At The Game Awards 2022, Bungie showed up with its latest trailer for Destiny 2: Lightfall, the long-running MMO’s next expansion. This is the second year in a row that a major Destiny 2 expansion trailer has debuted at the TGAs, with The Witch Queen trailer preceding it last year. The trailer comes just a few days after Bungie released its latest season, Season of the Seraph, which will conclude with Destiny 2: Lightfall’s release on Feb. 28, 2023.
The latest Lightfall trailer is only the expansion’s second, after its initial debut at Bungie’s August showcase. The Game Awards trailer showed off even more of the mysterious Neomuna location, as well as Strand, the new Darkness powers Guardians will acquire in the upcoming expansion.
Lightfall will take Guardians to Neomuna, a hidden city on Neptune. Unlike many of Destiny 2’s other locations, Neomuna is not an area that’s fallen into decay. Instead, it’s a vibrant city that has very recently found itself under siege. The attacking foe? The Witness and his newest lieutenant, Calus, former emperor of the Cabal and frequent Destiny 2 frenemy.
While on Neomuna, Guardians will meet the new Cloudstriders — protectors of the city — and help them fight off Calus and The Witness. Guardians will also be able to tap into a new Darkness power similar to Stasis: Strand. Strand is still mostly a mystery to Destiny players (both in terms of its story origins and how it’ll actually work in game), but it seems to focus heavily on movement. Notably, Strand comes with a grappling hook, the first of its kind in Destiny 2.
As usual, the new expansion will come with loads of new weapons, a handful of new Strikes, and a new raid. But Lightfall will also beef up the game’s meta systems. Bungie is working on a system to help players learn the game better, offering achievable goals and eventually incentivizing players to help out newbies. The studio is also adding loadouts to the game, which is one of the series’ most requested features. A looking-for-group feature is also coming to Destiny 2 in 2023, although it will miss the Lightfall release date.
Lightfall is the penultimate expansion to Destiny 2’s Light and Darkness saga, which has been going on since the series’ debut in 2014. 2024 will see the release of the finale, The Final Shape, and then Destiny 2 will begin a new saga in the years that follow.
