As Destiny 2 prepares to delete many of its worlds, several main characters are seemingly killed
Vault for our stars.
Destiny 2 has released a new in-game lore book detailing the unhappy fates of several main characters, as the series' dreaded Pyramid Ships descend across the solar system.
Bungie's book of stories, named Duress and Egress, is available to read now in-game or online via the Ishtar Collective archive.
It all comes as Bungie prepares to delete a swathe of its worlds from Destiny 2 this November upon the launch of upcoming expansion Beyond Light.
Mars, Io, Titan, Mercury and the Leviathan will all be lost, and this latest lore book fills in what becomes of their main vendor characters - the ones your Guardian has been meeting with these past three years.
Spoilers for the lore book lie below:
On Io, wizened Warlock Asher Mir meets with Eris and sends his assistant packing before descending into the Vex Pyramidion, intent on keeping its secrets from the Pyramid ship. The suggestion is he then brings the enormous structure down upon himself.
Alone on Titan, Sloane arms herself for an impossible battle against the Pyramid, and heads on out to confront it single-handed. It seems unlikely she will last for long.
On Mercury, Brother Vance realises the end is nigh and finally finishes his studies, before venturing into the Vex's Infinite Forest of realities and possibilities, apparently sealing it shut behind him. We leave him locked in a struggle with another version of him, his fate uncertain.
Meanwhile, on Mars, Ana Bray downloads the remnants of a dying Rasputin into an engram as she evacuates the planet. We last see her making it off the surface in a ship with an "experimental Exo chassis" inside, the implication being this now houses Rasputin itself.
In short, things don't look good for Asher, Sloane and Vance. But are they all really dead? Each are given send-offs which could work as endings for their stories, though none seem explicit enough to stop Bungie bringing them back with a bit of narrative handwaving in the future. (The developer has changed its mind in the past about certain characters' stories being over - and has only ever confirmed one character as being permanently dead.)
More likely, this is Bungie parking these characters - yes, perhaps permanently - as it readies Destiny 2 for the deletion of their worlds, giving fans answers as to their whereabouts until they are called upon again.
Indeed, Bungie has said all of its soon-to-be-deleted locations are simply being put into a "vault" from which they may at some point return. So who knows - Vance may yet stumble out of that Infinite Forest alive when Mercury returns in Destiny 5.