Destiny 2 Episode Echoes Act II ends on a cliffhanger, but it’s one that’s got me hooked. While the first Act’s conclusion was lackluster, this one drags a character back from the dead and simultaneously out of the dark to make them relevant in its modern day.
Some spoilers ahead for the ending of A Rising Chorus: Act II in Destiny 2.
Over the three-week story that unfolded during Episode Echoes Act II, we finally met The Conductor. This force that’s been controlling the Vex and converting them into a colossal army of Radiolaria has been looming over our heads ever since we defeated The Witness.
A piece of The Witness, an Echo, fell on Nessus. It didn’t just land there and create an enemy, though something far more interesting unfolded. The conductor began pulling as much Radiolaria under Nessus as it could. This is the stuff the Vex are made of. It’s millions upon millions of tiny particles that contain individual consciousnesses that make up a whole. A truly awesome sci-fi race I’m always excited to learn more about.
To find The Conductor, we’ve had to battle the Vex for 9 weeks across the various Echoes activities that this Episode brought to the table. Between story beats, we’ve also had to gather specimens from Nessus that tell us more about the planet and how it evolved alongside the Vex, which have kept me very busy but also helped us all learn about how life can develop in tandem with a race of time-traveling machines.
Bungie didn’t just look at what it could do with the new Vex, though. It looked to the past. We re-entered The Infinite Forest and relived a pivotal moment in the community: Finding Saint-14’s dead body. The reveal that followed is a callback to the first Destiny and key moments in Destiny 2‘s story prior to The Final Shape.
The face we met was instantly recognizable: Lakshmi-2. Of course, it wasn’t actually Lakshmi-2 that we met. It was her creator. You see, this is when we got a load of lore thrown our way. To me, Laksmi-2 is the leader of the Future War Cult, an NPC in The Tower who I’ve interacted with hundreds of times and saw turn into a villain in Destiny 2.
In A Rising Chorus: Act II, we see the body of Lakshmi-2 occupied by the brain of her creator, Maya Sundaresh. Maya disappeared into The Infinite Forest after creating Lakshmi-2, and was never heard from again. Like Osiris, she had some radical views and wanted to research Vex technology to see how she could adapt it.
As the cutscene played out, I was hit with nostalgia because I recognized this character and knew her face and voice so well. Yet she’s been updated to feel fresh and new in a context that makes total sense in Destiny 2‘s lore.
The Echo of The Witness dropped into the Radiolaria and was found by Maya Sundaresh. Her consciousness sought out the power she could feel and is now using it to finally realize her vision. It serves fans like me who adored this character but doesn’t make her inaccessible because this is technically someone completely new.
When A Rising Chorus: Act I ended, we were no closer to meeting The Conductor than we were at the end of The Final Shape. Act II’s ending really raised the bar for storytelling outside of Destiny 2 DLC. In fact, it feels like a piece of DLC like Warmind.
It’s a shame, then, that mere days after this crucial and thoroughly engrossing moment in the game’s story, we had to see 220 of developer Bungie’s staff lose their jobs and more than 100 others be absorbed by Sony on other projects.
I’ve been playing Destiny and Destiny 2 since the very first Alpha of the first game, and this story moment felt like it hit that high note again. Like we were back in The Taken King, House of Wolves, and Rise of Iron days. The story and quality of content that we could return to on a daily basis back then was on par with what we’ve had in Episode Echoes.
Destiny 2‘s seasonal formula has its place, and even though it felt stretched at times, Bungie hit its stride again with Episodes. I have no idea what the future holds for the game, but it would be a massive shame if the Episodes we play now are a new high point before the game slowly stagnates and leaves these incredibly interesting story threads forever untied.
