Destiny 2 post-Lightfall story recap, including the Season of the Wish ending explained

Destiny 2 Lightfall is the second last major expansion to the Destiny 2 story as we know it so far. Destiny 2 is reaching the climax of the "Light and Darkness Saga", with The Final Shape coming on June 4.

While Lightfall answered many questions that have lingered across the game, it also raised many more, some we have seen answered in the events post-Lightfall, and some we have yet to fully understand.

Here's everything that has happened since Lightfall to catch you up on the story of Destiny 2, as it expands with each weekly reset.

What happened in Destiny 2 Lightfall?

The inciting incident of Lightfall was the arrival of the Witness, the ancient enemy of the Traveller that has been looming over Destiny 2 for years.

The Black Fleet arrived in our solar system months before Lightfall began, and at the beginning of the Lightfall story, they reached Earth.

The Witness launches an attack on Earth, to which the Traveller responds. The exact nature of the confrontation between the two entities is unknown to us, but what is all the more clear is the threat of the Black Legion, an army of Cabal loyal to the former emperor Calus, now a disciple of the Witness.

Upon making contact with the Traveller, the Witness learns the location of the Veil, a paracausal entity similar in nature to the Traveller.

They send Calus and the Black Legion to track it down, at which point Osiris and the Guardian (that's us!) stow away on one of the Legion's ships.

This brings us to Neptune, where we discover a hidden enclave of humanity that has been living there for centuries. Colonists who left Earth before the Collapse were stranded here and, having discovered the Veil, established a home here.

Immediately, Calus lays siege to the city of Neomuna, which houses all of the people living on the planet, the Veil, and the Cloud Striders.

The Cloud Striders are genetically enhanced superhumans who dramatically shorten their lifespans in order to protect Neomuna. Until now, their job was largely to fight off the Vex, but now they must also fend off the Shadow Legion.

To cut a long story short, the Guardians and the Cloud Striders band together to fight a common enemy. Their primary goal is to protect the Veil, and prevent Calus from getting his hands on it.

It is here that Guardians discover Strand, an aspect of Darkness, and a new source of power. All of this culminates in a showdown between the Guardian and Calus in the Veil Containment Chamber.

Calus is defeated, but through manipulating the Guardian's Ghost, the Witness manages to make a link between the Veil and the Traveller. Through this, a portal is opened outside the Traveller, and the Witness disappears inside.

Season of Defiance

With the Vanguard still reeling from the battle with the Black Fleet and the events on Neptune, a roadblock is met. The Witness has travelled through a portal and no one can follow them.

As such, attention had to be turned to the here and now, which is where we come to Season of Defiance.

During the attacks, the Black Legion began taking human and Eliksni prisoners and holding them in Pyramid-like structures across Earth. These prisoners included Amanda Holliday, the Vanguard's shipwright, and Misraaks of the House of Light. The Guardians got to work freeing prisoners and fighting off the Shadow Legion.

It was during one of these prison breaks that Amanda Holliday sacrificed herself to save the captives.

Season of the Deep

After being taken away by the Witness, Titan, the moon of Saturn and an important location in Destiny's history, was returned to the solar system. At the beginning of Season of the Deep, the Vanguard received a distress signal from Deputy Commander Sloane, who was on Titan when the Witness took it.

Upon arriving on Titan, the Guardian learns that the moon has been brought back by the machinations of the Hive goddess Xivu Arath.

Further, we learn that Sloane has survived these few years on Titan fighting off the Taken by embracing their power and linking with an ancient being called Ahsa.

Ahsa is a being akin to the Worm Gods worshipped by the Hive, who fled her homeworld and followed the Traveller to our system where she took up residence on Titan, hiding below the methane sea.

Sloane and Ahsa bonded, and through Sloane, Ahsa can speak to the Guardian and the Vanguard. She has a much deeper understanding of the Hive, the Taken, and the Witness than we do.

Throughout the Season, Guardians collected materials to help Sloane deepen her bond with Ahsa so she could properly understand what the ancient being was telling her.

Eventually, Sloane managed to interpret Ahsa's words more clearly, and we learned that the only one with the knowledge we need to follow the Witness through the portal is the Witch Queen, Savathun.

Season of the Witch

The current season of Destiny 2 is Season of the Witch. With the unenviable task of having to resurrect Savathun, Eris Morn gets to work.

A prerequisite for resurrecting the Witch Queen, a term laid out by Savathun herself, is that we must first deal with her sister.

Xivu Arath is the Hive God of War, and she has set her sights on humanity. Xivu Arath draws strength from conflict, all war and death makes her stronger, meaning a less direct attack must be made. To this end, Eris Morn has used Hive ritual magic to become a Hive God herself.

As the God of Vengeance, Eris must balance her humanity with the Hive form she has assumed. Further, she has inadvertently drawn Ahsa into the ritual by invoking the names of her sisters. While hesitant at first, Ahsa became more willing as she felt Eris' intentions, and took in the energy of Eris' tithes.

After building up enough power through tithes, Eris put her plan into motion. The first step of which was to resurrect Savathun early, so that Eris could kill her and take her power. With her own godly power combined with Savathun's, Eris became strong enough to severe Xivu Arath's connection to her throne world.

Doing this made Xivu mortal, capable of dying for the first time in her millennia-long life. Following this, the Guardian was free to explore Savathun's Spire, and learn the secrets of her Imbaru Engine. There, they discovered an Ahamkara egg, the last remaining egg of Riven, the last remaining Ahamkara. Or she was, until she was Taken and the Guardians defeated her.

With this Ahamkara egg, and a pattern derived from the wing of Savathun herself, we are now on our way to the final season of the year, and technically the final season of Destiny 2, Season of the Wish.

What happened post-Lightfall: Season of the Wish

So, with the egg and a pattern in Savathun's wings that matches up with the Wish Wall found in the Last Wish Raid, it all starts to make sense - we can use a Wish from Riven, an Ahamkara who we killed in that Raid, to get into the Traveler to confront the Witness.

Queen Mara revives a ghost of Riven, but Riven doesn't really want to help us out. You see, Riven's race, the Ahamkara, was slain in a crusade led by Mara herself. She wants a deal - to create the pathway to the Traveler, we'll have to hunt down her clutch of hidden eggs and ensure their safety, and therefore the continuation of Riven's species.

These eggs are scattered throughout the Ascendant Realm (Destiny's sort of "Upside Down" world, in the most basic of terms), and players basically work to secure an egg each week. Meanwhile, Mara tasks Osiris with finding our own path - either because she wants rid of the Ahamkara (they do feed on the chaos caused by their wishes, after all), or because she simply doesn't trust Riven. Riven doesn't like Mara much, either, given her prior misdeeds against the Ahamkara.

During the exotic mission Star-Crossed, we get a glimpse at the relationship between Riven and her mate, Taramis. Taramis was a pure-hearted Ahamkara who used his wish-fulfilling power to help people, and while Riven thought Mara had scattered the eggs through space and time, it was Taramis, using his final wish, who hid them from everyone - sacrificing himself in the process.

Still, remember how Ahamkara like to mess with wishes? Turns out the stinger of the one to get us inside the Traveler is that Riven will only send one person. Thanks to Osiris' research, though, the Vanguard agree to send Crow since his psychic link with Mara will help us draw a path to follow him (at least in theory). Crow goes, Riven's spirit fades, and we had to wait until the season's epilogue.

Season of the Wish ending

Don't worry folks, we're finally there. Two weeks before The Final Shape, Bungie dropped a new mission and cinematic.

You can watch it in full below:

The TLDR is that Osiris sends the Guardian into The Black Garden, where the Vex have rebuilt the Black Heart to try and get themselves lined up with the Veil and the Traveler instead, in a throwback to the end of Destiny 1's campaign.

We enter, kick some butt, and then return to Osiris who seems pretty convinced his plan will work. In the meantime, we also get a look at Crow arriving in The Traveler.

He emerges from the portal, spotting a structure we know to be The Pale Heart that we'll be dealing with in The Final Shape. He's then attacked, engaging in combat with an adversary revealed to be Cayde-6 - the Guardian Crow killed when he was Prince Uldren.

The two reconcile, and then look toward The Pale Heart and now we're less than two weeks away at the time of writing to finding out what comes next, including how Cayde is back, and just what The Witness' plans are.

That's everything from Lightfall to now in a nutshell. For more on the game, head to our Destiny 2 homepage where you'll find guides like how to get Twitch drops in Destiny 2 or how to get the Monte Carlo catalyst.