Destiny's decade-long saga is over after world's first raid team takes 19 hours to down the final boss, unlocking a wild 12-person climax for everyone to play

pcgamer.com:

I'm so tired. Partly because I stayed up until 4 AM watching teams trying and failing to win the Salvation's Edge raid race. But also because, I woke up this morning to find that after a staggering 19 hours the final boss had been defeated, meaning that the curtain has been brought down on a story I've been playing for a decade.

As anticipated, the raid being beaten was the trigger to unlock the final mission of The Final Shape expansion's campaign. The mission is called Excision and is the game's first 12-player activity (aside from a funny glitch a few years back). To launch it, open The Pale Heart destination from the director screen and scroll all the way over to the top right of the map.

[Minor spoilers follow in images and text]

Excision is a brilliant Return of the King meets Avenger's Engame-style romp in which the combined forces of the guardians and their allies—which include Caiatl's Cabal empire, the Eliksni of House Light, and even previous series' big bad Savathûn—join forces to storm The Witnesses' fortress and end it once and for all.

I won't spoil it for those yet to dive in, but suffice to say Excision more than pays off the fantasy of fighting alongside an army of guardians, and many of the story's most prominent characters, in a ridiculously over-the-top battle. Unlike the raid, which was brutally hard under 'contest mode' conditions where players must fight with their power far below the recommended encounter level, Excision isn't a skill test so much as a glorious piece of fan service that enables everyone to experience the drop of a narrative beat 10 years in the making.

My heart is mostly black and inert, but I admit I felt a rush of emotion as those final few cut scenes played out, which included a pitch-perfect resolution for the returning Cayde-6's storyline. The game also sets the scene for narratives to come—Savathun isn't going to stay our friend for long, the Scorn's Fikrul remains at large, and light and dark energy is leaking from