E3 was a big event for Destiny 2. Lots and lots of new details and gameplay have been revealed and shown, but there have also been some nice tidbits of information coming out of interviews in and around the event between various staff and multiple press outlets. This includes a statement from Luke Smith, Game Director, who said that he felt the team had exited the Exo Stranger effectively in the original Destiny, opening up the conversation for whether we will see her again in Destiny 2.
The Exo Stranger is a character players will meet as they progress through the story missions. She’s extremely strange and very mysterious, talking mostly to an unseen ally of hers the very first time she meets you. Later she’ll congratulate you on destroying the great big ball of darkness inside the Black Garden, and gift you with her, admittedly badass, weapon. After that, she just up and phases out of the Tower without any kind of hint as to whether that’s it or if there’s more for you to do.
The problem with the Exo Stranger is that you never feel like her story has been fully wrapped up. Luke Smith himself also said that there’s a world where we never find out anything more about the Exo Stranger, and there’s a world where she’s the star. Of course he’s referring to the two drastically different routs the team could take when it comes to Destiny 2’s narrative and the Exo Stranger.
If Bungie were to make Destiny 2, or a later expansion, solely focus on the Exo Stranger, it would explain more about her character and the group she’s with but it would have to open up more mysteries. The Exo Stranger had a single goal, to get Guardians to destroy the heart in the Black Garden. If she returned there would need to be some other sort of hellish creature causing problems around the system. If we take her group to be some sort of band of heroes who always work in the dark to protect the Light, then it makes sense that they’d only show their faces again when things got too dire.
Destiny 2 starts with Guardians losing their power, meaning they can now die and have no Super abilities like they used to. On one hand this is a serious enough event to warrant the interest of a group much like the Exo Stranger’s, but we need to remember that she herself is no longer a Guardian and hasn’t been for a long time.
If we see the Exo Stranger again it would need to be because of a competitor to the Red Legion, another group or individual who wants to take the Traveller’s Light for their own. With the playing field equalised thanks to the acts of the opening of the game, the situation is wide open for any enemies to come in and start taking the power of the Traveller for their own, the only question is who will this be if it’s anyone?
