The latest Destiny 2 showcase aired today and has revealed information regarding the end of the Light and Dark Saga and Season of the Witch right before it dropped today, as Destiny 2 approaches The Final Shape.
First off, the Game Director of Destiny 2, Joe Blackburn, was hot right out the gate and assured Guardians, “In the Final Shape, you will go inside The Traveler,” in what will be Guardians’ first exploration of The Pale Heart. The opening teaser cinematic cutscene has the protagonist’s trusty Ghost asking Guardians to rise one last time for The Final Shape in their ultimate confrontation with The Witness.
The Final Shape is The Traveler coming forth and asking Guardians for help personally, considering the conclusion of the Lightfall campaign opened a window into The Traveler. The showcase can be watched entirely below, including this teaser.
In The Final Shape, Guardians will enter this portal into The Pale Heart following The Witness’s hostile entry. Inside The Pale Heart, longtime Guardians will notice echoes of The Tower from the original Destiny, in what developers have called “the first truly linear area they’ve made for Destiny 2”.
There will be a new enemy called The Subjugators, equipped with Stasis and Strand powers reminiscent of The Witness’ overwhelming darkness power itself. The mission is to ultimately stop The Final Shape from occurring. It has been confirmed Guardians will confront The Witness in a raid for the first time following the events of The Final Shape in March 2024—an epic showdown, years in the making.
Big Destiny 2 Showcase Big Announcements
- Alongside the new campaign, there are three new supers for select light subclasses for each class of Guardian (Solar for Warlock, Void for Titan, and Arc for Hunter), including new powerful Aspects to temper builds into a fine edge. Each Aspect is designed to work in a fire team, and situational awareness will be key for success.
- Tessellation is a new Exotic Fusion Rifle present in The Final Shape, which can special reload and shape your grenade into your weapon for devastating effect, and developers have confirmed original Destiny Exotics will return, such as ‘The Dragon’s Breath’, but they will be slightly reworked to compete in Destiny 2.
- There are two new weapon classifications called a ‘rocket-pistol’ and ‘support frame auto rifle ‘, which can deepen the pool of available DPS and Support-based Guardian build with healing and more destructive firepower.
- Key to Season of the Witch is the new Deck of Whispers boon system. This new method of player progression allows Guardians to customize their load-outs and powers in new ways. By completing Seasonal activities, players earn cards that can be used to build a customized deck full of buffs and perks for certain activities. Players in fire teams have the option to carefully strategize which cards they bring along to maximize their battle effectiveness on each run.
- Altars of Summoning – a three-player experience added during The Final Shape that lets Guardians hop in and out at a moment’s notice. Players can put from 20 minutes to a couple of hours into it, and the rewards near the end will relate to how much time and effort is spent.
- The exotic mission rotator is detailed further, adding the idea that after a mission is added to the rotator, Guardians will be able to craft the released exotic.
- New PvP updates have been finally announced. A new game mode called ‘Relics’ is coming, which is technically an arms race for guardians to retrieve powerful weapons to make quick work of opponent combatants. A new Vex-themed map called Multiplex and the new Checkmate modifier are also on the horizon.
- The first-ever Destiny raid is coming back to Destiny 2, the reprised Crota’s End Raid. It will be playable in one week, on September 1.
Power and Other Changes Coming to Destiny 2
- Fireteam Power scaling allows players who aren’t levelled to ‘raid strength’ yet to scale up to the fireteam’s highest power level, allowing more casual players to experience the bigger content without the grind. This feature will come in Season 23.
- Timeline reflections have released today following the showcase. These are missions from past campaigns that include new pieces of narrative that add exposition and importance to the events of Destiny 2. This feature includes Cayde-6’s final showdown with the Scorn from Destiny 2: Forsaken, the debut of Stasis from Destiny 2: Beyond Light, and the introduction of the Lucent Hive from Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. These missions are available at no additional charge.
- Instead of four seasons a year, Destiny 2 will implement three ‘episodes,’ yearly following the Final Shape, which details the heroes of Destiny 2 during the events after the massive 10-year conclusion to the Light and Dark saga. The first episode is called “Echoes.”
- Fireteam Finder will be implemented in November 2023, which is Destiny 2’s answer to players who prefer to go solo but can’t do higher-level content without making connections. This eliminates the connections and allows Guardians to just play the game.
Destiny 2 Season of the Witch starts today, and next week, Crota’s End returns to Destiny 2. Bungie also revealed a Collector’s Edition for The Final Shape, which includes a statue of the original Destiny Tower, complete with Vanguard figures, and pre-orders for The Final Shape are up now. The Final Shape launches on February 27, 2024.
