Destiny raids have always featured fights against the universe's biggest bad guys, but they don't get bigger than what's waiting at the end of Salvation's Edge. The Final Shape's raid, opening its doors tomorrow at 10 AM Pacific, will finally pit players against The Witness—the primordial antagonist whose forces we've been fighting for a decade. Imagine like, the most evil guy, but times a million. The Witness is like that. But worse!
In the raid trailer released today, Bungie's hype building is as on-point as ever, with all the slick slow-motion and song-synchronized gun reloads we've come to expect from a Destiny sizzle reel. Judging from all the clusters of massive, grasping hands and agonized, dismembered statues, Salvation's Edge looks like it'll be spooky. As it should—the raid will basically involve crashing The Witness's art studio, where it's in the middle of resculpting the entire universe into a big, sadistic Lego diorama.
As is tradition, the opening of Salvation's Edge will also mark the kickoff of the accompanying race for the world's first raid clear, with Destiny's premier raiders competing to see who can crack each encounter's mechanics the fastest. Hopefully, those fireteams will only have raid enemies to worry about: Considering the recent Final Shape rollout woes and the server difficulties that disrupted the 2022 Vow of the Disciple raid race, it's hard to overlook the looming threat of race day connection errors.
Even if you're not a raider—hello, fellow Destiny casuals—the raid race is still worth getting excited over. Since Destiny 2's Forsaken expansion in 2018, the first raid clears have usually triggered some wild changes in the game world, sometimes changing entire in-game areas in response to the often cosmic-scale conflict. Considering The Final Shape's raid will conclude a decade of storytelling on a battlefield that can warp all of reality, I'm hoping we've got some big surprises in store.
