Does the Winnower return in Destiny 2: Heresy?

Destiny 2 has got no shortage of obscure and abstract lore for players to ponder upon. In fact, for some of us, lore has been a crucial aspect of the experience, and I’m thrilled to report that Destiny 2: Heresy brings up one of its big mysteries: the Winnower.

The Winnower is not nearly as obscure and weird as some of Destiny‘s wildest backstories, but it has been a huge question-mark ever since the Witness entered the picture. Now, Bungie has been dropping hints as to the nature of the Winnower and whether it’s actually a thing or not for years now, but the community’s been split on the matter. Up until now, at least, because Destiny 2: Heresy doesn’t just bring up the Winnower, but also drives home the fact that it is very real and very ominous indeed.

Destiny 2: Heresy confirms that the Winnower exists, and it is omnipresent.

It’s important to note right off the bat that there have always kinda-sorta been two layers to Destiny‘s storytelling. There’s the surface-level stuff: the struggle between the Guardians and the Hive, for example, or Xivu-Arath’s routing of Cabal across the galaxy. The obvious story-beats that the game spells out for you, basically. On the other hand, there’s the esoteric backend of Destiny, where fans hunt down and piece together often wildly incoherent pieces of questionable lore that may or may not have something to do with the narrative at large. This is where the Winnower comes into the picture, as the basic essence of Darkness itself.

Now, when the Witness was revealed as the “Voice in the Darkness,” many of us wondered if this is what the Winnower was supposed to be. Destiny 2: The Final Shape very much de-emphasized the Winnower as its own thing, and even when this proverbial entity was brought up, it was entirely possible and reasonable to assume it might be an allegory at most.

With all of that in mind, it just so happens that Bungie’s writing team has finally decided to dispel any confusion there might’ve been about the Winnower as its own, separate entity: “Do you know that I consider you a frustrating friend,” it asks the Guardian.

If you’d like to get a sense of what the Winnower wants from the Guardians, simply head on over to your fancy new Tablet of Ruin seasonal Artifact and open its attached lore entry. Waiting for you here is a proper manifesto and a call to action for us to embrace the Deep, confirming that the Winnower has always been in the background, waiting to (ontologically) pounce.

It’s exciting stuff, if you’re into Destiny‘s emblematic weirdness, and I’m thrilled to see that the Witness and the Winnower have been two separate entities all along. Even better, that the Winnower was not just an allegorical representation of the Darkness as a whole. No way of knowing what happens on this front next, but just having the Winnower around makes me happy, and that counts for something.