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Destiny 2: Beyond Light story trailer shows off Variks, a talking Guardian, and the big bad

Guardians aren’t alone in their new powers

Ryan Gilliam (he/him) has worked at Polygon for nearly seven years. He primarily spends his time writing guides for massively popular games like Diablo 4 & Destiny 2.

With three weeks to go until Destiny 2: Beyond Light, Bungie finally launched a trailer detailing the expansion’s story.

The trailer focuses on the Fallen, specifically on Eramis, the big bad of Beyond Light. Eramis is an old-school Fallen Captain that players haven’t seen before, and she’s sick of the Fallen’s lack of discipline. Instead of following after the “Great Machine” (what we know as the Traveler), Eramis has sold her faction to the Darkness. And like Guardians will do in Beyond Light, she and her lieutenants have obtained the power of Stasis.

In the lore, the Fallen (or the Eliksni, as they call themselves) are following the Traveler because it abandoned them during their own Golden Age — something it supposedly tried to do to us before Rasputin intervened. But with Eramis, the Fallen are beholden to a different power — one that Guardians currently know very little about.

We see Eramis using an artifact from the Darkness to empower her Fallen allies with Stasis powers.

Worried for his own people, it seems that Variks “the loyal” then sends a distress signal, attempting to bring the Guardians to Europa and kickstarting the whole adventure. Variks was an NPC overlooking the Prison of Elders activity in the original Destiny. Players haven’t seen him since the Destiny 1 days, but he was responsible for letting Uldren out of prison back in Forsaken — indirectly linking him to the death of Cayde-6. It’s currently unclear if Variks will play friend or foe in Beyond Light.

Aside from the Fallen, the trailer shows off a brief conversation between the player Guardian and their Ghost — notable, since the player character rarely speaks. We also get a brief look at the Exo Stranger spying on Variks as he makes his distress call. We’re still not entirely sure what she’s been up to since the end of the very first set of missions in the original Destiny, but an update to the Beyond Light store page says she’s been hanging out on Europa.

The trailer also includes some of the Beyond Light soundtrack, which rules and has some major Tron vibes.

Bungie will launch Destiny 2: Beyond Light on Nov. 12 for Google Stadia, PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X version of Destiny 2 will launch on Dec. 8.