In Destiny 2, dataminers have discovered new clues that seem to refer to the Darkness. Warning: Spoilers!
The Darkness as a great mystery: Although the Destiny series has been around for four years, there are still many mysteries and secrets in the Guardian universe. Among these is the Darkness.
The Darkness is the great, unknown threat that waits somewhere out there and is described as an ancient enemy of the Traveler. The Traveler gifted the Guardians the Light, through which they gained their powers. And the Darkness hunted the Traveler across the universe, until the Traveler sacrificed itself and fell into a slumber.
What the Darkness actually is, remains unknown so far. Is it an ominous force, a creature with immense power, or is there an alien race hidden behind the Darkness that has not been featured in Destiny until now?
Dataminers have now extracted clues from the latest update 2.0.0 that seem to refer to the Darkness.
Warning: Heavy spoilers ahead, continue at your own risk.
The lore about the Drifter tells of mysterious creatures
Dataminers have extracted lore tabs for the Drifter: The Drifter is a new character in Destiny 2 who will be responsible for the Gambit mode. You can see the Drifter in the image above.
What have the dataminers discovered? According to the entries found, the Drifter likely discovered remnants of the Darkness on an ice planet. There, a creature was trapped in a monolith that had a “slimy, featureless form without a head.” Additionally, it was said to suppress the Light by producing “anti-Light fields.”
These anti-Light fields sound very much like Darkness. You can find the complete datamining text on reddit, we will translate some of the most interesting lines into English:
- “During our long stay on this planet, we found many of these monoliths, each with its own trapped creature in it.”
- “There was a creature trapped inside. In a kind of cage made of ice.”
- “In any case, this thing, this creature, looked as if it shared the common bioenergetics with the Hive, but there are no records of it – I have seen nothing that indicates humanity ever had an encounter with them. And the creature had a property that the Hive does not have. It produced a field that suppressed Light – like a Darkness zone, but it belonged to a slimy, featureless form without a head.”
- “The anti-Light fields that we could detect from orbit and that stretch across the entire planet? Those were these things. The ship scanners detected thousands of them from the planet.”
- “Furthermore, the text states that Guardians died from the cold on the planet and that the ghosts could not revive them as they were too close to one of these creatures, which drew the Light from them. The Drifter was the only one who survived. And he recounts that a creature was inside a monolith, watching them die.
What else is known about the Darkness?
The Drifter does not explicitly say that the creatures are the Darkness. But he at least references the term “Darkness” along with the “Darkness zone” and the anti-Light fields are clues that can currently only be associated with the Darkness.
In 2013, Bungie’s Director Chris Barrett presented concept art depicting five enemy alien races. However, Destiny launched with only four enemy races. The fifth race, shown here far right, is presented with smoke, strange beings, and triangles: We speculated nearly a year ago that this could be the Darkness. Because in Destiny 2, a cutscene shows a large triangle that casts a shadow over the Earth as Darkness is discussed.
Additionally, pyramid-shaped ships are shown in the final story cutscene of Destiny 2, awakening when they reach the Light of the Traveler – who is no longer sleeping:
The theory is becoming increasingly concrete that the triangles and the amorphous beings are indeed the Darkness awakening. Presumably, these spaceships contain the strange creatures described by the Drifter, which may be similarly driven by the Darkness as the Guardians are by the Light.
But officially, this is not all – it is merely the composite image that previous clues and datamining results provide.
When will we encounter the Darkness?
In Forsaken, we will likely not encounter the Darkness. This expansion focuses on the Reef and the Dreaming City, not on a planet full of light-draining beings.
In Spring 2019, however, the Darkness may become a bit more present. Because then a season update focused on the Drifter will be released, to which Bungie says we will learn about his past and his “greater purpose” in the Destiny universe.
Furthermore, the Drifter brings a huge rock that he has attached to his ship (visible in the latest ViDoc):
Bungie states that we will discover what is inside this “crazy rock” in Spring. Could this be a monolith block in which a creature is trapped? Will this be the first encounter with the Darkness?
The future will tell.
Until then, you can study the roadmap for year 2 here, which outlines the most important milestones in the coming months:
