The jaw-dropping Lightfall reveal trailer released on August 23, 2022 introduced us to the dazzling location of Neomuna and delivered the first glimpse of new Strand powers in action. But as a Fireteam of Guardians fought Calus’ Shadow Legion, they used totally new weapons such as a hand cannon that looks like Fatebringer with extra attachments and a fiery design, along with a robust-looking breech loading grenade launcher. One of these eventually came to Destiny 2, but the other never did. Neither did a handful of other weapons featured in Lightfall marketing materials.
Plenty of players have called out the missing weapons on Reddit in the months since Lightfall's launch, even claiming false advertising. Some have speculated they’re being saved for The Final Shape. Others assume weapons like a breech loading grenade launcher and several others might never come to Destiny 2 because Bungie has never brought them up.
The hand cannon Epochal Integration, wielded by the Hunter in the trailer, arrived as part of the Season of the Deep quest called Parting the Veil. Part of the issue here, however, was that Lightfall launched on February 28 and Season of the Deep didn’t kick off until May 23. Similar to how the Lightfall campaign itself left many lingering lore questions unanswered, even the rollout of new weapons like this became prolonged. After completing the base Lightfall campaign and the Unfinished Business Exotic quest, players could begin the six-step quest to unlock the hand cannon. That, in turn, unlocked the Veil Containment lore mission to decrypt weekly logs detailing more lore.
In other words, it was a convoluted, drawn-out process. A prominent fan theory is that Bungie added Epochal Integration due to high demand, but given the fact that it takes several months to design and implement new weapons, it’s likely that the gun was already in development by the time of the expansion’s launch. In any case, the other promotional weapons like the breech-loading grenade launcher wielded by the Warlock in the Lightfall reveal trailer — which sort of looks like a cross between Fighting Lion and Salvager’s Salvo — are still MIA. This was certainly not the case during The Witch Queen era when all of the promotional weapons were added into the game.
So what happened? Rumors swirled in the wake of Lightfall's release based on supposed leaks claiming that Bungie originally intended for it to be the true end to the Light and Darkness saga. But the ambitious final chapter grew bloated enough that it was broken up. The team expanded Neomuna and focused on wielding the new power of Strand to fight Disciple Calus for the core story, so Lightfall became something of a “filler” to bridge the gap between it and The Final Shape. But again, all of this remains conjecture.
Bungie commented directly on all the negative feedback from Lightfall in an April 2023 blog post: “it’s clear the initial experience we delivered on day one didn’t provide the full clarity we originally planned for when we set out creating Lightfall, the team has taken the feedback to heart in both what’s coming this year, and with how we’re ending the Light and Darkness Saga in The Final Shape,” game director Joe Blackburn wrote. The developer hasn’t offered much in the way of public explanation for all of the above.
It’s unclear what the status is of these unreleased weapons, with the aforementioned grenade launcher being the most glaring omission. Not only was it prominently featured in the Lightfall trailer, but in some key art for the expansion, a Titan holds it while a Hunter wields Epochal Integration. You’d think that both weapons would get the same treatment. So why didn’t they?
Bungie’s narrative team did reveal back in July, however, that the ongoing Veil Containment lore associated with obtaining the Epochal Integration hand cannon would continue through Season of the Deep and beyond. Yet the ongoing Season of the Witch has not delivered any concrete answers. Season of the Wish kicks off in just a few weeks on November 28, but it seems increasingly more likely that if the grenade launcher and other previously teased weapons are added to the game at all, it’ll probably be sometime after The Final Shape launches. However, the missing guns could have been lost amidst all of the turmoil, but here’s to hoping they appear sooner rather than later.
Bungie still lists that release date as February 27, 2024. But Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on October 30 that Destiny 2 revenue was running 45% below projections and roughly 100 developers were laid off. Reportedly, Bungie delayed the launch to June 2024, but the developer has yet to announce it publicly. The studio even doubled down on the February launch date in a November 14 press release.
