Summary
Destiny 2’s Season of the Wish recently wrapped up its storyline, leaving players in a state of limbo as they wait for more content ahead of The Final Shape, which is set to release on June 4 and conclude the 10-year saga of Light and Darkness as well as kickstart a new one. There are a lot ofexpectations riding on The Final Shape, as the expansion was first set to launch in February and was later delayed shortly after the news of layoffs at Bungie broke, which combined took quite a toll on the community’s trust and morale. Still, The Final Shape is bound to resolve the storyDestinyhas been telling for a decade, and based on current events, a change made in Season of the Seraph may never be undone.
Destiny 2has undergone many significant changes since its early days, to the point that it turned around from what many considered a hot mess on launch to a success story for live-service titles. Not all of the game’s changes are immediately apparent, and not all of them revolve around gameplay. For example,Season of the Seraph had The Traveler leave Earthfor the first time in 9 years, and this is something that will likely never change after The Final Shape is done, forever removing that element of familiarity.
Destiny 2’s Season of the Seraph Broken Tradition May Never be Reverted
Why Destiny 2’s Traveler May Never Be Back on Earth
One of the reasons whyDestiny 2’s episodic modelcould be a good thing is that it will keep content flowing for longer periods of time and allow Bungie to really focus on the narrative. This means that characters and environments may end up having a lot more space in each new story, developing and transforming as the events unfold, but possibly with more consistency compared to the current seasonal model and three-month release schedule.
The Final Shape’s location is the Pale Heart, which is inside The Traveler. In the current story, it seems that The Traveler is “dead,” in the sense it feels unresponsive and suffering deeply, but Guardians retain their connection to the Light. It remains to be seen what will happen with the final confrontation against The Witness and how exactly the story will end, but it seems likely that The Traveler may either not survive or be changed for good. Either way, it seems unlikely that things will go back to how they were, and so The Traveler is probably never going to be in Earth’s orbit or visible from The Tower.
In Destiny lore, The Traveler wasn’t always on Earth, but it has been there since the first game. The only time it left was during The Witch Queen campaign, when Savathun “kidnapped” it and tried trapping it inside her Throne World.
This is not necessarily a bad thing and it does mean things in the franchise are mutating and adapting to the new directionDestiny 2’s next sagamay be heading into, but there is a bittersweet element about the possibility of The Traveler becoming a relic of the past. There is still a lot players don’t know about this entity, and as much as The Final Shape can wrap it all up with a nice bow, there are bound to be questions left unanswered, even through lore books.
When The Traveler left Earth in Season of the Seraph, Bungie’s storytelling made it unclear whether it was leaving to save itself or to protect humanity from a full-on invasion or collateral damage from the inevitable battle. The Traveler’s beam of Light in Lightfall, the consequences of which are made clear withinDestiny 2’s Root of Nightmare Raid, could point to the latter being the correct theory, but only time will tell. Still, with the final confrontation between Light and Darkness happening within The Traveler, it’s likely this entity will never go back to where it was - right where the Last City stood, and possibly will still stand.
