Forbes Innovation Games Watch What May Be Destiny 2’s Best Cutscene, Ending A Decade-Long Character Arc Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. Following Feb 15, 2023, 09:19am EST | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Destiny 2 Bungie On Tuesday at reset, Destiny 2 launched its Season of the Seraph finale mission, one that was fun enough, but the real finale was the cutscene that followed. Many Destiny players are calling it the best cutscene the game has ever had, or close to it, and I will admit, some parts of it had me leaping out of my chair. The ultimate result of the cutscene may not have been as transformative as it initially appeared, but it’s pretty epic all the same. If you have been keeping up with the seasonal quest, simply logging in to Destiny 2 right now will throw you into the final mission which has this cutscene as the end. But if you haven’t been keeping up, you can watch it below. Obviously spoilers follow . The context of what we’re seeing here is the end result of a conundrum that AI Warmind Rasputin ran into. His prime directive has been to protect humanity at all costs, usually by bombing enemies with his network of orbital warsats. But now that we face a Hive god, Xivu Arath, who draws power from death, him unleashing the warsats on her army would only strengthen her. So the Warmind has been puzzling about what to do when he can’t be a weapon anymore. MORE FOR YOU $100M Magic: Why Bruno Mars And Other Stars Are Ditching Their Managers From Perpetual Otherness To Artistic Triumph: Exploring Identity Through Psychedelic Art With SookyGirl’s Andi Astra Disability Inclusion Means Action Meanwhile, Eramis, the Traveler-hating Eliksni from Beyond Light, is attempting to take control of the warsats herself. Partially on behalf of Traveler enemy The Witness, but partially because, as she says in the cutscene, she doesn’t want what happened to the Eliksni to happen to anyone else again, even her enemies, where previously the Traveler abandoned the Eliksni homeworld and left devastation in its wake. And that’s exactly what the Traveler tries to do again! The most shocking sequence here is the Traveler actually threatening to leave Earth, rising from its position above the last city where it’s sat since Destiny started. Eramis is going to shoot it to try to prevent it from leaving, but Rasputin ultimately sacrifices himself to destroy the entire warsat network so she can’t. Destiny 2 Bungie The Traveler doesn’t leave, not because it doesn’t want to, it seems, but because The Witness and his armies already have it surrounded and there’s nowhere to go. And now this will lead into the events of Lightfall in two weeks with the main story on Neptune and the seasonal story on Earth with the Traveler trapped in the middle. The “decade long arc” I’m talking about isn’t just the Traveler finally moving, it’s Rasputin, one of the game’s longest-serving characters, who has now met his end. Rasputin traces his origins all the way back to Destiny 1 with a Cosmodrome strike and content on Mars. Later, his damaging nanomachines, SIVA, made up the storyline of Rise of Iron. In Destiny 2, Rasputin had his own DLC, Warmind, bringing back a new version of Mars. He shot down the Almighty in Season of the Worthy so it wouldn’t destroy Earth. And in Season of the Seraph, this current season, he has met his end attempting to save us yet again. So he’s had at least a half dozen major storylines since Destiny’s launch in 2014 and has been integrated into the lore pretty much every year in some form or another. Losing him is…a big deal. Destiny 2 Bungie It's a beautiful, thrilling, heart-wrenching cutscene. A great culmination of plotlines both old and new, and a worthwhile lead-in to the events of Lightfall. I also now distrust the Traveler more than ever, which seems determined to do nothing but save its own skin, and it feels like we’ve been little more than its zombie protector army this entire time, rather than it being our protector, as that’s only the case when it suits it. More to come in two weeks. I’d log in, finish the season and play the final mission for yourself. Follow me on Twitter , YouTube , Facebook and Instagram . Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls . Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy . Paul Tassi Editorial Standards Print Reprints & Permissions.