Everything We Learned From The ‘Destiny 2: Curse of Osiris’ Live Streams (Part 1)

We’re a few weeks away from Destiny 2’s first expansion title “The Curse of Osiris”. Despite receiving a few criticisms since release – which game doesn’t – Destiny 2 has been a wonderful improvement upon the original Destiny and we’re sure it’s expansions will raise the bar even further. And “The Curse of Osiris” aims to do just that by not only answering some long asked lore-questions but also by introducing new game modes and potentially MUCH more!

This week, Bungie gave their first in-depth look at this expansion with a live stream titled “New Stories to Tell”. If you would like to watch the full livestream, then be sure to check out the archive footage below. If you can’t spare an hour and want to jump right to the summary and analysis of what happened, then I’ll see you in a second.

Greater Lore & Expanded Story

As for where this DLC takes place, consider it real time. This is a few months since we Guardians won the Red War and the Traveler has awoken; and this will all bear weight in the Curse of Osiris story. This adventure won’t only answer some long held questions like ‘Who is Osiris’ and ‘What is the Vex’s greater plan?’, but will also show how everything fits together (ie: how the Vex couldn’t enact this part of their plan until the Traveler had awoken). This is a DLC rich in mystery and (thankfully) answers!

New & Expanded Characters – Osiris, Ikkora, Brother Vance & More:

In order to tell a great story, you need great characters; and “Curse of Osiris” has two incredible new additions. The title character Osiris is the one fans have been most excited to learn about, and as the stream revealed, this is a Guardian who has augmented his gear with Vex tech on his own since leaving the Tower. This means whereas his garb isn’t much changed from his Vanguard days, his powers are! Additionally, Osiris will be voiced by the incredible Oded Fehr, a Middle Eastern voice actor who might have a familiarly godly voice if you were a DC Animated fan. That’s right! The voice of Doctor Fate in “Justice League” and “Justice League: Unlimited” is Osiris!

Though the exciting new vocal talent doesn’t end there as Osiris’s Ghost not only gets her own unique personality, but also becomes the first named Ghost and first female Ghost. So who voices the groundbreaking Sagira? Morena Baccarin of course! So if you’re a fan of Gotham, Firefly, Deadpool, etc, you’ll be quite familiar with her impressive resume! And Sagira has just as much personality as the original, which could hopefully start a trend of their being more unique personalities and voices to Ghosts.

Though beyond these two new characters, we also get some added depth to some returning fan favorites. For example, Brother Vance from Destiny 1 will be returning as the Vendor for Mercury (ie: Failsafe, Asher, etc). As the man who once recruited you to train in the Trials of Osiris and help his once proud leader return, Brother Vance will have a noticeably different personality as well since now he knows his idol is about to return. For him, this is a time of celebration and the Lighthouse has been opened to all Guardians as a gesture of welcome and good times; but more on the Lighthouse in a bit.

The other returning character that gets the most development in this DLC Story though will be Ikora, the Warlock Vanguard and former pupil of Osiris. When we last saw Ikora, she was commenting on how if losing her light was a test, she failed. This is her now exploring what it means to be human and to have a friend. That is why she turns to you, the person who wouldn’t let her go and came all the way to Io to bring her home. Seeing her trust in you to help her former mentor/ current exile Osiris is a wonderful character path and it’ll be interesting to see how everything resolves. Will Osiris still be a secret outcast who trusts only in you and Ikora or will he be welcomed as the new Speaker?

Locations – Mercury & The Infinite Forest:

With Osiris the subject of this DLC, you know we’ll be returning to (or rather visiting fully for the first time) Mercury. We sort of traveled here briefly during the Red War campaign in order to stop The Almighty, and the game still acknowledges this as you can still see The Almighty in the sky over Mercury. Additionally, Cabal troops stranded on The Almighty have sought refuge on Mercury as it is the closest planet. Though the true force on Mercury is the Vex of course, as this once lush garden world was hallowed out and turned into the Vex’s personal machine. But machine for what?

Well, the place you’ll be touching down on Mercury is called the “Fields of Glass”. To one end, is a portal taking you to the Lighthouse, not only this planet’s social space but also a functional space where you can keep your weapons out and – more importantly – begin quests and craft new weapons at a device called “The Forge”. To the other end of the Fields of Glass is a massive triangular gate that’ll bring you deep into the previously mentioned hallowed-out planet core. This is “The Infinite Forest”, which the Vex use to see all possibilities and select the most favorable. This space will be randomly generated each time you go through it so paths, looks and enemy types change – thus the INFINITE in its name. Though the most intriguing factor might be the ‘trees’ of this forest which can bring you to simulations of the past, present and future. The live stream team stayed away from these trees mostly, but I do have a couple theories on how they can be used over and over again in the future; but more on that a little later.

New Activities – Leveling Up, Events, Heroic Strikes & Raid Lairs?

With the DLC will also come an increase to not just your Light Cap (330 including mods); but also your Level Cap (25) – which doesn’t immediately make much sense unless we’re unlocking new skills. Whatever the case for the Level Cap increase, there will be plenty of ways to grind your Light and XP. Like all other planets, Mercury will have chests and Lost Sectors, but these Lost Sectors won’t be marked on the map, which actually sounds a lot better to me. After all, they are called LOST Sectors. Though the biggest impact Mercury will introduce is a brand new type of Public Event which is being called ‘the biggest public event yet’. Whether “biggest” refers to the intricacies of the activity, size of the boss or number of other guardians needed to complete remains to be seen.

Beyond Mercury, activities in general get some new additions as the Heroic Strikes Playlist returns. In case you don’t remember, Heroic Strikes are the harder difficulty version of normal strikes – though not quite Nightfall level difficulty. These will of course drop higher gear than regular Strikes as will the Leviathan Raid, which has been scaled to 300 as well. Though the big question that’s been on everyone’s mind is “what do they mean by new Raid content”?

Well the “new Raid Content” is called Lairs, and the Raid Lair for the Leviathan will take you back to the Leviathan ship, but in a completely different part of the ship with new mechanics, puzzles and bosses. Remember the Leviathan ship is ‘the Eater of Worlds’. It’s a ship larger than planets, so there’s plenty left to explore. As for the biggest difference between Raids and Raid Lairs, it’s the time commitment. You’ll still need 6 players, but it won’t take you at least several hours to complete. Think of this as a Raid more along the time commitment of Crota’s End. Additionally, there’ll also be a Prestige Mod for this Raid Lair as well as more Raid Content coming in the spring, which looks to be the final installment of the Leviathan Ship. Again, it’s important to add that new powerful gear will drop with these activities and will of course scale to higher Light.

Final Details & A Theory – Will The Infinite Forest Keep Getting Updates?

This concludes all that was officially revealed during the first Live Stream and we’ll get two subsequent streams the following two weeks (ie: activities and locations on the 2^nd stream, new gear and items on the 3^rd stream). “Curse of Osiris” drops on December 5^th as well as Season 2, which resets all Clan progress, Bright Engrams, etc. Though I’m personally wondering about the future future of Destiny 2 with this new reveal about the Infinite Forest’s use of time.

As I mentioned previously, those massive spires in the Infinite Forest represent different times and there will be various capstones tied to different times within this Forest. Since these are self contained “times” and not full worlds, could this lead to use going back in time and taking part in self-contained massive battles. Could we be a part of the Battle of Twilight Gap? Could we join in the Battle of the Six Fronts? This could be an incredible way for the Destiny team to visually show us the lore they’ve been slowly building. Hell, we could even go back in time and hunt down Legendary fallen guardians like Dredgen Yor. Just think, that’d be a pretty epic quest to not only show non-grimoire readers the history of Yor but also give Guardians a chance to claim Thorn for themselves. (And if you haven’t already though of this implementation Bungie, I await your email 😉 )

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