Destiny 2 The Final Shape ending explained: What happens at the end of the campaign?

The Final Shape is upon us, but what exactly happens as Guardians venture through the conclusive chapter in Destiny 2’s Light and Darkness saga? While there’s still a Raid and one final story mission left to go, here’s how the campaign wraps up at launch.

A decade in the making, our fight with The Witness is finally in focus. Having pulled the strings for years before making their presence known, The Witness has been tormenting the Destiny 2 community ever since. Now, we finally strike back.

The Final Shape is all about a climactic standoff with Destiny’s ultimate big bad, but how exactly does it all pan out? For now, we’re still left with a few blanks to be filled in as we await the Salvation’s Edge raid, along with the eighth story mission it unlocks. But there’s still plenty to wrap your head around from the campaign already.

Here’s how The Final Shape’s campaign draws to a close and what the ending sets up for the immediate future of Destiny 2.

It goes without saying, but spoiler warning from this point forward. We’ll be breaking down the ending of Destiny 2’s most important campaign, so do not continue reading if you want to experience it all as intended, by playing yourself.

Confronting The Witness

After six story missions of highs and lows, uncovering a weakness of The Witness, losing Zavalla’s Ghost Targe along the way, we finally set forth to confront the big bad face-to-face, and it’s no easy task even just making it to the fight.

After dealing with Dolgith, Blade of Reasoning, it’s full steam ahead to The Sacrarium, The Witness’ current abode. Fending off waves of ads, the objective here is to whittle down the health of all-important Subjugators. In doing so, a portal soon opens up, one that takes us inside a realm of Darkness.

It’s inside the very essence of Darkness itself we begin to learn how we may defeat The Witness. “What was made in Darkness can be unmade in Darkness,” voices cry out before Guardians are spat back out into the arena with The Witness.

A few rotations of clearing ads and killing Subjugators pave the way for us to destroy statues still trapped in the Darkness. It’s by destroying these statues we weaken The Witness’ shield.

Continuing to repeat the process, draining The Witness’ shield bit by bit, we’re eventually joined by Zavalla, Ikora, Cayda, and Crow, all of which help fight off weaker foes while you focus on the bigger targets.

In one last rotation, destroying a statue actually deals a blow to The Witness, the first time we’ve ever wounded the almighty foe. Though in a last-ditch effort to foil your plans, The Witness gravely wounds us and teleports us away. “We. Cut. You. Out.”

We have just 90 seconds in which to escape his clutches, which of course, we do, and that’s the last playable chunk of The Final Shape campaign before a handful of cutscenes tell us the rest.

Facing down with The Witness, the first time we’ve ever seen the character even slightly harmed, they yell at our Fireteam before transforming into a towering behemoth we simply can’t challenge. At least, not yet.

Fleeing The Witness

“We had such hope you would understand,” The Witness says. “But you choose entropy. You will revel in chaos, and in your wake, there is only suffering.”

Alongside Zavalla, Ikora, Cayde, and Crow we all flee after The Witness transforms into this monster, barely living to fight another day. Yet while it may seem like a total defeat, having bailed from our fight, as Mara Sov explains, we now have hope.

“The Witness may have won this battle, but it is wounded,” Sov explains.

Uniting a number of key allies, including Caiatl and her empire, Mithrax and his House of Light, along with Micah-10, a mysterious “Guardian of great renown who comes to us with bold ideas,” Sov has rallied the troops for one last offensive.

“You will storm the Witness’ monolith and strike where it is most vulnerable. Shatter its hold on The Traveller and you will end it.”

Salvation’s Edge awaits – One final battle with The Witness

The cutscene fades to black before one last message appears on screen: “The final battle with The Witness approaches.”

For now, that’s where things are at in the final pages of the Light and Darkness saga. The Salvation’s Edge Raid is set to commence on June 7 at 10 AM PT. It’s here where we no doubt engage in the final battle, however, there’s still more to come. Upon the World’s First clear of this all-important Raid, an eighth and final campaign mission is set to unlock for everyone.

Rest assured, we’ll be jumping into the Raid and keeping you up to speed right here with all the latest developments as Destiny 2’s decade-long story arc comes to an end.