleporter.

4. Once inside the building, throw the switch near the completely closed door to open it.
5. Look for a hole in the floor, then jump down and Matterspark through the hole.
6. Turn on the Fallen computer here and go back the way you came.
7. Jump back up to the main floor, rally with some heavy weapons and good damage Supers, and activate the terminal ahead of you.
8. Two boss-tier Fallen Captains will spawn alongside a Destiny staple: the Fallen Spider Walker. Also, you’ll notice a four-minute-and-30-second timer will appear at the top of your screen, so let’s get this done quickly.

9. Burn down the captains until they get immunity shields, then turn into Matterspark and use your Super Bomb to blast it off of them. We killed both captains first before focusing on the Walker, and we recommend you do the same, as it makes focusing on the Walker’s engine much easier during its short DPS window. There are no resurrect tokens and this isn’t a Darkness Zone, so you can play a little more recklessly to eke out more damage -- just know that time spent dead still counts against the timer.
10. When the Fallen party goes down, so will the shield around the Strangelet Capsule. Grab it and deposit it in the Caldera.

Destiny 2 Explore Kepler: Fabled mission tips

The rest of the Explore Kepler: Fabled quest in Destiny 2 just involves replaying five major campaign missions on the Fabled difficulty (which you can access via flags in the world). You’ll need to do the above secrets and the first four missions to unlock the final step. Those first four missions are:

• Charge
• Commencement
• Quarantine
• Gouge

After you input the Strangelet Capsules for all of those, you’ll open the door to the final mission -- just like in the base campaign -- and will be tasked with completing The Message on Fabled as well.

These missions are much harder than they were on even the Legendary difficulty. You first want to make sure that you’re actually 150+ Power before attempting this. Then, you want to coordinate builds with your team the same way you would a raid or dungeon run. Speaker’s Sight for Warlocks, Crest of Alpha Lupi for Titans, and Omnioculus for Hunters are great support Exotics you should consider using.

The biggest hurdle on Fabled (and this just gets worse on Mythic) is that enemies have absolutely wild amounts of health. A high Weapons stat will benefit you a bit here, but patience and safety is the real key. Pay close attention to when you do and do not have revive tokens, as that should absolutely dictate the pace you play at.

Once you beat all five of the missions, you’ll unlock the ability to focus Tier 2 Kepler gear, earn a Tier 4 weapon (kind of), and gain Matterspark 4, which comes with some nice goodies like health restoration, auto-loading holster, and the ability to Jolt enemies.

Now you get to do this exact quest again on Mythic once you reach 200 Power!

At this stage in The Edge of Fate, you might also need to unlock Graviton Spike by completing the Destiny 2 Graviton Through the Ages quest. We've got guides for the Destiny 2 Dark Academia and Destiny 2 Vessel of the Nine quests too.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.