Destiny 2 – When are the Pyramid Ships coming? It may be sooner than you think…

The Pyramid ships are coming. Ever since they were woken up by the Traveller at the end of the vanilla Destiny 2 campaign we’ve been teased the arrival of the Pyramid ships and last week Rasputin showed us some evidence that they are closer than we thought. A countdown timer has been installed in each of the bunkers on Io, EDZ and the Moon… and it looks like they’re getting closer… fast! The following is a look at when are the Pyramid Ships coming in Destiny 2.

Yesterday our countdown maps were updated in all the bunkers, as Rasputin’s early warning systems are tracking the impending arrival of the ships. We thought that maybe they would arrive for the September expansion, but it looks like they’re approaching faster than we thought and in greater numbers.

Last week we had 2 ships off in the distance, now there’s 8 on the map. We thought that perhaps they would only move a few pixels each week on the map, dragging out the arrival to Fall 2020, although at this rate it looks like there will significant movements in the story by June 2020.

The last time The Pyramid Ships (or the Darkness) attacked was during the Collapse after the Golden Age. What we’re seeing now has echoes of the past with the ships being detected just beyond the edges of the Solar System by Rasputin. The detection of the ships was due to something called “TRANSIENT NEAR EXTRASOLAR EVENT” as the huge Warmind detected an anomaly in the gravity waves.

Rasputin conducted something known as “Omnibus analysis” of the event on local spacetime, measuring direction, distance, range, speed and size and could detect a pattern that demonstrated intelligence and intent. Rasputin knew they were coming.

Rasputin tried to better understand the phenomenon through simulations in something called the Monte Carlo analysis, however, it was unable to determine definitive information about the source. It did know that behind this data there was something complex that had a clear purpose. Rasputin determined that the source of this data not only failed to conform to any known phenomena in the Standard Model of particle physics but that it was directed, acting with anger and almost certain to reach the solar system in a very short amount of time.

Rasputin upgraded to include a number of defensive protocols, but it was too late and The Darkness swept through the Solar System, devastating humankind in an event called The Collapse. Only due to the Traveler’s intervention did humanity survive. Now, it looks like they’re coming back.

Back to present-day…

Currently, the ships are sitting outside the Kuiper Belt, a big mass of asteroids and floating ice that surrounded the solar system outside. Once they manage to get through that, there’s a couple of planets that are not lit up on the map which includes Neptune and Uranus. Why they are not lit up at the moment, we don’t know. We can see if we zoom into the map there are pixels on the map for these planets. Perhaps Rasputin doesn’t have outposts here, or maybe we’ll need to go and activate these devices.

Next on the map are two moons that orbit two gas giants and two locations that we can currently access in the game – Titan (a moon of Saturn) and Io (a moon of Jupiter).

There’s a couple of ways this could go. We could either head out into deep space and meet the Pyramid Ships head-on near Neptune, perhaps face them on existing destinations in the game. Luke Smith said in his Directors Cut last year that ‘the game cannot grow forever’ and one way to do this and consolidate locations would be to destroy a few. With Titan and Io being the first destinations in the game the Pyramid ships reach, these two locations could be the first to go. We had better make room in the Tower for Sloane and Asher Mir.

Previously, Europa and Enceladus had been thought to be in Bungie’s plans for new destinations as you can see from this concept artwork. Europa is a moon orbiting Jupiter and had been part of a leak for a potential Destiny 3 destination, although beyond the concept art we’ve never seen anything since. Enceladus is a moon orbiting Saturn and in the concept art, you can see huge ships caught in the ice caps, which look very cool. There is the potential for these to be new destinations, however, I would imagine Bungie are trying to shrink the game rather than add to it, so my expectation would be locations removed rather than added.

Looking at the map again in one of the bunkers, and judging by how fast these ships are moving it looks like The Pyramid ships could reach us around mid-June, which is right around the time Season of the Worthy ends. If you take the set of ships and super-impose the same distance on the open map and then you can see the countdown is real.

In my last video ‘The Countdown to the Darkness arriving has begun’ I thought perhaps this countdown would last until September, with us fighting some kind of SIVA entity next season. With the update this week, and the Pyramid Ships moving faster than we thought, then next season we might get some significant movement in the story of the Darkness. I would imagine we’ll be gathering allies – Ikora, Saint-14, Rasputin in an effort to get ready for their arrival.

The battle against the Darkness is a huge candidate for the next big expansion and definitely couldn’t fit into a single season. I don’t think we’d want a big story beat like this to be concluded in a single season, that wouldn’t be right. Perhaps next season we’ll see some significant changes to the landscape of Destiny with destinations being changed, or maybe destroyed and the arrival of the Pyramid Ships to our celestial front door. That then leaves us with season 11 to build up to the big fall expansion, which is likely to be publicised in June 2020. I doubt at this time we’re getting Destiny 3, that still feels like at least a year (or maybe 2) away.

Let me know down in the comments – when do you think the ships will arrive and what’s going to happen next season?

That’s it for this look at when are the Pyramid Ships coming in Destiny 2. For more Destiny 2 content like this check out the Shadowkeep Guide or check out the YouTube Channel.