Destiny 2's Season of the Deep is thriving on the reprised Titan destination from the Content Vault as well as a good seasonal storyline that delivers great interactions and character development at every turn, with Deputy Commander Sloane taking center stage again. As the story goes, players are able to catch glimpses of thoughts inside Ahsa's head, with this new ally being a proto-Hive Worm specimen who wants to help Guardians fight off The Witness and learn more about its purpose. This is exactly what is revealed in Destiny 2's new cutscene for Season of the Deep, all while unveiling the villain's origins, what The Veil is, and much more.
One of the biggest problems with Destiny 2's Lightfall on launch was that it failed to deliver on its premise, which was to learn more about humanity's end at the hands of The Witness - as well as what The Veil exactly is. This caused backlash on the community's part due to how the story was delivered, as multiple key characters acted like they knew exactly what The Veil was despite Lightfall never explaining it, and then the main campaign fell flat due to Calus' role and The Witness' escape.
Destiny 2's Season of the Deep Succeeds Where Lightfall Failed
The new cutscene is a massive game-changer when it comes to Destiny 2 lore because the first thing it does is explain the origins of The Witness, who seems to be an entity made of all the members of an alien race - the first that The Traveler ever blessed. This alien race prospered for a long time thanks to The Traveler's terraforming powers - whom they called 'The Gardener', but these beings felt they lacked meaning. This led to the aliens discovering The Traveler had a 'dark mirror' in the universe, which they called The Veil, and from it, they learned that not only the Light existed, but also the Darkness.
This explains what The Veil is and why The Witness was after it in Lightfall, especially because the cutscene also reveals that the alien race tried to bring The Veil to The Traveler to strengthen their connection in order to reshape reality and create the so-called final shape. What this final shape seems to be, based on the cutscene, is an existence deprived of its chaotic nature where the Light can never have devastating side effects and all lifeforms don't have to suffer. However, The Traveler fled, and it started fleeing Destiny 2's Black Fleet ever since - ships built by The Witness' original race.
Then, the alien race used the Darkness' binding power to merge each of its specimens into one entity - The Witness, which also explains the smoke-like faces emerging from its head at all times, as they are the faces of all those who made the ultimate sacrifice to become one. All of this is key to understanding what The Witness wants and who it really is, and with the cutscene also giving meaning to Destiny 2's The Veil after Lightfall, Season of the Deep paves the way for The Final Shape expansion.
Given that The Witness wants to give the universe meaning and remove chaos from it, this also means that Guardians were never the final shape. Rather, Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion will likely have to do with The Witness trying to find a way to correct the course of all life in the universe according to its own view, one that it has been after for centuries. Season of the Deep's cutscene is exactly what Lightfall needed in the first place, and while it may be late for the expansion, it sheds new light on the game's lore.
Destiny 2 is available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
