Finally, 'Destiny 2' Is Doubling Down on What the Fans Want: Obscure Lore

Bungie has just released a new trailer for Destiny 2’s next content drop, the Season of Dawn. At first glance it may seem like a conventional Destiny trailer, but it's packed with references to lore and character that are guaranteed to bring die-hards to their feet. Osiris, the mysterious Warlock who was banished from the Last City for going too far into his investigation of the Vex, seems to be this Season’s Quest Dispenser NPC, and delivers some exposition that gives him better characterization than the entirety of his standalone DLC, The Curse of Osiris, ever did. It feels appropriate that they’d be revisiting the character for this season that’s focused on fixing a broken timeline.

This new season has a lot resting on it. It’s the first Season post-Activision to launch as a standalone set of content. The Season of the Undying dropped simultaneously with their fall expansion, Shadowkeep, and was pretty light on the amount of content because of that. In it there was a public event, one exotic quest, and one new 6 player co-op activity with limited replayability. I was worried that this was the amount of content we could expect from future seasons, but this first look into Season of Dawn is promising. There are hints at what could be new story missions, quests, and a new activity, already putting it way ahead of the last season in terms of content, and if the trailer is anything to go by, the story seems more interesting as well.

The trailer reveals that players will be fighting through time to help Saint XIV, a legendary Titan that has been mentioned through lore and armor pieces since the original Destiny. He died trying to find Osiris after his exile, but the lore entry for a gun called “Perfect Paradox” in the Curse of Osiris DLC mentions that the Player was the one to give Saint XIV this gun. In the time between Destiny 2’s launch and Shadowkeep, Bungie has waffled on where to focus their storytelling, from largely ignoring old plotlines in service of attracting new players, to diving headfirst into some of the most obscure lore from the time when Destiny lore lived on a website outside of the game. Saint XIV’s return feels like Bungie cementing their stance post-Activision, diving head first into their independence. They’re back on their bullshit, and I couldn’t be more excited.