Summary
Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion was widely regarded as a disappointing story due to the way every character involved seemed to be familiar with the core mystery of The Veil’s existence, but players were entirely oblivious to it, meaning the overall narrative fell flat. The Lightfall campaign’s case was not helped by the fact that a character like Rohan was not given enough time in the limelight to appreciate his sacrifice and short screen time, all while Calus' potential as a final campaign boss also felt wasted. The redeeming qualities of Lightfall as a whole started showing with Season of the Deep’s story, including an extremely important cutscene about theorigins of The Witness inDestiny 2, but Season of the Witch’s good narrative and premise also fell victim to Lightfall’s biggest issue.
Season of the Witch’s endingwas the main problem of this particular story, as the season itself started quite well by drawing from the darker Hive themes ofDestiny 2and allowing Eris Morn to take center stage. While the direction was not disappointing even after the finale, Season of the Witch failed to make good on the promise of all great stories, which is “show, don’t tell.” In this, S22 is a lot more similar to Lightfall than it should have been, showing that Bungie’s new episodic model will have a lot riding on its shoulders.
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Lightfall’s biggest blunder was to work as a story only by assuming that the main character and the players themselves all knew about The Veil, which didn’t really achieve much, especially since a lot of the campaign’s focus was actually spent on the powers of Strand as a subclass. Similarly,Destiny 2’s Season of the Witch culminates with a cutscene showing Eris slaying the newly-resurrected Savathun out of vengeance to empower herself, doing something to Xivu Arath, and then fainting.
The actual finale is described in the seventh lore book of the seasonal story, which sees Savathun being resurrected again by Immaru and complimenting Eris Morn for banishingDestiny 2’s Xivu Arathfrom her Throne World, making her mortal for the first time in millennia. This alone is an incredibly important detail that should have been included in the cutscene, but then the lore book continues by describing an interaction between Savathun, Ikora, Eris Morn, and the Guardian, in which the Witch Queen states she has already told them how to access the portal on The Traveler.
This too remains a mystery for now, and it will likely be the focus of Season 23 right before The Final Shape, but this is something that should have been shown in that same cutscene for clarity and to give the story closure. Even worse, is the fact that the eighth lore book from Season of the Witch describes an incredible moment betweenDestiny 2’s Saint-14 and Savathunfirst, and then between the Titan and his lover, Osiris, and all of it would have been all the better as a cutscene.
Many players already don’t engage with lore books all that much, and having an encounter between Saint and Savathun where the former repeatedly kills the latter, eventually leaving and saying that it was not for Osiris, but for himself. This would have been an extremely powerful scene to show in the game, especially because it ends with Saint going back home to Osiris, hugging him, and crying in his arms. It shows how deep the bond between them truly is, and it shows thatDestiny 2’s The Final Shapeneeds to deliver across the board, including telling a story that doesn’t leave anything this important as a footnote.
Destiny 2is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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