Destiny 2’s latest cinematic makes me excited for a game I’ve not played in years

Bungie’s eye-catching new Destiny 2 movie came out this week to wrap up the game’s current Season 19 in style.

Perhaps even more exciting, the trailer successfully hypes both the imminent arrival of Destiny 2’s Lightfall expansion later this month, and the fact that Bungie is finally bringing its overarching 10-year narrative to a long-awaited finale.

I’ve previously poured hundreds and hundreds of hours into the original Destiny and its sequel, but have just kept up with its story for the past few years and haven’t been able to put in the time it takes to play the game each week to keep up with yourself. Even for someone like me, this new video has a lot to excite.

For starters, the film features a large portion of the Destiny 2 cast all coming together to watch the activity of the Traveler – Destiny’s awesome space golf ball floating above the earth.

Here, a threat to the Traveler from a newer enemy, Eramis, sees the Traveler attempting to escape Earth orbit and escape annihilation. But wait! That threat can be averted by the newly personified Rasputin – aka the AI ​​intelligence you’ve befriended over the years since it was first introduced as the Russian music-loving computer terminal housed beneath the Cosomodrome.

Unfortunately, the solution here is that Rasputin must self-destruct in order to remove his network of attack satellites targeting the Traveler. This foils Eramis’ plan and the traveler comes to a halt with a shriek.

That’s good – after all, the Traveler gives you and everyone else on Earth your powers, and it would be bad to leave him. But as Destiny’s slimy villain The Witness, the saga’s ultimate big bad, states: With darkness coming upon them now, where else could the traveler go?

The overarching story of Destiny has been one of travelers and the pyramid ships – the light and the dark – and at this point, the ultimate showdown is finally on the horizon. Removing Rasputin is a huge story beat for this film and the saga as a whole, but one that feels justified given the series’ recent focus on him and makes sense to up the ante for all the other left behind.

Say what you want to say about the history of Destiny over the years – and I was there in those early days of Peter Dinklage and Paul McCartney – the fact that there is a games franchise that can tell a decades-long story, is still remarkable to me. Obviously, the narrative path towards the imminent end of the saga has shifted over the years – the return of the exo-stranger, the role shifts for the crow – but that’s all part of how a story is laid out. And – as the image below shows – it’s a wonderful thing to see elements like the final shot of the Traveler woven into the plan that Bungie had all along.

Following Destiny’s upcoming cyberpunk foray into Neptune as part of Lightfall, the saga will conclude next year in Destiny 2’s eighth expansion, The Final Shape.

I can’t wait to see how it all ends, even though I still can’t find the time to really get involved again. I want to see what happens to Zavala and Ikora, Osiris, Variks, Eris and co. I finally want to see these pyramid ships on earth! And I want to see Bungie wrap up the story satisfactorily while still leaving room for the inevitable continuation of Destiny in the future.