Bungie has given Destiny 2’s long-awaited Lightfall expansion its first proper reveal, sharing a huge heap of gameplay details – from its Neptune setting to its new grapple-hook-like Strand ability – ahead of its now-confirmed launch date of 28th February next year.
Lightfall, which was initially announced back in June 2020, will be Destiny 2’s penultimate expansion, coming between this year’s The Witch Queen and the game’s finale expansion The Final Shape. As such, Bungie is calling it the “beginning of the end”, and it continues an escalating narrative that will bring Destiny’s Light and Darkness Saga to a close.
It finally gives a name and a face to Destiny 2’s much-teased big bad, The Witness, and will take players to Neptune’s capital city. This gleaming metropolis is, thanks to Calus’ Shadow Legion, now Cabal-occupied territory, and players will need to deal with their new Pyramid-enhanced tech – including suppression devices, which can diminish Guardians’ abilities – plus a new Pyramid unit known as the Tormentor.
These “impossibly huge, unstoppable behemoths” wield scythes, can fight from distance, can bring players in close, and even drain their life-force, serving as an almost boss-like enemy that players will need to deal with during battle.
To help take on the Tormentors – and traverse Neptune’s sprawling capital city, Lightfall introduces a new dark power known as the Strand. In combat, this will manifest differently between classes – as a huge barrage of missiles for Warlocks, as devastating claws for Titans, and as a deadly rope dart for Hunters – but also serves as a kind of inter-dimensional grappling hook for all players, latching onto the fabric of reality itself so players can swing around wherever and whenever they choose.