Destiny 2 The Final Shape: What We Know So Far

Destiny 2 is a free-to-play online first-person shooter game developed by Bungie. At first, the game was published by Activision, but after Bungie parted ways with Activision in 2019, Bungie has been the sole developer and publisher of the ongoing game. Destiny 2 was first released on September 6, 2017, and it was a direct sequel to Bungie’s 2014 Destiny. Destiny 2 picked up right where Destiny left off, with a new main story called The Red War. The Red War featured the Cabal, common Destiny enemies from the original game who never really got a campaign that focused specifically on them.

Destiny 2 kept a similar formula to the original game. Bungie wanted to make sure that players had access to everything they loved about Destiny, but with more room to grow and expand. The Red War was just the beginning of a massive, ongoing journey that pit Guardians against the forces of the Darkness. Since Destiny 2’s release in 2017, Bungie has updated the game every year with a massive expansion. Each expansion features a new campaign, new worlds to explore, new side quests and stories, new characters, and, of course, new threats to overcome.

Overall, Destiny 2 has solid reviews. Steam rates the game a 9 out of 10 and 89% of Google users who weighed in on the game claim to like it. IGN rates Destiny 2 an 8.5 out of 10 and calls it great. One of IGN’s reviews says, “Destiny 2’s excellent co-op and competitive shooting, rewarding loot, and strong social elements will keep us playing.” The co-op elements help this first-person shooter shine. The game is almost entirely co-op-compatible. Most missions, activities, and PvP content can be played in a fireteam of up to six players. This means that friends can do just about everything Destiny 2 has to offer together.

Destiny 2 Premise

Destiny 2 takes place in the distant future, after humanity’s Golden Age and the collapse of everything. The game is set in The Last City, which is a city and hub for most surviving members of humanity. The Last City is protected by a giant wall where the Tower sits. The Tower is the main hub of the game where players collect mission briefs, bounties, and rewards.

The Tower is the home of the Guardians, humans who were resurrected by the Traveler and given inhuman abilities through the Light. Each Guardian has a small companion known as their Ghost. These Ghosts are small balls of Light created by the Traveler. Each Ghost seeks its ideal Guardian amongst the dead. Once a Ghost finds its Guardian, it resurrects them and makes them one of the Traveler’s Chosen. As long as the Guardian protects their Ghost, they can never die because the Ghost will always be able to bring them back. This is how Destiny 2 explains the respawn mechanic.

The player gets to create their own Guardian. They get to choose between a human, an Exo (a human who was turned into a cyborg-like machine), or an Awoken (an alien species unique to the Destiny universe). Guardians don’t remember anything about their previous life before their death and resurrection. Once a Ghost chooses them, they start a new life as a Guardian. Most Guardians choose to join the Tower, a hub of Guardians sworn to protect The Last City. The Tower is run by the Vanguard, a fireteam of three Guardians who represent each class, Warlock, Hunter, and Titan.

Destiny 2 opens with The Red War campaign. At the time, this was the most ambitious story Destiny ever told. The Cabal invaded the Tower, destroyed it, and attempted to kidnap the Traveler, the source of the Guardians’ power. Dominus Ghaul led the attack on the Tower, which temporarily resulted in the Guardians losing their Light, which meant losing their power and their ability to resurrect themselves. Ghaul also managed to steal the Light for himself, so the final boss fight featured a superpowered Ghaul using the Guardians’ power against them.

Since The Red War, Destiny 2 has updated the game with a new expansion every year and new seasons every four months. Each main expansion does a huge overhaul to the game and every season features a continued story leading up to the next expansion.

Destiny 2 Expansions

So far, Destiny 2 has featured five major expansions after The Red War. This equals one expansion every year since the game’s release. The sixth expansion comes out in Summer 2024.

Every Destiny 2 Expansion:

• Year 1: The Red War (2017) – This is the main campaign for the base game.
• Year 2: Forsaken (2018)
• Year 3: Shadowkeep (2019)
• Year 4: Beyond Light (2020)
• Year 5: The Witch Queen (2022) – Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the development of Destiny 2 slowed during 2020. Beyond Light was released two months later than its projected release date. This delay pushed back the release date of The Witch Queen as well, so instead of coming out at the end of 2021, it was released in February 2022.
• Year 6: Lightfall (2023)
• Year 7: The Final Shape (2024) – The Final Shape comes out in Summer 2024 and will be the conclusion to the Light and Darkness saga. The Light and Darkness saga is the first real saga Destiny’s ever done, so The Final Shape will be a huge turning point for Destiny 2.

It’s important to keep in mind that Destiny 2 has been ongoing for many years now. To condense the game’s file size, Bungie has removed a lot of older content. The content cycles back into the game occasionally. New players, however, will not have access to every expansion. Since Bungie started cycling out older content, Destiny players have complained about it. It wasn’t a popular choice because it created a divide between original Destiny players and new players who have no access to much of the original content. Original Guardians and new Guardians have completely different backstories. According to the story newly made Guardians weren’t the ones responsible for all of the victories of Destiny and the first few expansions of Destiny 2.

The Final Shape Expansion Premise

Destiny 2: The Final Shape will be the conclusion of Destiny’s Light and Darkness saga. The Light and Darkness saga has been in the works since the beginning of Destiny back in 2014. The Guardians are beings of Light fighting enemies of the Darkness to protect The Last City and stave off extinction. As the story has progressed and covered many different conflicts, like the Cabal, the Fallen, the Hive, the Vex, and the Taken, players have learned more and more about the true struggles between the Light and the Darkness. Over the years, Guardians have even embraced elements of the Darkness when the Light abandoned them.

To be clear, The Final Shape isn’t the end of Destiny entirely. The last decade has slowly built the world of Destiny and focused on the Light and Darkness saga, but as the saga comes to an end, many more possibilities exist on the horizon. Currently, fans have no idea what’s coming after The Final Shape, but Bungie has already hinted at new stories and adventures.

The Final Shape is a continuation of 2023’s expansion, Lightfall. Guardians face Emperor Calus in Lightfall. Destiny 2 has teased Calus for years. Calus is a former Cabal Emperor and a Disciple of The Witness, a mysterious figure also referred to as the Entity, or the Voice in the Darkness. The Witness is a Darkness-wielding being who commands the Black Fleet. He has been a constant presence in the background of Destiny 2’s overarching story. As far as the Guardians know, he’s been pulling many strings behind the scenes. Lightfall ended with The Witness invading the Traveler.

The Final Shape promises an epic final showdown between The Witness and the Guardians. According to current information, the expansion takes place in the Pale Heart, another dimension that the Guardians have yet to explore. The Pale Heart is a dimension inside the Traveler. The Witness opened a portal to the Pale Heart when he invaded. The Witness is invoking the Final Shape by using the Pale Heart’s power. The Guardians must stop him by any means necessary.

Cayde-6 Returns In The Final Shape

In addition to finally facing off with the Witness and bringing the Light and Darkness saga to a close, fans got an early treat in The Final Shape’s teaser trailer. On May 24, 2023, Bungie dropped a teaser trailer as a first look into The Final Shape expansion. This teaser sparked hype for the upcoming expansion and announced the Destiny showcase that would happen in August. The August showcase would expand on what players could expect out of the story and new features. That said, the teaser trailer was enough to get most fans itching with anticipation.

That’s because the teaser trailer featured Cayde-6, the Hunter Vanguard. As expected from a role like Hunter Vanguard, Cayde-6 is an important figure in the world of Destiny. His appearance shocked and excited longtime fans because he died in the Forsaken expansion back in 2018. The decision to kill Cayde rattled the fandom because he was always a fan favorite. Out of the three Vanguard, Cayde was always more popular than both Zavala (Titan Vanguard) and Ikora (Warlock Vanguard). While Cayde’s death was emotional and impactful, it left a gapping wound in the fandom that never healed. To this day, Cayde’s position as the Hunter Vanguard has never been filled.

The teaser trailer features Ikora Rey, Cayde’s fire team member, fellow Vanguard, and longtime friend, catching Cayde up on everything that’s happened. Ikora tells him how much she wishes he could have been there. The end of the trailer pans up to Cayde, and he says, “Yeah, me too, Kiddo. But hey, I’m here now. Wherever the Hell ‘here’ is.” Many theories point to the possibility that Cayde exists inside the Pale Heart because he’s a fallen Guardian. Theoretically, he returned to the Light after his death. What extent Cayde’s resurrect goes to has yet to be revealed, but he’s back, and fans couldn’t be happier.

New Features Coming With The Final Shape

The Final Shape promises to be an experience unlike any other Destiny 2 expansion. Guardians enter the Traveler to face the most powerful foe that’s ever existed in the game. The developers have described The Final Shape as uncharted territory that fans have never seen and won’t be expecting. With so much promise in the upcoming expansion, there will be many new features and changes to the game.

New Enemies

The Witness has entered the Traveler’s Pale Heart long before the Guardians could follow. This means the Witness has time to shape the Pale Heart to his whims and prepare for the battle ahead. The Witness is ready for the Guardians and the developers have promised that he’ll throw everything he has at them. When Guardians first enter the Pale Heart, they’ll be greeted with familiar environments that feel like home. The closer they get to the Witness, the more the world will distort. Things will begin breaking apart in unnatural ways. The Pale Heart feels wrong and overwhelming all at once. Guardians feel small here. Up until this point, the Guardians have been powerful beings of Light. They’ve killed Gods and saved the universe countless times. The Final Shape strips Guardians of that feeling of power and security.

The Final Shape will introduce a new enemy known as the Subjugators. Over the last decade, Bungie has slowly introduced new enemies into the fold. Guardians have teamed up with some old enemies, like the Fallen and the Cabal, as new threats emerge. This expansion continues the trend. Subjugators possess both Stasis and Strand abilities. They specialize in crowd control and turn the Guardians’ Darkness abilities against them. They also seem to have some control over swarms of enemies that the Guardians are already familiar with, like the Hive and Taken.

The Pale Heart Destination

The Final Shape opens with the main campaign where the Guardians enter the Pale Heart and face the Witness. After the conclusion of the campaign, the Pale Heart will become an open-world destination that Guardians can return to at any time. This is a common feature of every Destiny 2 expansion. As the player progresses through the campaign, they unlock the new world where the story takes place. After the campaign, they can continue to explore, patrol, and complete story missions in the new world. The developers have described the Pale Heart as a unique destination that reacts to the Guardian. During the Destiny showcase, one of the hosts said, “The entire Pale Heart is going to react to you and what you are doing.”

A New Raid

Every expansion comes equipped with a raid. In Destiny, raids are endgame content that requires six Guardians to complete a challenging, multi-step mission. Raids usually feature more lore and story about the main campaign and allow Guardians to face off against an important and powerful boss. The Destiny showcase insinuates that the Witness will have his own raid at the end of The Final Shape campaign.

That said, the developers also hinted at the possibility of something more than a normal raid. “The raids are where you defeat the big bosses, so it’s only natural that when you are going to confront the Witness, you’re going to do that in the raid,” said one host. “But that might not be enough. This is a moment where we need to rally all Guardians to be able to overcome The Final Shape and the Witness.” This doesn’t explain precisely what’s in store, but fans can be sure it’s going to be huge.

New Supers

Before Guardians began communing with the Darkness, all of their power came from the Light of the Traveler. This manifested in three different subclasses, Arc, Solar, and Void. Over the years, these subclasses have gotten updates and makeovers, but they haven’t shifted much since the release of Strand and Stasis, the Darkness subclasses. The Final Shape seeks to change that. Because Guardians are entering the Traveler, the God-like being that gave them their powers, Arc, Solar, and Void will be amplified like never before. These new supers will focus on making Guardians oppressive powerhouses while also buffing and supporting allies.

• Warlock: Warlocks are getting a new Solar super that calls back to the Radiance super from the original Destiny. Destiny 2 reworked the Solar subclass for Warlocks entirely, doing away with Radiance in favor of Dawn Blade. This new class, “Song of Flame” focuses on the Warlock’s grenade, melee, and rift abilities. This super is the only other first-person super aside from Hunter’s Golden Gun. Using Song of Flame also buffs allies’ Solar weapons and helps them apply the scorch effect to enemies.
• Hunter: Hunters are getting the Arc super “Storm’s Edge”. It allows Hunters to throw an Arc knife, teleport to the knife, and perform a circular slashing move that sends out Arc energy in all directions. Hunters can do this up to three times. Hunters will be able to amplify themselves and their allies with a new aspect. This super brings a whole new meaning to ride the lightning.
• Titan: Titans are getting the Void super “Twilight Arsenal” and it’s their only ranged, one-off offensive super. The Titan leaps into the air, summons a giant Void axe, and throws it. Titans can summon multiple axes per super and throw them in different directions. The axes stick into the ground or a target and create a Void suction that results in a massive explosion. The axes linger, allowing the Titan and/or allies to pick them up and use them as offensive melee weapons.

New Weapons, Exotics, and Perks

At this point, it pretty much goes without saying that every new expansion will feature new weapons, new exotics, and new perks. Bungie hasn’t released all the details about new equipment, but the Destiny showcase did give players a sneak peek at a few things.

• Tessellation: Tessellation is a pyramid-inspired exotic fusion rifle. Most weapons are either kinetic or have a specific damage type associated with them. The Tessellation will adapt to the player’s current class. For example, if the player is running Stasis, the fusion rifle will also be Stasis. Tessellation can also absorb the Guardian’s grenade and use it to fire a powerful projectile.
• The Final Shape will introduce the rocket pistol, a sidearm subfamily. The rocket pistols fire small, slow-moving rockets one at a time that deal incredible damage.
• There will also be a new support weapon subfamily that features the support frame auto rifle. This weapon will allow players to shoot enemies as normal, but they can shoot allies with the auto rifle to heal them too.

Quality of Life Updates

It’s no secret that Bungie has been having all sorts of issues over the last year. Player engagement and overall sales have been down. Bungie recently laid off a ton of staff, which didn’t go over well with fans. Destiny 2’s servers have also been suffering continuously. Servers are crashing all the time, locking players out of the game for hours, days, and sometimes even weeks at a time. Bungie has a lot of work to do to sort out Destiny’s ongoing issues. Allegedly, The Final Shape will address these problems and update the servers to make them more sustainable.

The image featured at the top of this post is ©Destiny 2 / Bungie.