Big Unsolved Mysteries in Video Games
The Nature of “The Darkness” in Destiny
In the first Destiny game, an unexplained, unseen entity known as “The Darkness” was consistently reinforced as the game’s true enemy, running alongside whatever villain detours the game’s thin plot wanted to lead players down.
What “it” was, it drove the Traveler into the arms of Earthlings and kicked off the chain of events that led to the world of Destiny as we know it now.
Destiny 1’s narrative was pretty much universally panned, and when Destiny 2 released, the developers admitted that they weren’t even sure what The Darkness is. The team focused on delivering more coherent plots with villains that had clearer motivations.
Fortunately, the effort wasn’t for naught, and while Destiny 2 and its expansions won’t be winning any awards for its narrative anytime soon, it’s certainly better put together than it was previously.
However, Bungie didn’t completely swear off The Darkness either, telling Kotaku that “when we are going to talk about Darkness next, we need to know what it is and have a plan for it. And we do.”
As maligned as the main plot was, Destiny does have very fascinating lore that exists under the surface that, for reasons unknown, Bungie prefers to hide away instead of putting it center stage.
Because Bungie has chosen to keep The Darkness very mysterious — originally unintentionally, and now as of late intentionally — it has become a source of speculation for fans.
Some speculate that The Traveler is actually a source of evil and Guardians are inadvertently doing its bidding. The recent Leviathan story arc suggests that Emperor Calus, the former despot of the Cabal, has some truth bombs that he’s ready to drop on us when we finally meet up.
And, the end of the vanilla Destiny 2 campaign shows mysterious pitch black triangle ships out in deep space awakening after being touched by the Traveler’s light.
Our bet is that answers will come in the redacted season teased for the summer this year.
