WARNING: Massive Destiny 2 Lightfall spoilers ahead. Proceed at your own risk.Destiny 2's Lightfall expansion has been out for several days, and fans and critics alike are in bewilderment and confusion over major narrative threads that have - or haven't - come to light. When Destiny 2 featured the Witch Queen expansion last year, its story, twists, and character arcs were well received and seemed to indicate that Bungie had learned how to craft an entirely narrative-driven experience. Lightfall has dropped the ball compared to the Witch Queen, especially as the penultimate chapter in the Light and Darkness saga.
Picking up after the climactic events of Season of the Seraph, Lightfall opens with a bombastic cutscene that tells viewers the end has come. The Witness and its Black Fleet of Pyramid ships cripple the Vanguard and surround the Traveler, forcing it to unleash a torrent beam of Light into the Witness's Pyramid in self-defense. The Witness floats through the vacuum of space, threatening the Traveler, which forces Osiris and the players to immediately rush to Neomuna on Neptune to thwart The Witness and its newest Disciple, Calus, from obtaining the Veil.
Lightfall's Campaign is Haphazard and Unfulfilling Compared to The Witch Queen
The opening moments of Lightfall contain some of the best scenes and action found in Destiny 2. Not only is the opening cinematic climatic and exhilarating, but it also sets the stage for what players had come to expect from Destiny 2's Lightfall for months: this is a war story, and the Witness is here to bring on the second Collapse. Racing through the Cabal ship to enter the city of Neomuna seems to propel players through this drastic chain of events, uncertain what will come and if the Light can win.
What follows is a haphazard story that serves more as a Stand subclass tutorial while being reprimanded by a grumpy Osiris for not understanding the dangers of Calus and The Witness getting the Veil - an object of paracausal power that everyone seems to know about except the player. Even by the end of the story for Lightfall itself, little more is known about the Veil than when players started, except that Ghost claims it's reminiscent of Destiny 2's Traveler.
The Witch Queen story started equally strong, with the return of Mars and Savathun's Throne World as an accessible area for players who soon discover that her Hive has Ghosts, meaning she stole the Light in some devious, cunning way. As the story unfolds, and more memories are found by players, foreshadowing The Witness' arrival, its history with Savathun, its powers, and its return to finish off humanity, surprise twists reveal that Savathun has obtained the Light from the Traveler with a Ghost of her own and the powers of Light.
This made the Witch Queen narrative feel like it had an anchored beginning, middle, and end plotted out. The story was compelling and set up the threat of Destiny 2's The Witness and its return as something to rally against, even if the likelihood of survival was thin. The Witch Queen showed players that the story was getting darker, that this entity was not to be trifled with, and that everything was on the line. It even made players sympathize and understand the long-running villain Savathun.
Why Destiny 2's Lightfall Doesn't Work as a War Story and The Witch Queen Does
With all that played out in the Witch Queen and set up and marketed for Lightfall, the result feels like a letdown. Lightfall does not feel like a war story where the stakes of destruction are imminent. Instead, it feels like a pause in the narrative to whimsically learn a new Darkness subclass that is also barely explained but used anyway while introducing characters in the form of Destiny 2's Cloudstriders who are too trusting and humorous for the supposed dangers facing life in the Sol System.
The story goes so far as to mention that the Cloudstriders and denizens of Neomuna were never sure if the Guardians were warlords that would force them to follow their ways, so it's surprising, to say the least, that Rohan and Nimbus wholeheartedly welcome Osiris and the players with open arms. So yes, there is an invasion of Cabal and Vex in their city, but from their point of view, these enemies are foes that Guardians have been dealing with - which may open the door for questions if Guardians brought them to Lightfall's city of Neomuna, to begin with.
However, that is never explored, and the Cloudstriders are never fleshed out enough to garner any emotional attachment to them or any potential character arc. Rather than explore the paracausal powers of the Veil, which is tied to the CloudArk and the Cloudstriders themselves, the Veil and its Radial Mast appear to be more of a red herring for players to chase after without truly understanding why it's so crucial that Calus and The Witness never get it, or what it's truly capable of.
The Witch Queen story never let players forget that it was dangerous that Savathun had the powers of Light at her disposal and that of the Lucent Hive. The threat there served as a better war story than Lightfall because the fact that the Hive had the powers of Light - trusted to Guardians only until then - meant that all bets were off on what could happen. The revelation that the Traveler gave Destiny 2's Hive God Savathun the Light also made it a better war story because it left diehard supporters of the Traveler, like Zavala, questioning their faith and what was right.
Furthermore, the Witch Queen story had a sense of urgency that raised the stakes and made players feel the pressure of what Savathun could do with this newfound power. In Lightfall, it feels like the opening battle with The Witness, Vanguard, and Traveler is put on hold, frozen in place, while players whisk around Neomuna, trying to stop Calus from succeeding. The sense of danger and urgency is spoken by Osiris but never really felt by the player. On top of that, Bungie spoiled Calus' fate in Destiny 2's Lightfall ahead of time through marketing material, and that didn't do the expansion any favors.
Destiny 2 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.