Destiny 2: Lightfall launch trailer finally shows The Traveller and The Witness kicking the crap out of each other

There's an iconic moment in the movie Apocalypse Now when Robert Duvall's character surveys the chaos and carnage around him and ruefully says "someday, this war's gonna end." That's roughly where I am on the Destiny 2: Lightfall prelease schedule, bombarded daily by massive screeds detailing new features, but also very much enjoying the info blitz. Today it's the Lightfall launch trailer, which just dropped as part of Sony's latest State of Play showcase.

This is a two-minute, largely story-focused affair, set to a moody Karma Police cover, as is almost obligatory. There are no major gameplay revelations to report, but we do get to see the series' paracausal antagonists going toe-to-orb for the first time. In the white corner we have The Traveller, the iconic flying golfball which grants the guardians their mastery of the 'The Light'. In the dark corner we have The Witness, the sinister, smoke-headed Big Bad who's finally turned up on Earth's doorstep with a fleet of pyramids in tow, ready to trigger humanity's second Collapse. And honestly if you can condense the lore into a shorter paragraph, you're a better person than me.

Early in the trailer The Witness' ships begins blasting The Traveller and its allies with sweeping beams of darkness energy. More surprisingly, The Traveller hits back with a wave of pure Light. The thing that most caught my attention, though, was a shot at the 1'40" mark in which a number of pyramid ships have formed a ring around The Traveller, creating a sort of star shape that (perhaps coincidentally?) looks not unlike Sagira's ghost shell. Was all this prophesied?

Well, as I wrote earlier this month, Destiny 2 is finally building to the climax of a story that has been 10 years in the telling. After almost a decade of teasing this exact confrontation, it's finally here, and for daft fans like me, that's pretty exciting. Roll on Lightfall next Tuesday.

With over two decades covering videogames, Tim has been there from the beginning. In his case, that meant playing Elite in 'co-op' on a BBC Micro (one player uses the movement keys, the other shoots) until his parents finally caved and bought an Amstrad CPC 6128. These days, when not steering the good ship PC Gamer, Tim spends his time complaining that all Priest mains in Hearthstone are degenerates and raiding in Destiny 2. He's almost certainly doing one of these right now.