One of the biggest controversies within theDestiny 2community was Lightfall’s launch, which flooded players with questions and didn’t provide the answers it was supposed to, to the point that every NPC involved in the plot seemingly knew what The Veil was, but not Guardians. Even with the expansion’s post-campaign content,Destiny 2didn’t really provide fans with enough information to understand the stakes of The Witness' actions or the meaning behind them. Season of the Deep did a lot of heavy lifting in this area, though, thanks to theParting The Veil questand its two big cutscenes, but in retrospect, Bungie told players what The Veil was all the way back in The WItch Queen.
The Witness' origins cutscene inDestiny 2from the penultimate weekly mission in Season of the Deep explained a lot of what happened in Lightfall as well as the meaning of the so-called final shape, among other things. Yet, one of the biggest revelations lies in the fact that The Witness' original people discovered that The Traveler had a connection with The Veil, and through studying the latter they discovered the Darkness and its power. This means that The Veil is seemingly a ‘dark mirror’ to The Traveler and the origin of the powers of the Darkness, but this could have been inferred in another meaningful way.
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How Destiny 2’s Vox Obscura Spoiled Lightfall’s Portal Scene
In The Witch Queen, Bungie introduced one of the most important pieces of side content in the history ofDestiny 2in the form of theVox Obscura mission. This activity granted players a means to obtain the Dead Messenger Exotic grenade launcher as well as its catalyst, but the true reward came from its incredible lore. In fact, Vox Obscura spoiled major events for the Year 5 seasons as well as Lightfall itself.
Among the various reveals from Vox Obscura, the transmission stated that The Traveler would soon be infected by the Darkness, and with the recent knowledge fromSeason of the Deep’s cutscenethat The Veil is the source of the Darkness' powers, there’s a clear through-line. At the end of Lightfall, The Witness opens a portal on The Travel thanks to The Veil’s powers. This portal seems to be cut into The Traveler byDestiny 2’s Witness, with it then stepping into it alongside its Black Fleet and vanishing to some hidden place, which players will likely learn more about before The Final Shape.
Considering that the portal was made with Darkness energy coming from The Veil, The Traveler has indeed been infected by Darkness as Vox Obscura’s Psionic visions predicted, and it’s one of many major events inDestiny 2’s seasonal story and overarching narrative that the mission anticipated. Given how accurate Vox Obscura had been, in hindsight, one could have associated the portal and The Veil’s energy with Darkness, which now explains the Lightfall plot in its entirety. With Bungie’s stories being handcrafted over the course of years, there are likely even more hints about what The Final Shape might have in store that are not easy to pick up on.
Still, it goes to show that even though some pieces of the puzzle can be hard to place, Lightfall’s debacle could have been avoided. If Bungie told players what the biggest dilemma posed by Lightfall was all the way back in The Witch Queen, it’s only fair to assume that the seeds to explainDestiny 2’s The Final Shapehave been firmly planted over the past six years. Even the return of Cayde is likely to make a lot more sense once some seemingly small details are finally put together.
Destiny 2is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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