Since Bungie officially announced Thursday that live-service development of Destiny 2 was coming to an end in a few weeks, like many longtime players I find myself reminiscing about the good old days and dreaming of what could have been. In light of a Bloomberg report indicating that Destiny 3 is not in development — and reports that Bungie is planning for a significant number of layoffs — some of the franchise’s most interesting plot threads may never get resolved. Among them is all the narrative build-up surrounding Xivu Arath, the Hive god of war, which might never amount to anything.
Responding to a post on X about the Bloomberg report, one user suggested that Destiny 3 should begin with a “campaign and massive raid featuring Xivu Arath,” arguing that it would be a “slam dunk massive hit.” Someone replied “you’d be surprised how many times this was pitched for D2.” That someone was Robert Brookes, the former senior narrative designer on the game. He’s credited with working on every update and season, starting with 2020’s Beyond Light all the way through The Final Shape and Revenant before his departure in 2024.
While the first Destiny explored Hive lore a great deal, particularly with the excellent The Taken King expansion focused on the Hive god Oryx, Brookes is partially responsible for much of the interesting Hive-focused narratives that Destiny 2 has delivered in recent years.
In a 2023 interview with Shacknews, Brookes explained that part of his process involved digging around into the lore surrounding stories, destinations, and various ideas that the narrative team could explore. “I will select the stuff that is most directly relevant to what we’re doing or has the most connective tissue going inwards and then I start building the stories I’m going to write based on what’s already there,” Robert said. “Then I’ll start creating something new from the inside of the pre-existing lore that we’ve already established.”
While Oryx got his spotlight in The Taken King and his sister Savathûn became a huge focus in Witch Queen — which Brookes was heavily involved with — Xivu Arath never got the same treatment. But it’s said in the lore that she is present wherever armed conflict takes place, which is pretty much everywhere in Destiny. In a 2022 interview with Turtle Beach, Brookes spoke about how the team settled on the idea that it was Xivu Arath who invaded the Cabal capital world of Torobatl, driving out Empress Caiatl, who became one of humanity’s closest alien allies.
That decision transformed Xivu Arath from a distant lore figure into one of Destiny 2’s most important off-screen antagonists. Over the next several years, her influence spread through the game’s seasonal storytelling. She corrupted enemies into Wrathborn during Season of the Hunt. Her armies and rituals destabilized entire worlds. Characters repeatedly described her less as a conventional villain and more as an inevitability — a Hive god empowered by conflict itself.
