Pretty quickly after rumors started emerging about Destiny 2's second DLC, Warmind, there were a number of alleged leaks about a horde mode coming with the expansion. Those rumors haven't gone away, and a new teaser trailer for Warmind appears to corroborate that information with a mode called Hive Escalation Protocol.

Just the name alone sounds very much like a horde mode, obviously focused around Destiny 2's Hive enemy faction. In addition, the short clips shown off in the teaser appear to show some sort of mixture of tower defense and horde mode gameplay.

Looking at the shots in the teaser, there appears to be a tower that powers up and will likely need to be defended from incoming enemies.

destiny 2 hive escalation protocol tower defense

This is very similar to one of the Mercury Adventures in the Curse of Osiris expansion. After many fans played that Adventure they took their comments online to suggest a horde or tower defense mode in the future.

There is also a shot of a group of Cursed Thrall, which look grouped together very much like waves of enemies, as would be seen in a horde mode. Alternatively, this could also point to a new version of a Bungie classic, Halo's Firefight mode.

destiny 2 warmind hive escalation protocol waves

It all comes together in a shot of actual gameplay from the player's perspective. Seen on the left side of the screen, the objective is to "Clear the Hive before time expires" and there is an accompanying timer counting down to zero. It also shows that the players in this instance have reached "Level 6." These are hallmarks of arena or horde modes.

destiny 2 warmind hive escalation protocol gameplay

Destiny 1 had arena, quasi-horde modes in Prison of the Elders and Archon's Forge, but based on what has been shown so far, this looks to be much closer to a traditional first person shooter wave-based tower defense mode.

We should get all the details on April 24 at 10 a.m. PDT when Bungie hosts a Twitch stream revealing the Warmind expansion.

Destiny 2 and its Curse of Osiris expansion are available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Warmind launches May 8, 2018.