Destiny 2‘s Renegades expansion is out, and some players think it is quietly teasing the next Darkness subclass.
Destiny 2: Renegades arrived on December 2, bringing a Star Wars-inspired criminal underworld, the Barant Imperium Cabal, and the Lawless Frontier activity to close out Year 8. It follows The Edge of Fate from July, which gave us Kepler and its dark matter destination abilities, and kicked off the Fate saga with the story focused around The Nine.
Alongside the new Equilibrium dungeon, blasters, and Praxic Blade, the old “red subclass” rumor has crawled back out of the pit again. For years, fans have latched onto any red visual effect and tried to turn it into proof of a secret Darkness element, even after game director Tyson Green said the red subclass “isn’t real” and is not in active development, though he did admit it might happen one day.
Now that Renegades is out, that theory is back in the spotlight thanks to one very loud piece of story and visual design. (Spoiler warning for the Renegades main story and final mission from here on)
Destiny 2 players think Renegades is hinting at a red Darkness subclass
In Renegades, the Barant Imperium’s superweapon, Nightfall Station, is powered by a violent red force known as Eclipse. It comes from a core gifted to Dredgen Bael by VI (Saturn) and is framed as a kind of dark matter weapon. In the campaign, Eclipse pours out of Nightfall to wipe out whole areas and, more importantly, it is shown as something that only seems to affect Guardians.
The moment that really set people off is the final boss fight with Premier Lume. When you take him down, red and black streams of energy rip out of his body and fill the room. Clips of the boss fight as well as the cinematics are all over social media, with players taking screenshots, trying to decide if this is just a one-off story effect or a preview of a new Darkness element and potentially a subclass.
On Reddit, you can see the full range of takes. Some fans are fully convinced. One player wrote that Eclipse “has to be the last element” because it’s “dark red, literally suffocates every other element, and its entire purpose in the story is that it’s the energy that the Nightfall Station fires so that it can obliterate the entire city and wipe out all the Guardians.”
Others are not buying it at all. Another player asked: “Why is everybody raving on about Eclipse (the red glowing stuff used to kill guardians) supposedly being a potential future subclass when that makes zero sense? They make a big point out of showing that it does no damage to anything but Guardians. How would that make for a good subclass? Throw an Eclipse grenade at a Cabal, and it does nothing, lol? PVP only subclass that instant kills any Guardian,” they said.
Then you have the long theory posts trying to land in the middle. One fan argued: “I believe that Eclipse energy will lead to a new subclass for Guardians in the future. First, Eclipse energy is anti-paracausal. It seems very strong, but I think that’s more of a consequence of it being supercharged by Nightfall Station. I think Eclipse will serve us as a means to deal with Dark Guardians.”
That same comment goes on to point in the epilogue about Dredgen Bael still being out there and Dark Guardian cells resurging, and even predicts enemy Guardian bosses in future content.
Another pushed on with Eclipse being a potential new subclass, saying, “I wasn’t buying into the whole ‘red subclass’ rumors and tin foil hat theories until Premier Lume was defeated in the campaign, and these bright red and black streaks shot out of him
“Something about these effects makes me feel like this is more than just a one-off animation for this character, and I think it could be our first look at the coveted third darkness element. I don’t think we’ve ever seen anything like this in the game before.”
Along with that, Bungie has confirmed that it wants to cool off on destination-specific abilities. In a recent Renegades interview, the studio said that fans should expect more subclass-related updates in the future. “You should expect to see more of that [subclass-related] stuff in the future,” assistant game director Robbie Stevens said.
“A lot of the focus this year, the destinations themselves, was through the lens of how we can do things or break rules that we couldn’t if it was in the entire game. That’s part of the reason why a lot of the Renegade abilities, like being able to call a giant behemoth vehicle, being able to call in massive airstrikes, these other things, are fully within that range. That theme and fantasy of being a renegade, working with your crew, calling in these powerful ordinances, we couldn’t do most of that if it were accessible everywhere.”
All of this is happening while new reports claim Destiny 3 is in extremely early development at Bungie, though nothing is confirmed by the studio.
For now, officially, there is no red subclass in Destiny 2. But Renegades has clearly given that theory a second life.
Do you think Eclipse is just a story flavor for this expansion, or are we actually seeing the first hints of a new Darkness subclass down the road?
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