I’ll be honest, I had my doubts that Season of the Lost would ever get an actual ending. With only a week to go until the start of The Witch Queen, it was s🐻tarting to look like we’d need to wait until then to find out how Savathun managed to escape Mara’s exorcism ritual. Thankfully, I was wrong. With the final reset of the season today, Bungie delivered one of the best season finales yet. The Exorc♔ism packs a ton of action and storytelling into a short mission which is then capped off with a mini questline that beautifully ties off some threads, sets up what’s to come, and even hints at some bigger plot points we might expect to see down the road.
Season of the Lost began with a major twist. Throughout the entirety of Beyond Light, our old friend Osiris had been o🤡vertaken by Savathun, a Hive God and supreme evil in the Destiny universe. Mara Sov, the Awoken Queen and Destiny’s chief baddie, made a devil’s deal with Savathun: free Osiris and we’ll rid you 🔜of your worm. I could spiral off into worm lore for another five paragraphs, but suffice to say we needed Osiris and Savathun needed to not have a worm in her.
Over the next two months, we grinded Astral Alignments to locate Mara’s lost Techeuns, then ventured into the Shattered Realm over and over to rescue them. We eventually rescued all the Techeuns Mara would need for 𓂃the ritual, at which point the season just…stopped. The delay of The Witch Queen caused Season of the Lost to last many months longer than originally intended. There’s been other things to do in Destiny thanks to the 30th Anniversary Event, but as far as Savathun goes, we’ve just been sitting on our hands for the last four months.
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The time has finally come to perform the ritual. The mission begins in the Blind Well where your fireteam will need to align several beacons. After six months of grinding Astral Alignments you’d think I’d be sick of this place, but there was a thrill in knowing we were here with a purpose, potentially for the final time. Once the beacons are aligned, you’re then teleported to the fully constructed bridge - you know, the one no ⛄one knew was being built until last week? Fighting across the bridge while a fleet of Xivu Arath’s hive ships swarm in to stop the ritual is a blast. There’s nothing better than running with your fireteam while hell rains down on your heads, and knowing how important your role is here makes it even more🐭 exciting. When you reach the ritual site, there’s an extended hold out sequence where you fight alongside an army of awoken to hold back the inꦐvading Hive. It’s hard to believe this will only be playable for one week before its gone forever.
Once inside, there’s a short scene between Mara and Saint-14 before the ritual begins. As the Techeuns start to exorcize th𒆙e worm from Savathun, your team will need to fend off another massive wave of Hive enemies, including Xivu Arath’s champions from the Astral Alignment this time. Saint throws down a Titan bubble for the duration of the fight, giving us the sense that we’re fighting alongside him. The last time we fought with Saint and his bubble was during his rescue mission in Season of Dawn. There’s some interesting parallels between that mission and this one, which Saint points out later.
When the🌳 ritual is complete, we find exactly what we expected. Freed from her worm, Savathun vanished into thin air, leaving behind Osiris and a very pissed-off Mara Sov. Afterwards, you can🌠 visit Mara and Saint-14 to debrief. There are a few interesting tidbits to gather from these conversations.
First, Mara confirms that Savathun left Osiris behinཧd willingly. The Witch Queen held up her end of the bargain, suggesting that there is some honor among Hive Gods. Either that, or she still has some use for us. We’re taking to fight to Savathun’s throne world in The Witch Queen, but that doesn’t mean we’re just going to kill her and move on. Mara also reveals that the worm was captured and no❀t killed. She explains that she intends to study the creature in order to find a way to break the curse on the Dreaming City, but we know how influential those little bastards can be. We’ve got plenty of good reasons to trust Mara, but a loose Worm in the Dreaming City shouldn’t be taken lightly.
We then visit Saint-14, who delivers a sequence of emotional gut punches. Osiris is alive, but lost in sleep for now. Saint asks us to give him some time to process everything and to be there for Osiris. He wants his face to be the first thing Osiris sees when he wakes up. He calls him his beloved, and he jokes that he’ll be able to tell Osiris that they’re even now. Osiris and Saint’s relationship has changed a lot over the years. They were originalওly described as brothers, but there was subtle and suggestive language that they were more than friends around the time of Season of Dawn. Their romantic relationship was confirmed outside of the game by Bungie writers, but I think this is the first time we’ve seen either character speak plainly about being in love. It’s a beautiful scene that makes the entire wait for the finale feel worth it.
We’re left with plenty of questions going into The Witch Queen. We don’t know exactly how Savathun escaped or how she managed to steal the light on the way out, if indeed that already happened. We also 🌳don’t know what will happen to her worm or the Dreaming City now, but I’d venture to gueꦓss Xivu Arath isn’t going to be down with us poking and prodding it for long. This will likely tie into the Season of the Risen activity, if I had to guess.
We also don’t know what will happen to Osiris now. Osiris lost his ligh🌸t at the start of Seꦛason of the Hunt, meaning he was just a normal man when Savathun took over. It’s hard to imagine how even a guardian could come back from being possessed by a god, surely Osiris will suffer some permanent effects - if he manages to recover at all.
The Exorcism gave me everything I wanted in the finale. The mission was cin💦ematic and unfolded just how I imagined it, with a massive battle between the Awoken, us, and the forces of Savathun. It tied up loose threads and created some🌜 new ones, perfectly bridging Season of the Lost to the upcoming expansion, The Witch Queen. Live events are great and I hope to see more in the future, but I can’t imagine a more perfect ending for Season of the Lost than what we had today.