Bungie was back today with their big ViDoc reveal of Lightfall, ahead of the release in under 2 weeks. We got information related to the story, our new darkness power Strand, the Neon City of Neomuna, new exotics, Season of Defiance, new gameplay tools, plus a hint at the future of Destiny. Today I’m going to go over all the details, so lets get to it.

Before we get into all the details today, let me know in the comments what you thought of the ViDoc, and let me know your hype levels for Lightfall.

Going on the attack

Lightfall is about us attacking back against the forces of the Darkness. Calus and The Witness are invading Neomuna, plus we discover new powers and tools to battle back against the Shadow Legion and our enemies. Neomuna itself is under attack, it’s burning, and we have a whole suit of new powers get on the front foot and attack our enemies back, letting them know we’re not going to lie down without a fight.

Story

Lightfall’s story is going to have gravity and weight to it. This is the moment where The Witness comes face to face with the Traveller, something it’s been hunting for eons. But what does The Witness want with the Traveler? This is all about setting up the finale to the Light and Darkness saga, Lightfall is another step along the way toowards The Final Shape, and the narrative team have a lot of surprises in store for us in the campaign, plus in the seasons to come in Lightfall.

The Witness

In Lightfall we’re going to get to know the Witness. They are different from other enemies we’ve faced in Destiny. Other are theatrical, or over the top. The Witness is calm, all about control, and they are reserved. But they are dangerous.

Calus

We finally get to see Calus after all these years. He’s power hungry, and now he’s a disciple of The Witness. In Lightfall he’s going through a physical transformation, essentially reborn. He’s also more dangerous than ever.

Strand

Strand is our new Darkness power. Bungie didn’t want to make what we expected them to make, they wanted to make something that was unique to Destiny, and that’s Strand. This is a cosmic web, something that’s all around us. It’s unlike anything else we have in Destiny, it’s not fire, it’s not ice… this is the fabric of matter itself. We got a better look at the Guardian Strand Supers. The Hunter Threadrunner’s super is silkstrike, where you move and attack, move and attack. The Titan Berserker’s super is Blade Fury, where you encase your arms in threads like swords and have a combination of light attacks and heavy attacks. The Warlock Broodweaver’s super is needlestorm, where you create three sources of power, they charge up and turn into threadlings.

Grappling Hook

All classes have access to the grapple. You can latch onto enemies, latch onto grapple points, plus you can grapple melee. Grapple onto enemies, stun them and grapple punch, which in turn creates unravel projectiles. This is going to make Destiny feels like a completely new game.

Neomuna

Neomuna is the Neon City on Neptune. It branched off from Earth during the Collapse. It has a fresh new art style, colourful, with aerodynamic architecture, bright colors and vibrant graphic design. There is a beach area with sand made from diamonds. This place is packed full of mysteries. We have an arcade Lost Sector, plus a Pukka Pond (the strange flying fish like creatures, we first saw in Beyond Light with Elsie Bray). We can also explore Calus’ ship, and the city is in shambles, it’s on fire, and clearly under attack.

Cloudstriders

These are the defenders of Neomuna. Nimbus and Rohan. Rohan is the older Cloudstrider, grizzled where as Nimbus is the younger one, confident. They ahve new perspectives on the battles going on in the solar system, and they are unlikely to be very gappy about Calus and the Witness attacking them.

Tormentors

These are world bosses and have been designed to be the most scary unit in Destiny. They wield a massive scyth and command void energy. They literally reach out to grab you and can cruch you, something which Bungie hasn’t really done with enemies before. They look tough, and I can’t wait to hunt them down on Neomuna. It’s going to be interesting as Bungie have said they’re turning up the difficulty in the Patrol spaces, so the Tormentors are likely going to be hunting us, rather than the other way round.

Season of Defiance

On one hand we are helping out on Neomuna, which is where Lightfall’s campaign will take place. Back at home on Earth, this is where Season of Defiance will take place. We can see Crow and Amanda, maybe the romance will blossom between those two, or maybe a betryal? Bungie also mentioned Petra and Devrim, it’s going to be great to have a meaningful interaction with Devrim after all these years. We do have some reworked Strikes coming back, The Lake of Shadows and The Arms Dealer have been reworked. This makes sense in the context of the Cabal invading Earth, much like they did during the Red War Camapign, but this time I imagine it’s going to be the Shadow Legion.

Exotic Armour

Warlocks – Swarmers, creates new threadlings, pick up tangle, throw
Hunter – Helmet, helps you grapple, also get woven mail
Titans – Augment aspect, splits a wave, also gets woven mail

Exotic Weapons

Heavy Machine Gun – Alternate effects every 4th bullet, every 16th bullet even more
Pistol, rounds that seek targets – charge up time, but you can lock onto multiple targets

Loadouts

This is going to be a huge feature for Destiny 2, and this is essentially buildcrafting 2.0. Making builds much easier to understand, getting more people into buildcrafting, explaining the benefits, and making is easier through the UI to manage. There is going to be a new build management screen, which will help explain everything to new lights, plus we’ll get to tinker and explore new and existing builds through this system for those of us who have been making builds over the years in Destiny 2. Simplifying Destiny is a good strategy, there are so many systems that can be difficult to understand unless you’ve been there from the start, so this is going to be great for all players.

Guardian Ranks

This is all about providing Guardians a checklist of stuff to do to get better at the game. Objectives are laid out in a neat checklist. This is going to be super helpful as an onboarding process for new players, plus you can also give other players commendations, thanking players for their help.

Future

We’re coming up to the 10 year anniversary for Destiny 2. Bungie say they want to keep building Destiny, paying off storylines that have been buiulding for years. The finale is coming with the Final Shape, which is the final part of the Light vs Darkness Saga, but after that there is so much more. Bungie say this universe is so much more than the traveler and the pyramids, and once the light and darkness saga wraps up, I can’t wait to find out what we’ve got next and where we’re going to go.

Let me know in the comments what you thought of the Lightfall ViDoc and let me know what you’re looking forward to most in Lightfall.