Looking for a rundown of all Destiny 2 The Final Shape campaign missions? With the conclusion to the Light and Darkness saga, we’ve said goodbye to an era of Destiny with one of the most complex and involved campaigns to date. But how many missions are there in total? And what happens within each of them? Here, we’re going to give you a full breakdown of the Final Shape campaign missions in order. Oh, and of course, massive spoilers ahead if you’ve not finished the campaign.
All Final Shape Campaign Missions in Destiny 2
Here’s a full list of the campaign missions in Destiny 2 The Final Shape expansion in chronological order.
- Mission 1 – Transmigration
- Mission 2 – Temptation
- Mission 3 – Exegesis
- Mission 4 – Requiem
- Mission 5 – Ascent
- Mission 6 – Dissent
- Mission 7 – Iconoclasm
Note of course that there are a few other activities that take place in between some of these missions. We’ll point them out as they come. Now, let’s take a closer look at each mission in turn.
Mission 1: Transmigration
The Final Shape campaign begins here. In this mission, you’ll need to begin your journey into The Pale Heart by entering the portal and passing through a mess of memorable structures from maps across the system. On the way, you’ll have to fight off the forces of The Witness as Mara struggles against it to keep the portal stable. As you make it into The Traveler, you’ll set down in The Pale Heart itself, though to no apparent sign of Crow. Soon enough though you’ll find something unexpected – a well of Light and Darkness – the power of Prismatic.
This is a fairly simple mission. You’ll need to progress by defeating certain enemies, picking up Darkness or Light-themed buffs they drop, and deploying these into nodes of Light and Darkness or locks to open doors. Do beware of the Subjugator final boss at the end of this mission, though. While not too challenging alone, the large numbers of minions in the arena and their sparse spawn locations can make it easy to become surrounded.
Mission 2: Temptation
After finding the Vanguard Transponder and meeting an unexpected familiar face in Cayde-6, you’ll head deeper into the Pale Heart to rescue Crow, who’s failed to check in after scouting ahead. Quickly running into his Ghost, Glint, you’ll need to combine puzzle-solving skills and combat fortitude to overcome the combined forces of the Taken and the Dread. Battling your way into a Lost Sector, you’ll find Crow at the end, listening to the whispers emanating from a veiled statue at the end of a deeply corrupted area. Though he resisted The Witness’ temptations, it wasn’t easy.
Mission 3: Exegesis
Having rescued Crow, it’s time to begin assembling the rest of our allies. Next up on the list is Ikora, whose ship crash-landed near a memory-derived construct of The Cradle on Io, a place of great spiritual significance to Guardians. For this mission, you’ll need to collect Darkness Motes with regular kills and Light Motes by scoring kills with a recreation of The Relic from the Vault of Glass, then deposit them into their appropriate nodes to open the path forward. It’s a mechanic reminiscent of The Prophecy dungeon.
Upon reaching Ikora, we find her in meditation with The Traveler, trying to figure out where to go next. With our guidance, she finally reunites with Cayde, and they decide the final step before hashing out a definitive plan to stop The Witness should be to track down Zavala.
Mission 4: Requiem
Heading deeper into The Pale Heart, we track down the last member of the Vanguard, Zavala. After battling through waves of House Salvation forces and more Dread, and unlocking the way by matching Glyphs from defeated Wardens with artifacts controlling barrier locks, The Witness reaches out again. It explains its attempts to sway Zavala at his lowest. It even goes so far as to recreate Zavala’s homestead he shared with his lost wife and son. Though clearly tempted, Zavala is able to resist, and we fend off more forces of The Witness before finally reuniting the three Vanguard fireteam members.
Mission 5: Ascent
In this mission, you’ll begin your real push towards The Witness’ spire deep within The Pale Heart. To do this, you’ll need to overcome a vast ice wall, built predominantly from The Wall in the Cosmodrome. Dread and Vex will stand in your way as you fight your way through. You’ll need to once again use the Glyphkeeper mechanics from the last mission to overcome some of the more challenging foes. Meanwhile, Zavala will continue to struggle with the voices he heard when tempted by The Witness, convinced there’s more to the message, despite Ikora and Cayde’s misgivings.
The Message Parts 1, 2, and 3
Here we find our first interlude. While not actually a campaign mission, you’ll need to complete the three-part activity The Message to progress. Zavala’s increasingly convinced that the Darkness might actually hold the key to defeating The Witness.
Opposing him, Ikora and Cayde desperately search for a way to commune with The Traveler, and use its guidance to find a solution. To this end, you’ll progress through three Lost Sectors back-to-back, seeking signs of The Traveler’s influence in each of them. While the first two are ultimately too far gone within The Witness’ influence, we find an unexpected ally in the form of a friendly Hive Guardian in the third lost sector. With Luzaku’s help, Cayde is able to commune with The Traveler, though its cryptic message about the tenets of Guardianship is little help at the moment.
Liminality
The second interlude comes next, and it’s in the form of a new strike: Liminality. Exploring Zavala’s hunch next, despite his increasing animosity towards his own friends, we battle our way through a mountain pass defended by Lucent Hive and Dread. Here, we find increasingly common remnants of The Precursors – the people who combined their consciousnesses to create The Witness.
From ancient architecture to more of the strange veiled statues we’ve seen across the system, it starts to become apparent that there is more going on here. There is indeed some entity within the Darkness aligned against The Witness.
Mission 6: Dissent
Finally breaking, Zavala goes off on his own, leaving his friends and his Ghost, Targe, behind in order to pursue the voice in the Darkness. We race after him, hoping to stop him before he does something foolish. This mission sees us delve even deeper still into The Pale Heart, growing close now to The Witness and its seat of power.
Previous mechanics will show up here again in force as you work to use a lot of what you’ve learned to progress past challenging foes and obstacles. As we investigate more statues en route, it becomes clear what the voice is: dissenting minds within the collective consciousness of The Witness, trapped by its power but seeking escape. Zavala learns this too, but in confronting the Darkness, he’s left vulnerable to The Witness, who kills his Ghost, Targe, before we’re able to rescue him.
Mission 7
Though distraught by the loss of his Ghost, Zavala remains determined to stop The Witness. Now he knows that the secret to unraveling it lies within the place it was first created. As we’re in a worldscape where memories can manifest as reality, Zavala agrees to lead us as a fireteam towards the recreation of where The Witness originally came into being.
We battle our way through some of its strongest foes yet, utilizing The Relic, the Glyphs, and the Zones of Darkness to defeat enemies. The Witness tempts us again and again, going so far as to offer us discipleship. But in the end, when it realizes we won’t be swayed, it attacks in person. Against the odds, we manage to commune with the dissenting voices, learning that by freeing The Traveler, we’ll weaken The Witness enough to use the Darkness to reverse the process of its creation. Although The Witness pushes us out, and we’re ultimately forced to retreat, we manage to wound it. Not only that, but the HELM, Mara Sov, and all our reinforcements from the other side of the portal finally arrive.
What Comes Next?
This might seem like an odd place for the story to stop – and it is. That’s simply because it isn’t done being told yet. Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean they’re dragging it out into another expansion. Rather, as the week of launch continues, more is going to become available.
There’s a good deal of additional mission content to get stuck into after the campaign missions. This is aimed to help set you up for the launch of the Salvation’s Edge raid, in which we expect we’ll defeat The Witness for good. We also know that there will be one more campaign mission coming out after the Day-One event for the raid has concluded. We’ll be sure to update you here once we’ve got more information.
That brings us to the end of everything there is to say on The Final Shape campaign missions. For more, check out how to activate Transcendence and the best Prismatic Hunter builds. If you’re already wondering about the next chapter of story coming with the Episode 1 Echoes release date, we’ve got a countdown going.
