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A new trailer for Destiny 2‘s next expansion, The Final Shape, gives the clearest sense we’ve yet seen of what players can expect when they venture inside the Pale Heart of the Traveler. It’s a weird, somewhat distorted reflection of the world Guardians have explored for the last 10 years, made all the more unsettling by the creeping, corrupting influence of the Witness spreading through it.
The new trailer sets a haunting tone for The Final Shape, which stands as the culmination of 10 years of storytelling in the Destiny universe. It’s narrated by Cayde-6, the upbeat, jokey Vanguard leader who died in the Forsaken expansion and who is resurrected within the Traveler by unknown means. Nathan Fillion reprises the role after seasoned voice actor Nolan North briefly stepped in during the Forsaken expansion, but he’s not cracking wise through this trailer–he’s giving a solemn and spooky accounting of what Cayde has seen and felt since he woke up, alive again, inside Destiny 2’s powerful machine god.
Check out the trailer below.
There are a few other strange and interesting tidbits to be seen within the trailer. For one thing, the perspective of the camera constantly shifts and reorients as the landscape itself is cut apart and put back together. As Cayde talks about how the very ground beneath his feet and the sky above his head are memories, implying that this place is more illusory than it first appears, the ground flips upside down and we see Guardians traversing in the distance, standing with heads pointed toward the land above, their feet hovering above sky below.
Another notable tidbit: Savathun, Caiatl, and Mithrax appear in this trailer, cut together in such a way that it appears they are standing together against a threat. Caiatl and Mithrax, of course, are alien former enemies of the human Guardians who have since joined with the Vanguard to create a coalition against the Witness. Savathun’s appearance in that moment, however, is new.
While Savathun has been, uh, “helpful” in the battle against the Witness, she’s always also been an enemy–a character the good guys bargain with but keep at arm’s length, when they’re not actively trying to kill her. In the Season of the Witch, Savathun was resurrected and gave the Vanguard information about how to follow the Witness into the Traveler, but she hasn’t really been around since then. It appears, however, that a real alliance between the Vanguard and the Lucent Hive is in the offing, at least as long as the Witness remains a threat.
The trailer was released Monday night after it briefly appeared on Sony’s PlayStation YouTube channel, seemingly launched by mistake. After the Sony version was made private in the afternoon hours, Bungie re-released the trailer across all channels. If this trailer dropped a little earlier than intended, one wonders what else might be in store for players in the run-up to the expansion, especially with the current content event, Into the Light, slowly unspooling over the next few weeks.
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