Destiny 2: Season 15 name reveal starts to confirm some far-fetched rumors

The name and art for Destiny 2’s 15th season leaked Thursday night, and Bungie officially confirmed it on Friday morning. Season of the Lost, starring Mara Sov, will start on Tuesday, Aug. 24, immediately following Bungie’s Destiny Showcase. The developer will reveal the new season and the upcoming The Witch Queen expansion during the livestream.

Normally, a simple season name and the reveal of its main characters only serve to hype players up. But Season of the Lost’s name and Mara’s involvement bring a certain weight: Both details appear in a major, months-old leak. With Bungie’s confirmation, one of the biggest rumors in the series’ history just got a lot more credible.

[Warning: This post discusses the potential Destiny rumors and leaks. If accurate, these leaks could spoil aspects of next year’s The Witch Queen expansion and beyond.]

Screenshot: Unidentified Discord user via Reddit user Jgugjuhi

The leaked image of Season of the Lost shows some runes and symbols from Destiny 2’s Dreaming City location, with Hive eyes looking on in the background, and Mara Sov. Mara is Queen of the Awoken, and she “died” in the original Destiny. Players visited her Throne World and spoke to her in 2018’s Forsaken expansion, but she hasn’t reappeared in years.

With Mara out and about, hanging out with Osiris in the official Bungie screenshot above, it looks like the studio may finally finish the Dreaming City’s story. But players who’ve been keeping up with the Destiny rumor mill expected all of this.

Players from the Raid Secrets subreddit have spent months curating a list of upcoming and unconfirmed information regarding Destiny 2, filled with various “leaks,” rumors, and conspiracy theories for unreleased content. It all appears sourced by the community, and there doesn’t appear to be an “AnonTheNine” boogeyman behind all of this information like there was a few years ago. And yet several of these predictions have started to gain credibility — specifically the details from a “notepad post” that supposedly appeared last year.

The collection of leaks suggested that the famous Guardian Osiris was actually Savathun — the titular Witch Queen — in disguise months ago. And due to some recent in-game events, that’s looking more and more likely. It also stated that season 15 would be Season of the Lost, feature Mara Sov, and take place in the Dreaming City to close out the Forsaken storyline. Bungie confirmed that on Friday.

Then there’s a host of reveals in Bungie’s most recent weekly blog that line up with several other leaks. Raid Secrets Reddit user losk64 created a list of confirmed and unconfirmed details using Bungie’s own reveals to help validate the leak collection — such as the original Trials of the Nine weapons coming to last year’s Prophecy dungeon or the newly revealed season 15 rocket launcher, which comes with a rare perk mentioned by name in the leak. Even Bungie’s recently announced anti-cheat plays into the leak — although the suggested timing is a bit off.

In leak collections like this one, information comes from a variety of “sources.” Some items in here could — and certainly seem to be — legitimate leaks from some unknown inside source. But the new Season of the Lost reveal doesn’t automatically confirm the entire collection.

However, as a player who’s been keeping an eye on this leak for months, it is curious that so many pieces keep falling into place. Some of the more far-fetched notions discussed within — such as a Bungie 30th anniversary crossover event between Destiny and Halo coming later this year — don’t seem as silly as they did back in May.

The leak collection has slowly been gaining followers over the past few weeks and months, but players recognized that it could just be well-guessed Destiny 2 fanfiction. With Bungie’s confirmation on Friday, the leak just gained some major credibility — and all the attention that comes with it.