Destiny 2: The Final Shape is a massive expansion for Destiny 2 which Bungie created, The Final Shape revolves around the player’s Guardian seeking out the franchise’s major villain, The Witness, who had disappeared through a portal that it created on the surface of the celestial Traveler after 2023’s Lightfall expansion.

The Guardian and the Vanguard have to stop The Witness from completing a world-ending event called The Final Shape, as The Witness has entered into The Traveler which is the source of Light in the universe of Destiny and grants the powers and brings life to all things, The Witness is corrupting it and trying to end all things that the light touches. The events of The Final Shape begin shortly after the events of Season of the Wish where it ends with Crow a Vanguard scout making a wish to enter The Traveler to be able to open a way for the rest to follow.

As players first load up into Destiny 2 either owning The Final Shape or not, you will be playing out the opening segment of the new expansion of The Guardian and the two Vanguard leaders Commander Zavala and Ikora Rey as they launch an attack on The Witness before being transported into The Traveler itself to end the struggle of light and dark.

When you cross the portal, you will be given a vision from The Traveler showing that The Witness is infecting it with darkness, after the vision you will enter the new zone called The Pale Heart. This otherworldly dimension inside The Traveler is where its locations are shaped by the memories of those dwelling in it due to the terraforming powers of the Light, longtime Destiny players will notice familiar places such as the tower that was the hub in Destiny before it was destroyed at the start of Destiny 2.

Picking up a weak signal on the radio you will start heading toward it as you will learn about the new power system Prismatic which combines the power of both Light and Dark; after finishing off a small boss encounter players will be reunited with a familiar face of Cayde-6. Shocked that you can see him again he shares his story of when he awoke and came across the Guardian scout Crow and that there was a tense showdown as Crow was formally Uldren Sov the man that killed Cayde-6 back in the 2018 Forsaken expansion.

As you forge on across The Pale Heart you will notice that you will never come across another player unless you are playing in a party, the experience of The Pale Heart and the memories being recreated in the world is for the Guardian as a trip down the history of Destiny with locations and encounters that you will experience. The Final Shape does bring two new dungeons that will be added over time and a new raid which is active now for the end-game players called “Salvation’s Edge”.

As the raid is described as the hardest one to have been added to Destiny, they also had an extra mission locked behind the raid, but don’t worry you do not need to gather a raid team or start using LFG to jump into the raid, the first team completing the raid will unlock a 12 player mission for everyone which is the ending of the expansion as you face off against The Witness and put an end to The Final Shape. The ending of the expansion gave us one of the hardest-hitting cutscenes, I will not spoil that for those that have managed to avoid it so far hats off to you.

Along with old enemies, there is a new faction called The Dread which was created by the Witness, the first time you will see one is in the form of a Grim, a new flying type enemy that can use a sonic scream to slow players and lock out their powers for a short time as they attack from the air, the melee-focused enemy type are called Husks, they are quick and deadly, armed with gigantic dual blades and the ability to deploy a secondary enemy attack known as the Geist.

There are two Psion-designed enemy types from the Cabal faction, but these two can use powers to tell the difference between the Weaver & Attendant. The Weaver can use the power of Strand to pull players from a distance which can result in being thrown off cliffs, and the Attendant uses the power of Statis to slow and freeze players. The last two enemy types also share the same darkness powers of Strand and Statis as they are larger targets called Omen and Harbinger, they will be a returning enemy in the form of mini-bosses throughout the storyline.

Now to talk about the new powers I mentioned above as Prismatic is a new subclass, the Prismatic subclass introduces two meters that fill when damaging and defeating enemies with either Light or Darkness abilities, when both bars are filled you can activate a new form of special called “Transcendence” which grants supercharged effects for melee, grenades, and weapon damage, but the main aspect is that it allows players to mix and match abilities and supers from the other five subclasses (Void, Solar, Arc, Stasis, and Strand).

Along with the Prismatic subclass each class is also given a new Light-based super, Titans will get “Twilight Arsenal” a new void special that allows you to throw three giant void axes at targets, which can then be picked up as a relic weapon either by you or teammates to deliver massive damage before they fade away.

Warlocks can now use “Song of Flame”, they will use Solar power to unleash unlimited power with melee and grenades. Hunters will get “Storm’s Edge”, they will throw an arc dagger and teleport to it, upon grabbing the dagger in the air they will do a spinning slash dealing damage to anything in range, the dagger can be thrown multiple times before the special charge is drained.

The Pale Heart holds many small zones you will explore so the graphics and environment change from a sunny and healthy lush green environment to barren lands corrupted with darkness, there is a big range of environments to explore.

The voice acting is always done well in Destiny over the years we have had massive named stars voice characters from Peter Dinklage who was the original voice of the Ghost in Destiny 1, to the late Lance Reddick who had been Commander Zavala since day one when Destiny first dropped back in 2014, Keith David stepped in to voice the Titan Vanguard leader for The Final Shape and honestly did a fantastic job at keeping the character of Zavala going.

At first, I was worried thinking they would push the character aside with few talking points, but thankfully I was wrong as Kieth David was the correct choice to carry on Lance Reddick’s legacy.

As this expansion does wrap up the Light and Dark saga, future content for the rest of the season will be given Episodes to add some more story segments with new rewards, exotic items, and quests to partake in, the first Destiny 2 Episode is going to be called Echos there will be more to come across the season to give players content for The Final Shape.

In Conclusion, Destiny 2: The Final Shape is a pinnacle of all things Destiny with the throwback over the years of content being in the lore and giving a different ending to past events, it was hard not to feel for the moment of the story the ending was done perfectly and I don’t think of anything that would’ve made it better or to add to it.

The new Prismatic subclass is amazing, I love everything about it, being able to mix things from other classes, the 12-player ending mission was done great and felt like a mini raid. The Final Shape delivers a satisfying ending to the Light and Dark saga of Destiny 2, now the question is what saga can players expect?

Written by: Shane Walsh