Destiny 2 Lore - We now know what the Witness, The Final Shape and The Veil are. But is it too late?

Wait.. the wittness is just mad at the travaler for not doing wjat they wanted?

It’s crazy to see the consequences of Bungie cutting and repurposing content still rearing its ugly head almost a decade later. This same exact thing happened to original Destiny’s story, Destiny 2, TWQ, and now LF. Clearly there was an original vision and intent that for some reason was haphazardly restructured for the worse. I’m kind of at a point where I just wanna get TFS over with so we can just move on into a new era and perhaps recapture some of the vibe D1 had but with a more tangible through line to follow.

Love to know why bungie thought it was ok to do this in the first place like we’re they really like “no one will care if we never explain anything in lightfall”

It's ok if a season's story drags. But sacrificing a massive point to the main story for another season is a crappy thing to do. I would of been fine if this cutscene was in Lightfall, and season of deep was boring. That's fine. A massive dlc expansion should have beat possible content, and story to be provided

i get that it shouldve been apart of lightfall. i really do, but literally why use half of a lore video to complain for the millionth time.

Agreed. Should have been in Lightfall.
Can't help but feel that it was chopped up for the sake of justifying DLC.

I actually like that this lore is dropping like this.
Yes I know I’m going to a lot of hate but bear with me.
I understand where you’re coming from Byf, really I do. But instead of looking at this as a sci-fi action, let’s instead look at this as a mystery.
As a writer, you really don’t want to lore dump all at once, especially with a mystery.
We’ve been introduced to the mystery, the plot hook. “What is the veil?” As it stands, we have tangental clues to follow. But if this lore had been dumped in Lightfall, it would’ve felt like we were introduced to the mystery, and the revelatory clue is sitting right next to the body.
It’s not a very good mystery if you’re told upfront what the deal is; is it?
That said, could this situation have been handled better? Yes absolutely. I imagine someone on the writing team was experimenting with cross genre storytelling. But it isn’t an awful attempt if thats the case.

Totally wrong.
Cloudstriders were already sacrificated, adding this would have made them and Neomuna totally useless.
Lightfall was bad, but not because it missed this informations. The game is a game with seasons and seasons needs to have lore, also considering that they will have to prepare for the last DLC of the saga.
LF was bad because it was rushed, and they did not focus enought on Neomuna and the cloudstrider, and they added too many strend missions, but this lore was not needed in the game.

Expect this more often. Your analogy involving the car is a perfect example BECAUSE:
Yes you can build a car without wheels. This is exactly what happens in the car manufacturing process, the wheels are from a completely different brand, who delivers their product to a sector designated for putting the wheels on the finished car. Welcome to the new business model of Bungie. The Seasons are the other tire brands, delivering the rest of the product to be finished as a whole, somewhere else in the near future.

Consider your 32k Likes a signal to Bungie that 32k individuals are impassionated with anger at the game they are 2 degrees away from loving. Nowhere near the millions of players who've bought into the franchise. Surely a number they are fine with.

I’m calling it this the power we will get after the final shape. Both of the darkness and the light to rebuild humanity.

ive got to say i like the gameplay state of the destiny atm a lot . the build crafting seems really powerful and rewarding .

I had honestly already forgotten about the Veil because Lightfall was underwelming

yea like i said i wouldn't have mind the lightfall story if it was something more, more than a black and white cutscene with like 12 different pictures. but if that was really all they didn't tell us then like yea why wouldn't you put that in lightfall, where lightfall could have been. Hey here is your enemy, here is what he is, and how he came to be and this is what we know that he wants the vail. and that is all we know and all the rest of lightfall continues. where for the rest of the year it can be how we can stop the witness that also has the vail, which we still don't know much about and tell us in an expansion of what new information we got from the sessional storyline about the vail. which then people can be like "oh fuck and he has that" and you can then put it on a hopeful note of like "but this is how we can separate him from the vail we hope" where the stakes would be "like if this doesn't work we lost and he can rewrite the universe."

Anybody who didn’t anticipate Lightfall not answering everything immediately but instead drip feeding us through the seasons hasn’t been paying attention to Bungo’s delivery method for quite some time now.

Also for future players coming into destiny seasons aren't permanent, they won't properly understand ehqr all that means unlike if it was in a DLC they could go back and play

From all Ive learned so far, I can say that now I understand why the narrative was done like that, but because I understand that, it also makes alot of sense if the narrative of the witness's origin and plan was actually in Lightfall. The biggest reveal here would be the witness's origin and plan, if it was put it on Lightfall, it would make one of the biggest seasons, than what would happen with Season of the deep? we would go for all the trouble of the season only to learn a "possible way" to defeated the witness, maybe the season itself would feel a bit weak, compared to lightfall in this possible scenario. I do agree however that, if the cutscene of the witness's origin and plan was acually on Lightfall, it would make one of the best seasons in the game.

Not as impressive as the Tenno of warframe to me

"not to beat a dead horse" ...proceeds to flog said dead horse for ten tedious minutes

This was honestly what the whole story of Lightfall should have been. Lightfall's narrative was juvenile, disjointed, and unsatifyingly concluded 9 years of story growth (especially the last 3).

And until Bungie officially acknowlges this, I am going to keep assuming the writing team of Lightfall is sitting in a room chanting "We best!"

The would have been Lightfall’s “The Hive were tricked by the darkness about the Traveler coming to their planet reveal” or “Savathun was CHOSEN by the Traveler” reveal. They were HUGE, WTF, jaw dropping moments and partly why Witch Queen was so good.

why can't we all just get along :D

for me during lightfall i was like wtf is the veil and why is it important

I just gotta say I think the origins of things in Unveiling is better. The Veil seems to be a corrupting force so I do hope that Unveiling is somehow the Witness' interpretation of what memories and knowledge it gained when it linked to the Veil

I'm late to the party, I kinda spaced out of Destiny because of the failures of Lightfall's story telling, I'm back because of what I heard about what Eris Morn did in the current season and congratulations I'm back in. It's a frustrating experience because Bungie is capable of amazing storytelling, but telling a good story badly is, in some ways, worse than telling a mediocre story well. My ADHD makes me likely to bounce away, my autism provides the game gravity to eventually pull me back.

The traveler might be evil!!!!!

I disagree with one thing in any of this, and more or less it might be a misinterpretation of what you meant.

The "tie in" i disagree with. To my understanding the only reason we got that information about the witness was because of our interaction with ahsa. No ahsa, no info.

Only caveat i can think of is, how much did neomuna know/realize about the veil and its existence/purpose.

I disagree with the being in lightfall

If it weren't for this channel I wouldn't know Destiny 2 had an actual story. If you think they dropped the ball that says a lot.

Had to stop and rewatch the end cutscene to Witch Queen. The Witness' dialogue is VERY cool in retrospect.

literally they could just have put this in when we defeat chunky boy and boom easy fix

It's dissapointed that after almost a decade of Destiny, Bungie still dont know how to deliver the story, 1 step forward for The Witch Queen and 1 step back in Lightfall

I've kind of given up on Destiny but still want to keep up to date on the story as I love the lore and story elements (just not the gameplay so much anymore). I would have been so disappointed in spending £80 if I bought the season and gotten what I saw as the big launch story. This should have been Lightfall's deception of the Hive moment in Witch Queen. After a poor start like that, I would have had no faith in the future of the story. I'm glad they eventually revealed some serious story points, but I agree leaving it so long and introducing story elements with no rhyme or reason for months was a poor decision.

Obvbungie decided to split this story up because they wanted people to continue paying them money for the season of the deep. Its what has always been the case with Destiny. The main focus has always been "how to we take the most money from our customers". They couldn't care less about the story. If they did, it would never have been such a convoluted mess ever since D1. This is the studio who made Halo afyer all. One of the tightest, and best written stories in any video game franchise.

I agree with your sentiment about this being a part of light fall. That is when I last played and haven't gone back since.

I love the lore of the universe but the game is insufferable with these kind of decisions.

The thing is, these fantastic rainbow haired writers didn't think of this until a later date. Lightfall was poorly written and a clear agenda driven dlc.

Nothing in destiny before has ever looked like those cloud dancers. The whole themselves thing.

These new age writers do not understand what subtlety is.

guy stretched this shit out hella. repeated himself for minutes on end

I really don’t like how the story diverged so much from the mythos of the gardener and winnower. If the veil was to the darkness as the traveler is to the light it would make more sense. But it being just an inanimate vestige that happened to have darkness and a connection to the traveler makes no sense. It goes against the underlying theme of “where there is light there will be darkness”, opposing forces of equal strength that facilitate each other, fight each other but are necessary for each other. The traveler is autonomous, thinking, feeling, and imposing. The veil isn’t, just an object that happens to have paracausal power. The veil should have been the winnower, the witness should have been the vessel of the winnower much like our guardian is the vessel for the gardener.

super late to the party, but i wholeheartedly disagree with your take.

Was the traveler buried there, or was he emerging from the planet? Something to think about.

The story of Destiny is great. The storytelling is abysmal. Always has been. Sure, there have been highs in the delivery, but now many.

So the traveler represents the force of nature to an extent so powerful that it breakes its own laws (a paracausal force, born from nature, powerful enough to defy it)

And the darkness was named as such for its opposition to the traveler's light. The darkness being the mindscape of sentience, manifest.

The veil seems to be a way to peak into the realm of psychology, of will, emotion, desire and substance, and the traveler is the culmination of the universe itself...

I feel that the Traveler leaving can be partly to escape the Witness but mostly it's disappointment with what each civilization does with its gifts. The Eliksni devoted too much of themselves in worship almost as much as the predecessors, we could have also failed were out not for most ghosts and specific guardian factions... 😅
I'm sorry tho, as a Guardian, it's enough for me that if he's the bad guy, understanding or not, whatever he wants is also no good, everything else is just filler and call me a creation eating titan but every expansion is more than it's campaign to me, Lightfall includes it's seasons as the past few years have taught me 🤷🏼‍♂️

My theory is that the traveler was on the ground seemingly broken because the entire story is essentially a cycle and the previous witness won

Byf: That is a decision that carries the weight of Lightfall’s failure…

Bungie executives: My failure? My failure? I have sought the wealth of players with vicious subjugation, battered down the wallets of our enemies, and seized our glittering prize. Why? Because I wanted it!

Catching up with old videos and the first thing i said when completing lightfall was "was the witness just standing in front of the travler the hole time" it was only worth it for the supers

The witness is the antispiral

So relaxing your videos are 🎉

I just realized, the black gardens heart looks like it is made of similar material as to the witness’s attire

I found this to see a break down and analysis of that lore video and all you do is bitch about lightfall instead.

Gonna just leave this here for posterity. This cutscene in a vacuum absolutely rocks. I don't want to take away from anyone's enjoyment of that. I just wouldn't feel right not mentioning how I felt about the delivery of this cutscene at this particular time. More enthusiam inbound for sure. I just need to dive into the lore first and get writing with these scripts.