I absolutely loved the first Haunted Forest when I started playing in 2019, actually where I remember switching from a Titan to a Warlock main and never looked back. The second one was good in 2020 but felt toned down, I think they either made it easier or I was just stronger at that point, felt shorter too. Third Festival of the Lost was the Haunted Lost Sector, which was a nice change and I also enjoyed it, not as much as previously but it was brand new. The last year felt more toned down than the Forest was, maybe because of the 3.0 subclasses but it has me worried for this year if not. I think the biggest complaint can simply be boiled down to not having variety from year to year, just like the EAZ for Solstice. Part of it as well is indeed nostalgia but also for newer players that didn’t get to play that version. Recycling content isn’t bad but when you get the same activity every year it rolls around it becomes stale. Once every 4-5 years seems right to me. There was an activity in the Spring of 2019 that was nearly the same activity as the Haunted Forest but from what I gather it didn’t have any end, you could go as long as you wanted. The name escapes me but it sounded fun and was probably the inspiration for the Autumn activity.

Flaming blue skull

The haunted forest was not actually that good. It was just repetitive, plagued by speed runners, it could drag on or not give you time to actually do anything. People who say it was better are just nostalgic for anything old. It was also broken because as long as sword flying exists in the game it is breakable. And sword flying is more prevalent than ever.

It really was better than lost sectors. In Haunted Lost Sectors (HLS), your goal is simply to stand in as many summoning circles as you can to summon "Headless Ones" (just big hive knight reskins) and kill as many as you can until the timer is up, then you fight a mechanic-less boss and get rewards based on your candy and headless ones killed. The decorations do add a nice Halloween-y flair to HLS activities, but they are absurdly repetitive in nature. The Haunted Forest (HF), however, was much more replayable. Even if the general aesthetics didn't change much, it was still very spooky feeling. It was completely dark. The only sources of light were your ghosts' flashlights, minor lights from entities (such as hive eyes or red-hot gladiator blades), and a slight ambient glow from the lightning and clouds all around. The party spawn on a platform, and once ready, could go down to load a new chunk. The goal was simply to defeat as many enemies as possible to fill up a bar. As you went, the path was made up of procedurally generated chunks, and they were Vex in design, but covered in spooky Halloween decorations. The enemies you'd face were random each floor. Once you filled up the bar, you were taken to the boss arena to fight a random boss. Once you beat the boss and there was still time on the clock, you'd be taken to the next floor. Every few floors would introduce a random debuff that would make everything harder. The whole goal was simply to make it as far as you can. Once you ran out of time, self-respawn timers got drastically extended, and if everyone is downed or you defeat a boss with no time left, you are taken to the reward platform where one final amazing surprise may be waiting in store for the unlucky who aren't aware of it. I won't spoil, but it's a very memorable one nobody could forget. Then there are the masks. You could equip special mods on the masks that would grant extremely potent effects, like invincibility while airborne, extra heavy ammo drops, high energy regen, and more. They made the gameplay itself feel fresh and I feel with the updated add density, the HF could be even more enjoyable than it was before. The main takeaway is the the HF felt like a unique activity that can't be replicated elsewhere and HLS just feel like lil matchmade public events in a spookified lost sector.