Destiny 2’s Traveler healed itself as Darkness consumed planets in the pre-Beyond Light event

Destiny 2: Beyond Light is less than 24 hours away, but Bungie will host a small pre-expansion event in the Tower on Monday night.

A few weeks ago, there were rumblings that Destiny 2 would see another end-of-season event thanks to a datamined emblem — similar to the crashing of the Almighty last season. But after an email went out to some players, Bungie officially announced the in-game event.

According to game director Luke Smith, the event isn’t anything “too crazy,” which seems to suggest it won’t be on the scale of the Almighty crash. But as Bungie prepares to remove multiple planets between now and tomorrow, it seems likely players will get some kind of going-away party in the Tower.

While players certainly had an idea of when the event could happen, community manager dmg04 revealed the window players should expect to be in the Tower. On Monday night, players should download a new patch at 7 p.m. EST and then log in and land in the Tower prior to 9:50 p.m. EST. Players who don’t want to get stuck in any weird loading loops should probably log in a bit earlier.

Once the event ends — around 10 p.m. EST — Bungie will take Destiny 2 servers offline for extended maintenance. The game won’t be available again until Bungie launches Destiny 2: Beyond Light at 12 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Nov. 10.

We’ll update this post with information about the event later this evening.

Update (7 p.m. EST): After a tiny patch, Destiny 2’s final live event of Year 3 appears to have started.

In the Tower, you can see a faint, blue light around the Traveler — which damaged itself during the Red War campaign in 2017. The shattered pieces floating in its orbit appear to be retracting back inside, and will likely continue to do so for the next few hours.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

At first glance, it seems the Traveler is healing itself ahead of the coming war with the Darkness.

This isn’t just a wild theory. A leaked image of a healed Traveler appeared only a few weeks ago, leading players to speculate this might happen. That same image led players to believe that they would return to the old Tower from the original Destiny, but that hasn’t happened yet.

Players haven’t unlocked the Calamity Protocol emblem yet, so that might not happen until later in the night. Players have until the servers go down at 10 p.m. EST to see the healing Traveler for themselves.

Update 2 (9:30 p.m. EST): An hour or so into the event, a new mission called “The Last City” opened in the Tower. This mission sends Guardians into a rarely seen area in Destiny: the ground-level of The Last City. The Ghost makes a few remarks about hearing the heartbeat of the Traveler.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

There’s a short platforming section leading players to a kind of viewing theater in The Last City. Here, players can watch the Traveler continue to heal. The blue glow and pulse are growing more intense by the minute.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Update 3 (10 p.m. EST): During the final 10 minutes of the event, there was so much energy from the Traveler that it became difficult to see. Eris and Ghost spoke a bit about the coming reckoning, wondering what exactly the Traveler was doing. Eris confirmed that the mysterious orb did heal itself. And then the game blacked out.

Image: Bungie via Polygon

Before getting kicked out of the game, Bungie showed a quick cutscene. It depicted the Directory as we’ve known it for the past year. On the left side, Darkness came and enveloped the four planets leaving the game tomorrow — Io, Mars, Mercury, and Titan. And in the center, the Traveler started glowing brighter and brighter until it exploded with Light. Then the screen went dark.

Destiny 2’s servers are now officially down for the next 14 hours. They’ll come back online at noon EST, just in time for Destiny 2: Beyond Light’s launch.