The Destiny 2 season 19 trailer teases Rasputin‘s return, as well as the emergence of Xivu Arath. The season looks to tie together narrative threads that the Bungie team has been planting since Guardians first fought Oryx in The Taken King expansion of the first Destiny game.
Called Season of the Seraph, Destiny 2 season 19 will focus on Rasputin, the AI Warmind some hail as humanity’s only hope. The premise of the season involves restoring the Warmind. Before this season, the last we knew of Rasputin is that Ana Bray held remnants of the Warmind on an engram, hoping one day to extract it. Some speculated that her goal was to give Rasputin an exo body, similar to how her grandfather, Clovis Bay I, uploaded his mind into an exo body. The season 19 trailer shows that this is indeed the case.
However, Bray isn’t the only one who wants to control Rasputin. The trailer indicates that The Witness, the powerful incarnation of Darkness revealed at the end of The Witch Queen campaign, also wants to restore the Warmind. The powerful member of The Nine is likely interested in turning the Warmind against humanity to wipe out the species. The trailer also indicates that The Witness wishes to control the Warsats, dormant military satellites initially designed to protect humanity from extraterrestrial threats. The Witness appears to be aided by The Hive God of War, Xivu Arath.
Xivu Arath plays a vital role in the Destiny 2 storyline. Throughout the last few years, her narrative constantly evolved in the background as events progressed. Xivu Arath is also sister to the deceased Hive leaders Oryx, also known as The Taken King, and Savathûn, known as The Witch Queen. Xivu is also the strongest of the three, making her a significant threat to humanity.
The season trailer also showcases the return of Seraph weapons, which Bungie teased in a recent TWAB.
The Rasputin storyline will likely be an important season in wrapping up outstanding storylines as the game moves toward the Destiny 2 Lightfall release date, which will also introduce the new Darkness subclass, Strand. While Bungie has no plans to end the Destiny 2 series anytime soon, the developers have promised that Lightfall will wrap up the narrative storyline of the Light versus Darkness saga, marking the culmination of ten years of in-game storytelling.