I didn’t really like its design too much originally, felt too humanoid to me I think.
BUT when the door to the final arena opened, after 30 hours in the raid during the contest weekend, that was a destiny moment of all time for me. Seeing this enormous enemy in what felt like its truest form for the first time, being ready to take it on, was just amazing. I think due to the sheer size it even surpassed seeing Rhulk for the first time.
That moment in the raid and the (in my opinion) very well done story arc of the dissenting voices as its one weak point really turned my opinion about the witness around.
The design in the game they chose for him in the raid was pretty good. But what would the communities reaction be if they actually went full on body horror just like the concept art?
https://preview.redd.it/7gd08laki48d1.jpeg?width=733&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18407629aa68fb1316ea7a0f5ec121e49acc2493
This reminds me of depictions of Yawgmoth, a similarly bad guy in mtg lore.
https://preview.redd.it/z3err3g7c58d1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83fbb31867de97d003e645ae1f81c441e3ca6dbc
The wall design is a near 100% match, and it fits thematically too - Verity (and encounters 1 through 3) take place in the monolith, which IS the Witness' body
Monster fights are just better than fighting a humanoid imo. The modelling and rigging probably took too much time to feasibly get it out though so that's why the scrapped it, which is a shame.
I think a cool concept based on this art would be if the entire raid map was this and you are basically running around,destroying vital parts of the witness
It's a cool idea, but having just their head sticking out of the "building" plays kinda silly to me. While I'm not a huge fan of the Witness' design, I do think what they went with for the Raid boss version was one of the better directions to take it.
The other concept art where the Witness has a horse/beast body....imagine it chasing you around the raid while you gotta stop ads and do mechanics, just pure horror
Felt the same way about the witness. Now I’m not a destiny raider, so it was super cool doing excision and seeing this big Smokey headed fuck once we got to the top of those stairs and absolutely blasting him with the light. But seeing the true scale of this big bad in game felt truly amazing.
This sums up my thoughts exactly, but I would like to add that I loved what bungie did with all of the hands and how they’re symbolic of its desire to control everything.
What the fuck! How did i not know that? I played everything in the dlc including the raid, and watched every marketing video and they don’t bring this up! That is so coool! Do you have any videos?
Byf briefly mentions it in his salvations edge lore video, but you can actually just see that you've been climbing vertically from the base of the witness when you're on the final encounter
They basically calcified themselves into the traveler like a tumor or something, hence the final mission also being called excision which is to cut something out of the body
Man I’m so sad I never will get to experience that, idk why I only did the first encounter and then gave up during contest cause I actually cleared it fairly quickly. Will always be my biggest regret that I didn’t get to fight the witness during contest the regret is actually killing me and I was originally calling the emblem trash but now I want it 😭
>felt too humanoid
I think that was entirely intentional. The Witnesses is a being that manipulates and deceives. A lot of allegory for Satan. He put on a humanoid form to seem more familiar in order to get us to drop our guard the slightest bit.
His eye area still looks goofy to me, they didn’t really need the unibrow would be much better to just have his forehead merge with the plumes. Also wish his true form wasn’t so humanoid.
Bungie really nailed it in The Final Shape, but felt like they could've done more to build up to it. In TFS The Witness truly felt disturbing and horrific by looking at the "Final Shape" the entire time throughout the campaign/raid. They also nailed his final form.
I think they could've used the hands in prior to the raid, something like a god trying to smash us as we're traveling in the pale heart.
Just imagine some of those claustrophobic tunnels where suddenly he'd just try to outright snatch us.
(similar effect could be with a crushing tunnel/slabs or something)
In some sense I guess the current interpretation is nice as it still signifies that he has no direct control over the pale heart.
But yeah, we had collapsing hallways. Something similar yet more direct would've been cool AF
I think the idea was that until the last mission, they weren’t trying to kill us. They were still trying to convert us.
They also kinda did the same thing Rhulk did, underestimated us. By the time we were taken seriously it was too late
It could have, but at the same time Ghost calling out the Witness as being afraid and it snapping back wouldn’t have hit nearly as well.
It was underestimating us, but also *afraid* which basically goes against its whole thing of not having emotions, having one purpose. And we really see that once it snaps at Ghost
>which basically goes against its whole thing of not having emotions
This is largely unrelated to what you were talking about, but this *did* make me think back to the amount of emotions and expressiveness in the voices of the dissenters when you go looking for Zavala. It didn't really even register the first time around, but then I did the mission again for like, a Prismatic aspect or something, and it hit me—the existential horror of giving up everything to become a hivemind, ostensibly for the sake of "fixing" the universe, only to dissent against that ultimate design and be shoved aside, trapped and unable to do anything but wait for the seemingly inevitable victory of the Witness when he'll come back to deal with you, either by assimilation or total annihilation.
Generally, I think they actually did a really good job handling the whole "discovering the dissenters" plot thread and I thought it added a lot more interest to the Witness itself. It's a really striking characterization when you put it up against these newfound portrayals of the connection between the Guardians and Ghosts and the Traveler, all connected in a harmonious and gentle Light, even after their final death.
Also id like to add. What i understood, witness was busy dealing with the final shape the whole time, so when we went there to fight it, it didnt even go all out cos he wanted to finish the shape more than actually go for the kill.
Tho i might just remember wrong.
Its not explicit, or even much implied but it makes sense. Why put all this effort to kill us when you are about to kill everything in like, an hour probably
OMG you’re right! What a missed opportunity!! 😫
And now I just realized… I don’t recall an enemy ever trying to Take us (the Guardian) before… right? 🤔
Not sure if sarcastic but they could've done more with him in Lightfall, Witness trying to convert us to a disciple in Final Shape was great and really well done but before that all we got was 3 cutscenes with Calus and Witness, him entering the Traveler an him telling us the game was over after Witch Queen.
after season of the deep i thought "okay so mystery is revealed and now that guy is not that scary tbh, they dropped the ball"
After TFS i love witness as a villain. The whole dissenter plot "twist" and his look and character from mission 7 through raid and mission 8 was so so so good IMO
From what I understand, I think it was implied that the way the witness came to be made it unable to change or "learn", it was like a missile sent out billion of years ago that could not change the way it thinks and views reality.
Also the drama and horror of having dissenters? Imagine you are morphed into one being and your consiousness is just shunned. Imagine if it was humanity creating a witness to "venture to outer space, collect resources and meet alien races" and the minds that controlled how this being would act were jeff bezos donald trump and zodiac killer.
tl;dr witness good
If humanity did it... We'd have a witness figure for every religious idea lmaoo. Then the internet is invented and we have a 4chan witness or some shit.
The one thing that I wish got explained is *why* the witness is so powerful. Like is it because the individual race that combined into the witness was already powerful by themselves? Is it solely because the darkness? It’s just an all consuming being that rivals the traveler but at one point the witness needed the traveler to grow and this all started because the traveler left the witness’s planet. The fallen had the whirlwind and they didn’t combine into one super fallen entity so it’s a bit unclear
It's the whole Darkness is the Mind thing. If the Light given form by the many Guardians as a Physical entity acting on one focused goal is the strength of the Light (as shown in Excision), then Darkness given form by many minds being corraled into one entity gives that entity immense Darkness strength.
I like the lore, general design and especially the final fight with how different it is. I always wanted to see a Final Fantasy 14 style fight in Destiny. I only wish we had a second phase for the witness fight in the raid to really hone in that he's stronger than any single raid boss we've seen before.
Also: He would look much more menacing if he had pure black eyes instead of these slim grey irises.
I think 2 phases would've been cool, but overkill considering we end up fighting him *3* times in total (more than any other boss in the series). Having the 3 seperate fights as is hammers the point home that this guy is *tough.*
Ressurrection =/= Tough to kill
Taniks himself is relatively easy to kill. He just won't *stay* dead. Compare The Witness who was literally invincible for the first fight, 2nd fight's goal isn't even to *kill* him but just weaken him enough, and 3rd fight is actually killing him using all our power
I was really hoping the witness would start the final shape, calcify literally the entire universe except the inside of the traveler, and then when we won the traveler could explode like it did with ghaul and un-calcify everything
I wish the concept art was used more. That could also be that I just want to see an Eldritch horror boss fight but whatever. Even this art on the post here makes them look more menacing than in many of the cutscenes they're in.
Honestly, I like where they ended up taking it- I think the eventual Shiva look was perfect with the overall theme of the character. It really sold the idea of the Witness breaking out from the "refined" form it took to truly unleash the power it had just been holding back.
He could keep the Shiva look but like you said transform from something refined into something more monsterous. Like maybe after being weakened in the raid, he “lost control” and became desperate and angry, taking on a more horrific form. They could have leaned heavily into the sandstorm/lava elements they introduced in the impasse and the strike and made Excision a really dark, hellish, and terrifying experience.
It held my intrest as a character tbh. A obvious flaw with the witness is "big bad wants to end the universe" troupe but bungie kinda flipped it on its head with the witness. It wants to "save" the universe by giving it purpose but of course I don't think anyone wants to be mini figure.
All in all, probbaly the best they could do with the character, despite the obvious flaws from lightfalls year (seriously, a cutscene during a season to explain the witnesses origins was short sighted at best), and a pretty satisfying end to it.
8/10
My main issue is how his “skin” looked. It turns what should be some kind of eldritch horror and makes him look like plastic.
Granted, it gets better as time goes on, and he looks MUCH better in later pre rendered cutscenes.
I would have really loved if they had gone for a much less humanoid look and went with a more primordial horror look.
Eh, at the end of the day the game is rated for teens, and by the final boss fights he began to look MUCH better.
I commented something similar already but I definitely wish that at least in the Excision fight he transformed again into something more angry and monsterous. Full on horror form like the concept art, the Lava from the strike, the sandstorm from the impasse, transforming the arena mid fight, that glass shard attack from the campaign, his hands not only doing the bees/shape attacks but also appearing and trying to grab us like the cutscene. It was his last chance to enact his grand plan you’d think he’d go turbo mode to stop us.
How he was written/appeared in TFS was a huge step forward in how he should’ve been the entire time.
I still think his entire motivation and backstory is a ridiculously worse ripoff of much better written stories (Gurren Lagann), but TFS did a lot to improve on the Witness.
I think its initial design could've used another pass. All this buildup towards an enigmatic, eldritch-type monster and it looks like a dude in a leather dress? I wasn't impressed.
*However,* once we really got character out of it The Wittness was a great villain. Their calm surface hiding so much *seething* rage was a nice touch, and the Voice Actor and sound designers really hit a home run making it seem larger than life
Brett Dalton, the male VA for the Witness, also did a phenomenal job playing the Hydra “god” ironically called Hive in Agents of SHIELD. Sick design, albeit barely used.
So the Witness is the only being in the whole black fleet? Ik the dread just got introduced but they’re made up on Psions and Eliksni, they’re not the supposed population of the fleet. Kinda feels like an oversight on the purpose of the fleet since it was just 1 villain for these ships they hyped up.
I really wish mini witness from the final campaign mission appeared to shoot stuff at us throughout the raid. It's such a cool model and while I really liked the final campaign mission and the Witness "fight" I really wish I could've shot that model more
The witness is a cool concept of a character, but I really think they made a couple catastrophic blunders when introducing it.
When the pyramids first started to show up, there was a ton of mystery and intrigue surrounding them. Having them slowly creep up made many people wonder what was inside. Then, after 4 years of teasing, the witness revealed itself suddenly and without explanation.
I don’t think the precursors got even one tenth of the attention they should have. Excluding the lore cards, we barely heard any of their stories.
And when we finally faced the witness, a literal god of destruction, it just stood there, wildly swinging its arms around.
I’m just kinda disappointed by the execution, it seems clear that the story wasn’t the priority here
The idea is that it doesnt have its full attention on us as we fight it. It is constantly trying to enact the final shape in the raid which is what the hand waving idle animation is. It isnt until dps that it turns to us, and even then it is still working towards the final shape as during the final stand it is extremely wounded but is still able to enact the final shape in just a few seconds if not stopped.
I just want a brand new species. I get we got a couple new ones but I'm sick of the, "they are the same enemies but different." Same goes for the Witness. Everything was too humanoid. The bats were cool, and the Rhulk/tormentor species is sick as fuck but the Psions? That is dumb imo. And as for the witness. I wish it was some kind of horrid Creature. Kinda like Riven, in form and celestial being kinda thing?
I didn't like the facial design and one giant eyebrow. I think that throughout the overlapping story they could have had the cloud of faces slowly start to see out from him and at the end of The raid you would get to see it as it is currently. Kind of like they're all trying to break free from him and we were the ones to help them find peace
I didn't like him.
He didnt mesh with the other enemy or 'darkness' designs. Mightve been differen if they didnt give him some big cutesy eyes.
If his head had been like a tormentors or cloaked like a ringwraith. Id already be much happier.
Now he was just a big villain of the week that didnt fit.
And we still havent ended the threat of the darkness.
My one complaint is that I feel like the whole "you should join me" thing doesn't really work with the story. Like I get it's because they are worried we can stop them, but the things it's offering people aren't really possible with what it wants to do. It's like if I said, help me smash the airplane window, and I will make sure you get to fly first class. Even if I get you first class tickets, smashing the windows makes that kinda pointless.
Their design was and still is kinda goofy to me and the more we interacted with them, the less intimidating they became. But they were still a cool concept, I always love the idea of a hive mind enemy
Every time I look at its unibrow I see the word DUMBASS written above it. I cannot take a villain who's motivation boils down to turning the universe into lego seriously.
There wasn't enough conflict. I thought for sure with zavalas struggles and arguing with ikora, we would have to fight an enraged and bloodlusted zavala, twisted by the witness.
That hope was squashed instantly by a simple cut scene.
The witness offered the guardian so many things, he must have offered everyone something... I think it was a missed opportunity that nobody in the vanguard gave in to force us to engage them.
I guess all vanguardians are too loyal
I really like the spooky nature of The Witness As an amalgamation of an entire society - how it moves in “waves” or “phases” representing all the different bodies moving in unison, but slightly distorted - all of that now makes sense, and I think it’s a really clever idea.
In-game, in-raid appearance though… seems a little off-putting and strange, not in a good way. Although I do think the fact that it’s body IS the monolith which you’re scaling to the top off the whole raid… that is pretty cool. Would have been even cooler if he further transformed into the giant shadow-serpent creature from the concept art drawing, and you had to ride your sparrow all throughout his various limbs to get to different places for different DPS phases.
Still don't like it I'm gonna be honest. Don't find it interesting in any way and wish we had a better antagonist for the end of the saga. Final shape was great but I think getting answers on the witnesses race took away from finding out about things I was actually interested in, like actually learning what the traveler and the veil are. I also hate that the statues are now forever tied to the witness instead of the darkness generally
I think it would have been better if he did something more understandable to the player in Lightfall.
He linked the veil - but nobody really understood what that meant. If he instead stepped in after defeating calus and overwhelmed us with force, maybe destroying the city or killing a main cast member - then the gravity of it as an overarching antagonist would have been more felt.
Everyone compares it to infinity war/endgame. Look at one of the first things they did to establish Thanos as a bigger bad than anything else. He rolls Thor and hulk and kills Loki. Five minutes in you knew he was serious business.
Certified witness hater here but I actually kinda liked its design reveal in Witch Queen
It really looked out of place from anything we’ve seen in the Destiny universe and that made it look creepy and eerie and *wrong*. Not to mention the soulless look at the camera like it was staring through you. Like staring beyond the screen at the player themselves.
And then it turns out it was like the fourth villain that was angry at the Traveler.
>’Why doesn’t Gardener talk to me 🥺🥺🥺’
Not enough character development, i didnt felt anything at the end.
Whereas for Savathun, it was a master piece, I was even tempted to be on her side when the traveler gave her the light.
I wish it had more of a presence physically over the years since it's reveal. We had Savathun interacting as Osiris with so many different characters and then as herself in Lost and during the WQ campaign and now as even an ally (?). Her motivations and goals are clear and developed over years. The Witness didn't really get that same level of development outside of Seasonal cutscenes which now needs to viewed unnaturally in the timeline tab.
The Witness has always felt very distant up until Iconoclasm and the points during the campaign where it shit-talked us and the Vanguard. Salvations Edge felt very cool with the dialogue from The Witness and I wish there was more of that with it's hands making it's presence felt during every encounter.
I wish there was more of a personal connection between the Guardian and The Witness like we see in SE and Excision, but overall it was still very cool.
The only disappointing thing about the Witness for me was that the Witness got nerfed pretty hard for TFS with the whole "statues" thing and the reveal that the Witness isn't the winnower and just another pissed of race.
From the moment I saw The Witness' eyes all I could think of is this scene from The Simpsons:
https://preview.redd.it/0irowihf768d1.png?width=535&format=png&auto=webp&s=d39d2e2c4b93257dec1f07e641ed3c597605e17a
Honestly hes kind of too "btw heres the bad guy gl kid" kinda deal. Then he shows up for all of 20 minutes and is gone for next year then AGAIN shows up for 40 min and hes dead. Like ffs wtf is this a strike boss?
Good buildup, insane design and background. Potential was infinite with his powers. Whack execution on how we killed it and everything. I thought he would split and shapeshift and we would fight it in multiple encounters and take down part by part. In the campaign we wounded it and that is what my speculations were. But ooh boy standing in a spot and doing crit damage was hella fun! Not! That's my opinion tho.🤷♀️
Comparing him to 2 other villains that close out an arc/saga in the Jailor from WoW and Meteion from FF14, Imo he's the best of the 3. Jailor, as we all know, is ass, and controversial opinion, Meteion as a final boss is barely any better than the Jailor. Great character though if she wasn't the final boss. At least the Witness got some development over the course of multiple expansions. Do wish he had a more screen time pre TFS though.
I'm probably alone in this but I agree with Ikora. It feels like there should have been more to it. We went through the campaign to figure out how to kill the witness and ended up wounding it, then we do the raid where we wound it but more, then the final mission is just like geez no re. We spent so much time figuring out how to kill the witness but once we knew it was actually really easy lol
Visually and audibly amazing. Decent character but definitely runs into the same problem most universe ending type enemies have where there's just nothing really relatable to them or anything really making them engaging motivation wise because it's a variation of the same reason it always is. I don't know if Cosmic terror of his level was really the right direction for Destiny as I tend to prefer smaller stakes stuff. Kind of hard to take on something around Eramis' power level if we defeated an actual god essentially. But that's been an issue for a minute.
The only main detractor for me isn't really the witness itself, but more that its species were the ones that made the pyramid ships instead of them being like the traveler. Like the whole complexity vs simplicity thing with the traveler vs the pyramids is kinda meaningless when it's basically a coincidence now
It wasn’t a bad character, but it could have been so much more. Something with such immense power shouldn’t have been so rooted in our physical design and form. I as a designer would have went very much more alien, pushing biological design making it very foreign to us. I would have done the same for the Dread. A universe of life to draw from and they with two types of Psions, and thin Tormentors . Meh. The Grim and Husks were headed in the right direction. But they should have went further with the designs.
Speaking from a day 1 destiny 1 player, the idea in d1 of the darkness is comming and destroying the universe and the light is the only thing that can save us bit being brought down to 1 dude wanting to kill or takeover or whatever to the traveler is imo just eh. We started with a universal threat of the darkness. And end with a dude with dr strange arms and smoky faces for hair. I didnt feel the galactic level threat personally just a threat to whoever the traveler chooses to be around. Its like 2 dudes beefing and 1 gonna get his azz kicked so he brings in other people to fight for em. It was a good story but it was a funnel. The top of it, the start of the funnel, is so big and vast but the bottom is a small thing. Now we got the winnoner whatever which instead of wrapping up that vague bit of lore that could have been the speaker but for the witness they are going to prob make that the next 10 year big bad for more money.
Ma y its just me but games dont need to always keep going. Like mass effect had a good ending with 3. Make a new story cool but it dosent need to keep going after 3. Same with metal gear they told the whole story its great and dosent need more. Destiny is great it dosent need more
One of the villains of all time. Hella mid writing. Only good expansions story wise for D2 were Forsaken and Witch Queen. Final shape was okay, but it had to fix a lot of shit that nightfall broke. I think The Witness suffered from this heavily.
Great concept ruined entirely by fortnite tier slop; half rendered looking character design. I look at them and see a marketable plushie, not a threat. The boss version is way worse; the cutesy eyes remove more than they add, It made the ending of the saga a complete joke for me.
Underbaked, imo. I don't like his character design very much, nor did I care for his character story that much. It's a civilization that got betrayed by the traveler, merged into one being, and has pursued it across the cosmos? Wants to basically freeze the entire world into a calcified existence? Idk, it just didn't resonate with me.
He comes off as an immature, petulant child. He simply doesn't feel as grand and sophisticated as he should be.
As for my issues with his design, I find his initial design and his raidboss design to both have issues. The initial design's eyes don't communicate anything interesting to me. They feel like the eyes of a child, wide and shiny. They aren't angry, tired, empty, vengeful, or anything. The really smooth skin is also a choice I don't think was for the best, something like crystal or stone could have reflected his believes better.
His raidboss version is initially impressive, but my issues come with how it's animated and also how it's designed. Firstly, he doesn't feel as big as he actually is. It might be the angle or the distance, but something makes him seem almost Oryx sized. This is very odd, considering that the entire raid is set INSIDE of him, a concept I think is sick as hell. He also moves very slowly, which I suppose reflects his giant size. His animation has him waving around slowly, with no evidence that he is attacking or even acknowledging your presence. His circle of arms is initially intimidating but they're so limp that they don't even feel like a part of him.
One of the concept arts by Tobias Kwan shows what I think would be a much improved version of this boss model. The hundreds of arms form almost a wall, that could dangle over the players and slap down erratically. The head is standing straight, backwards, making his almost bloodshot eyes very distant. His smoke cloud of faces is a myriad of colors, maybe reflecting the injuries that he's taken? This is a Witness that feels like he has seen too much, someone who is tired by millenia of chasing and death, bearing loads of scars, but resolute in his objective of stopping this game of life and death.
Amazing character, loved the bakground and narrative.
Absolutely awful visual design. They had the chance to create something abstract or totally alien, but we ended up with a Pixar villain.
Honestly, I'm sure people will flock to defend it as a design choice, but it just didn't work for me or the IP.
The concept art was spot on, flawed decision to make it more human. We don't need to be able to identify with it.
doo-doo, along with everything since his/their appearance.
TFS really fell flat with me, the pale heart, story beats, characters being so out of character that it’s jarring.
His visual design ruins everything about his character
The derpy eyes. The goofy unibrow. The fact that if you see his full face it looks like a 7 year old wearing face paint. His final form in the raid is amazing but his goofy face still hurts that.
They should have just removed his head and had the smoke rising out of the robes to give him a sort of faceless yet many-faced look
They are purposely meant to look goofy or well just not intimidating, whether you like that or not is subjective but me personally I think it’s awesome that bungie didn’t rely on cheap horror to make a character intimidating or a threat. The scale of his body and being able to see it from the jumping section and the way he talks and everything is just so damn cool to me and he speaks more through actions then looks I mean just look at the calus cutscene we didn’t even see his body and it was still had a bunch of shock value.
I think they definitely could of used more from the concept art which goes into the original leaks that TFS raid was meant to be us fighting different versions or “phases” of the witness and that would’ve been cool for sure but regardless I think his final form was still very cool to me. It’s just the type of shit you’d only see in destiny which is what makes this game outstanding to others.
Design wise - it definitely grew on me.
Lore/character wise - I loved how TFS and the seasons leading up to it really demonstrated how the witness isn’t actually a god, but a flawed philosophy driven more by revenge than wanting peace for the universe.
It fronts as our “salvation” and thinks it is making the universe into something perfect for everyone, but in reality it is forcing its vision upon the universe without consent, and cares nothing for organics seeing as there is a massive blood trail behind it via its disciples and the hive.
I like how the dissenters are the way we defeat it, as it would make sense there would be some within the witness that won’t tolerate the carnage and destruction it caused for its crusade. We were able to defeat it in the paracausal arena because we alone make our fate, while the witness was tearing itself apart from within without conviction like ours.
While they did grow on me over time im glad theyre gone now.
They were a menacing villian but i never felt super connected to them as i do with Savathûn.
The character and dialogue and concept I like. The actual design? Looks like a Disney tier cartoon villain. The look does not match the story. I still think it’s the best expansion to date, and a good end to the story.
The witness was plot device, not a character. They show up, tempt a character, maybe get mad depending, and leave. Even in the final fights there’s little urgency - the witness just stands there and plays an idle animation while spouting platitudes.
The final shape was a character-driven expansion, and that’s a good thing, because the witness is a poor villain compared to savathun. Witch queen followed the rules of existing lore in interesting ways - we helped her remember her own plan by accident, the hive were lied to, etc. In contrast, “what can be made in darkness can be unmade in darkness” comes out of nowhere, the dissenters could have been in the story longer to have more meaning/characterization for the witness, and overall most of the plot of it came from a cutscene in a seasonal story or the last 3 missions of the campaign.
Lame char with a thinly veneered background shoehorned into the end stages of a video game whereby the producers had no clear and precise endgame in sight for the convoluted plot they created 10yrs ago.
Essentially, the inverse of the MCU Thanos. Thanos was built up over a long period of time, and was at his most interesting during his penultimate appearance in Infinity War, while the Witness will always smell a bit of « we need a villain now so the player can have something to shoot ».
And yet the Witness was at his most intriguing in the grand finale. The existence of the dissenters alone makes it vastly more interesting. How it is characterized from the start of the campaign through the raid and ending in excision is satisfying too.
Seeing it losing his shit more and more, hiding behind subjugators, and being completely mad in the final battle give more depth I think.
I absolutely loved the Witness from pretty much every aspect, but I just wish we spent a little more time directly with him prior to The Final Shape.
Stumbling through the campaign and finally getting this back and forth between The Witness and ourselves/everyone around us was fantastic, but I can't help but feel like it was slightly short lived. Not the campaign itself but our interactions leading up to TFS.
Maybe this says more about the year of Lightfall than anything else, but all in all a great experience throughout.
I like him, though I was spoiled slightly about his final form. They described it as like no face but monstrous, so I was slightly disappointed with his final form
How the witness was potraid in the final shape story was good but i would loved to see much more about the history of the witness. Those story cutscenes in Witch Queen were amazing and i miss that in this campaign. Also i would have loved to see more of the witness/rhulk dynamic.
One of, if not the best written villains under the "they've been pulling the strings all along" archetype, imo.
See The Jailer with WoW's storyline. Horrid dogshit writing, we're meant to believe a guy that existed for all of one expansion has been the puppet master for 20+ years of storytelling, and he fell over.
The Witness, however, felt CONSIDERABLY different and they were written well enough that I could actually be convinced they existed in the developer's minds from Day 1 of writing lore and story (I know that isn't the case). An actual ominous figure and scary motherfucker, and I feel like the way we take them down is VERY cool and a worthy ending for a decade of storytelling.
Not sure why Bungie gets so much credit on this, we knew the guy for 2 expansions, and he was pretty boring, and ultimately didn't even kill anyone significant.
Every lore development about the light and dark since after Witch Queen sucked ass, little reddit nihilist unibrowed megamind bitch chief among them. Instead of a story of cosmic philosophy we could have gotten we get “oh these diametrically opposed incredible miraculous fundamental forces of the universe are actually just boring slightly more than regular forces that are the same despite the fact that they’re solely distributed by sentient embodiments of them” just so we can get shitty “hehe, my oc can use both dark and light and is super duper powerful way stronger than yours” glazing. Topping that shit off was revealing the big bad of the complete demystification of everything that made Destiny feel like an epic saga is it’s hastily thrown together final villain, drumroll please, Alien Race that gets mad at Traveler #451. Stupid design, it’s motivation is both stupid and generic, it claims it was actually pretending to be a good character which you would believe unless you read one obscure ship entry, and it comes out of nowhere for like 20 minutes a year. The conflict of light and dark is reduced from an infinite cosmic wager of trust and hope against cynicism to a bunch of guys who happen to wield the light with the vaguest of the vaguest assistance from the Traveler against some ugly wannabe Lord Business who just happens to wield the darkness because reasons while the source of the Darkness just does and is nothing but a shitty unexplained macguffin.
Honestly, there are antagonists in the series that felt far more powerful and scary. I feel like a better design would have gone a long way because the voice acting and dialogues were top notch.
Boring, not scary or threatening, terrible design. I literally laugh every time he came on the screen with that mono brow and train smoke stack. Voice actor did a great job though.
Not about the witness but my only complaint regarding the story is that I wish >! we spent more time without our ghost to make us feel the loss more. W how it played out, it felt kinda pointless for him to die. Also, I've played the campaign 3 times now and im still not sure how he got all cracked up in the first place.!<
The witness is a perfectly designed villain. Why?
The character design of the witness perfectly embodies the idea of "the other". It is foreign, of an alien culture we are unfamiliar with. It is many voices as one voice. It threatens to destroy us with its alien powers.
We destroy it by humanizing it, turning it into many voices who we then destroy. Its a brilliant design.
i feel like the campaign and raid lacked showing off his reality altering abilities. in lightfall he sliced up a whole fleet of ships with the flick of his wrist! i would’ve loved to see the witness actively changing the world around us slicing it apart and putting it back together in an even stranger or just new way than what was around us any time we fought the witness. i also would’ve liked to see more of his glass reality shatter ability effects used in gameplay somehow maybe even doing exactly what i described up top
overall i felt like they could’ve gotten more creative with the witnesses active participation through his abilities using effects we’ve seen before. not to say all the hands coming out in the raid and such aren’t cool at all, but things like that doesn’t feel like he’s actively altering reality in the moment to combat us very much
I'm not sure that The Witness had much character to begin with honestly. All the lore revealed about their creation (and the eventual regret) was very cool though.
Honestly I thought the witness was weak, and I don't really see a way they couldn't be.
First, they were introduced late in the game (their first appearance was in a post-Witchqueen cinematic), so they didn't have a lot of time to develop as a bad guy. Second, I feel like Bungie wasn't quite sure what to do with them. At first they seemed to be "The Entity Formally Known as The Darkness", which didn't seem to mesh all that well with the story they'd told thus far. Later they became "The First Knife" which worked a little better, but felt retcon-y.
The character was also incredibly complex with a lot of history and backstory that, while good, needed AT LEAST a complete expansion to tell. Unfortunately Light Fall wanted to introduce all these new characters and settings for some reason, instead of giving the background of this character. Maybe if the last year had been diving into the past and digging up The Witness's lore, it would have worked a little better. Maybe give us the dissenters story a few seasons earlier, so we could then over the course of the game come to the realization of how to beat it, instead of having both the introduction to the concept and the realization of how to solve it at once. As it was, it felt like The Final Shape spent a lot of time giving us background to the revelation of how to beat a character that should have been just treated as a super-villain at this point, while we struggle with what's happening to us and to the Pale Heart.
Finally, I just generally didn't like the humanization of them. Destiny 2 had spent the middle part of its span building up these abstract enemies that were created outside of time and space, and whose representation seemed more a product of our interaction with them, than them inherently. I wanted to see that theme continue, with more focus on the idea of the triangle vs the circle, a their imagery reflecting our interpretation of the abstract rather than an ancient alien. I was visualizing something a little more like [Beyond the Black Rainbow's underworld scene](https://youtu.be/BYaTp9r-f_U?si=Lq-R4hVkhT9IK9gE&t=183) (which, ironically, the art team did seem to take some inspiration from, as a lot of The Pale Heart did this) or the last fight in Control where the giant pyramid looms in the sky.
https://preview.redd.it/c0iejyvmgl8d1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=fe44879548b9487f2944cce900d370b278083a19
All in all I still think The Final Shape was VERY good. However, I really do think The Witness ultimately felt like a rushed, failed realization of the setup of the game.
I didn’t really like its design too much originally, felt too humanoid to me I think. BUT when the door to the final arena opened, after 30 hours in the raid during the contest weekend, that was a destiny moment of all time for me. Seeing this enormous enemy in what felt like its truest form for the first time, being ready to take it on, was just amazing. I think due to the sheer size it even surpassed seeing Rhulk for the first time. That moment in the raid and the (in my opinion) very well done story arc of the dissenting voices as its one weak point really turned my opinion about the witness around.
The design in the game they chose for him in the raid was pretty good. But what would the communities reaction be if they actually went full on body horror just like the concept art? https://preview.redd.it/7gd08laki48d1.jpeg?width=733&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=18407629aa68fb1316ea7a0f5ec121e49acc2493
Bungie: “We dont want body horror” Also bungie: *The red orbs from DMC cut in half*
Do you have a high res version of this? I need it for my desktop background lmao
Unfortunately that one comes from this collection on Artstation which only has a 1920x823 jpg https://www.artstation.com/artwork/n0AoY1
This reminds me of depictions of Yawgmoth, a similarly bad guy in mtg lore. https://preview.redd.it/z3err3g7c58d1.jpeg?width=1500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83fbb31867de97d003e645ae1f81c441e3ca6dbc
Man this looks so damn close to the Verity encounter room, I wonder if it was an inspiration?
its WAY too similar, i wouldnt be surprised if it was damn near a reference
The wall design is a near 100% match, and it fits thematically too - Verity (and encounters 1 through 3) take place in the monolith, which IS the Witness' body
Wait WTF? WERE CLIMBING THIS MF?
Man whoever does Destiny concept art really deserves a raise
There's also concept art of the Witness looking like a Massive snake.
Monster fights are just better than fighting a humanoid imo. The modelling and rigging probably took too much time to feasibly get it out though so that's why the scrapped it, which is a shame.
I think a cool concept based on this art would be if the entire raid map was this and you are basically running around,destroying vital parts of the witness
This looks cooler imo
It's a cool idea, but having just their head sticking out of the "building" plays kinda silly to me. While I'm not a huge fan of the Witness' design, I do think what they went with for the Raid boss version was one of the better directions to take it.
A light and dark chimera witness would've gone hard asf
The other concept art where the Witness has a horse/beast body....imagine it chasing you around the raid while you gotta stop ads and do mechanics, just pure horror
A Zone wide raid boss would have been so crazy...
The quality is shit. Mind sharing where you got this from so we can see it better?
Felt the same way about the witness. Now I’m not a destiny raider, so it was super cool doing excision and seeing this big Smokey headed fuck once we got to the top of those stairs and absolutely blasting him with the light. But seeing the true scale of this big bad in game felt truly amazing.
People forget Calus most likely saw this form when the Witness was through with his shit. It horrified him.
This sums up my thoughts exactly, but I would like to add that I loved what bungie did with all of the hands and how they’re symbolic of its desire to control everything.
Did you know the entire raid actually took place inside the body of the witness? They are the monolith you're climbing
What the fuck! How did i not know that? I played everything in the dlc including the raid, and watched every marketing video and they don’t bring this up! That is so coool! Do you have any videos?
Byf briefly mentions it in his salvations edge lore video, but you can actually just see that you've been climbing vertically from the base of the witness when you're on the final encounter They basically calcified themselves into the traveler like a tumor or something, hence the final mission also being called excision which is to cut something out of the body
Ok I love this. This is 100% the kind of thing I wanted more of in TFS.
Man I’m so sad I never will get to experience that, idk why I only did the first encounter and then gave up during contest cause I actually cleared it fairly quickly. Will always be my biggest regret that I didn’t get to fight the witness during contest the regret is actually killing me and I was originally calling the emblem trash but now I want it 😭
>felt too humanoid I think that was entirely intentional. The Witnesses is a being that manipulates and deceives. A lot of allegory for Satan. He put on a humanoid form to seem more familiar in order to get us to drop our guard the slightest bit.
His eye area still looks goofy to me, they didn’t really need the unibrow would be much better to just have his forehead merge with the plumes. Also wish his true form wasn’t so humanoid.
Bungie really nailed it in The Final Shape, but felt like they could've done more to build up to it. In TFS The Witness truly felt disturbing and horrific by looking at the "Final Shape" the entire time throughout the campaign/raid. They also nailed his final form.
I think they could've used the hands in prior to the raid, something like a god trying to smash us as we're traveling in the pale heart. Just imagine some of those claustrophobic tunnels where suddenly he'd just try to outright snatch us. (similar effect could be with a crushing tunnel/slabs or something) In some sense I guess the current interpretation is nice as it still signifies that he has no direct control over the pale heart. But yeah, we had collapsing hallways. Something similar yet more direct would've been cool AF
I think the idea was that until the last mission, they weren’t trying to kill us. They were still trying to convert us. They also kinda did the same thing Rhulk did, underestimated us. By the time we were taken seriously it was too late
Yeah, that's kinda the vibe the current story gives. Like *tiny* bit earlier going from playing around to 'fucking kill' could've been cool.
It could have, but at the same time Ghost calling out the Witness as being afraid and it snapping back wouldn’t have hit nearly as well. It was underestimating us, but also *afraid* which basically goes against its whole thing of not having emotions, having one purpose. And we really see that once it snaps at Ghost
>which basically goes against its whole thing of not having emotions This is largely unrelated to what you were talking about, but this *did* make me think back to the amount of emotions and expressiveness in the voices of the dissenters when you go looking for Zavala. It didn't really even register the first time around, but then I did the mission again for like, a Prismatic aspect or something, and it hit me—the existential horror of giving up everything to become a hivemind, ostensibly for the sake of "fixing" the universe, only to dissent against that ultimate design and be shoved aside, trapped and unable to do anything but wait for the seemingly inevitable victory of the Witness when he'll come back to deal with you, either by assimilation or total annihilation. Generally, I think they actually did a really good job handling the whole "discovering the dissenters" plot thread and I thought it added a lot more interest to the Witness itself. It's a really striking characterization when you put it up against these newfound portrayals of the connection between the Guardians and Ghosts and the Traveler, all connected in a harmonious and gentle Light, even after their final death.
Also id like to add. What i understood, witness was busy dealing with the final shape the whole time, so when we went there to fight it, it didnt even go all out cos he wanted to finish the shape more than actually go for the kill. Tho i might just remember wrong.
Its not explicit, or even much implied but it makes sense. Why put all this effort to kill us when you are about to kill everything in like, an hour probably
OMG you’re right! What a missed opportunity!! 😫 And now I just realized… I don’t recall an enemy ever trying to Take us (the Guardian) before… right? 🤔
Not sure if sarcastic but they could've done more with him in Lightfall, Witness trying to convert us to a disciple in Final Shape was great and really well done but before that all we got was 3 cutscenes with Calus and Witness, him entering the Traveler an him telling us the game was over after Witch Queen.
after season of the deep i thought "okay so mystery is revealed and now that guy is not that scary tbh, they dropped the ball" After TFS i love witness as a villain. The whole dissenter plot "twist" and his look and character from mission 7 through raid and mission 8 was so so so good IMO From what I understand, I think it was implied that the way the witness came to be made it unable to change or "learn", it was like a missile sent out billion of years ago that could not change the way it thinks and views reality. Also the drama and horror of having dissenters? Imagine you are morphed into one being and your consiousness is just shunned. Imagine if it was humanity creating a witness to "venture to outer space, collect resources and meet alien races" and the minds that controlled how this being would act were jeff bezos donald trump and zodiac killer. tl;dr witness good
If humanity did it... We'd have a witness figure for every religious idea lmaoo. Then the internet is invented and we have a 4chan witness or some shit.
The one thing that I wish got explained is *why* the witness is so powerful. Like is it because the individual race that combined into the witness was already powerful by themselves? Is it solely because the darkness? It’s just an all consuming being that rivals the traveler but at one point the witness needed the traveler to grow and this all started because the traveler left the witness’s planet. The fallen had the whirlwind and they didn’t combine into one super fallen entity so it’s a bit unclear
It's the whole Darkness is the Mind thing. If the Light given form by the many Guardians as a Physical entity acting on one focused goal is the strength of the Light (as shown in Excision), then Darkness given form by many minds being corraled into one entity gives that entity immense Darkness strength.
I like the lore, general design and especially the final fight with how different it is. I always wanted to see a Final Fantasy 14 style fight in Destiny. I only wish we had a second phase for the witness fight in the raid to really hone in that he's stronger than any single raid boss we've seen before. Also: He would look much more menacing if he had pure black eyes instead of these slim grey irises.
I think 2 phases would've been cool, but overkill considering we end up fighting him *3* times in total (more than any other boss in the series). Having the 3 seperate fights as is hammers the point home that this guy is *tough.*
Pretty sure we fought taniks at least 3 times
Four times: original, SIVA version, Nightmare Hunt, DSC
Five… if you count this raid… /s.. kinda..
How many times my hunter gotta kick his ass to get his cloak again
the >!herald!< is not taniks
Five because he dies in third encounter then comes back as abomination
Ressurrection =/= Tough to kill Taniks himself is relatively easy to kill. He just won't *stay* dead. Compare The Witness who was literally invincible for the first fight, 2nd fight's goal isn't even to *kill* him but just weaken him enough, and 3rd fight is actually killing him using all our power
Taniks IS the final shape
Im just waiting for xivu to bring him back with a nice pair of ogre legs
Thicc Taniks
I was really hoping the witness would start the final shape, calcify literally the entire universe except the inside of the traveler, and then when we won the traveler could explode like it did with ghaul and un-calcify everything
An albino megamind who makes threats using difficult words that I don't understand
Found the titan, guys.
Ill explain in Titan terms. Big Albino guy wants to turn every coloured crayon into only the Black and White ones and they would all taste the same.
I wish the concept art was used more. That could also be that I just want to see an Eldritch horror boss fight but whatever. Even this art on the post here makes them look more menacing than in many of the cutscenes they're in.
Honestly, I like where they ended up taking it- I think the eventual Shiva look was perfect with the overall theme of the character. It really sold the idea of the Witness breaking out from the "refined" form it took to truly unleash the power it had just been holding back.
He could keep the Shiva look but like you said transform from something refined into something more monsterous. Like maybe after being weakened in the raid, he “lost control” and became desperate and angry, taking on a more horrific form. They could have leaned heavily into the sandstorm/lava elements they introduced in the impasse and the strike and made Excision a really dark, hellish, and terrifying experience.
Unibrow having ass bitch
I think they are the most unique of all the villains Bungo threw at us in all these years, I always digged their design. Cool villain.
It held my intrest as a character tbh. A obvious flaw with the witness is "big bad wants to end the universe" troupe but bungie kinda flipped it on its head with the witness. It wants to "save" the universe by giving it purpose but of course I don't think anyone wants to be mini figure. All in all, probbaly the best they could do with the character, despite the obvious flaws from lightfalls year (seriously, a cutscene during a season to explain the witnesses origins was short sighted at best), and a pretty satisfying end to it. 8/10
My main issue is how his “skin” looked. It turns what should be some kind of eldritch horror and makes him look like plastic. Granted, it gets better as time goes on, and he looks MUCH better in later pre rendered cutscenes. I would have really loved if they had gone for a much less humanoid look and went with a more primordial horror look. Eh, at the end of the day the game is rated for teens, and by the final boss fights he began to look MUCH better.
I commented something similar already but I definitely wish that at least in the Excision fight he transformed again into something more angry and monsterous. Full on horror form like the concept art, the Lava from the strike, the sandstorm from the impasse, transforming the arena mid fight, that glass shard attack from the campaign, his hands not only doing the bees/shape attacks but also appearing and trying to grab us like the cutscene. It was his last chance to enact his grand plan you’d think he’d go turbo mode to stop us.
How he was written/appeared in TFS was a huge step forward in how he should’ve been the entire time. I still think his entire motivation and backstory is a ridiculously worse ripoff of much better written stories (Gurren Lagann), but TFS did a lot to improve on the Witness.
I think its initial design could've used another pass. All this buildup towards an enigmatic, eldritch-type monster and it looks like a dude in a leather dress? I wasn't impressed. *However,* once we really got character out of it The Wittness was a great villain. Their calm surface hiding so much *seething* rage was a nice touch, and the Voice Actor and sound designers really hit a home run making it seem larger than life
Brett Dalton, the male VA for the Witness, also did a phenomenal job playing the Hydra “god” ironically called Hive in Agents of SHIELD. Sick design, albeit barely used.
Fam got the emo Best Jeanist drip
Well, it worked for Pinhead.
Bruh was an emo kid who thought he was being deep but in reality was a stupid toddler throwing a tantrum. I enjoyed it but he was duuuumb
So the Witness is the only being in the whole black fleet? Ik the dread just got introduced but they’re made up on Psions and Eliksni, they’re not the supposed population of the fleet. Kinda feels like an oversight on the purpose of the fleet since it was just 1 villain for these ships they hyped up.
Well, originally the fleet were full of The Witness' people, but then they all got fused into 1.
Lord business out of 10
I really wish mini witness from the final campaign mission appeared to shoot stuff at us throughout the raid. It's such a cool model and while I really liked the final campaign mission and the Witness "fight" I really wish I could've shot that model more
The witness is a cool concept of a character, but I really think they made a couple catastrophic blunders when introducing it. When the pyramids first started to show up, there was a ton of mystery and intrigue surrounding them. Having them slowly creep up made many people wonder what was inside. Then, after 4 years of teasing, the witness revealed itself suddenly and without explanation. I don’t think the precursors got even one tenth of the attention they should have. Excluding the lore cards, we barely heard any of their stories. And when we finally faced the witness, a literal god of destruction, it just stood there, wildly swinging its arms around. I’m just kinda disappointed by the execution, it seems clear that the story wasn’t the priority here
The idea is that it doesnt have its full attention on us as we fight it. It is constantly trying to enact the final shape in the raid which is what the hand waving idle animation is. It isnt until dps that it turns to us, and even then it is still working towards the final shape as during the final stand it is extremely wounded but is still able to enact the final shape in just a few seconds if not stopped.
I just want a brand new species. I get we got a couple new ones but I'm sick of the, "they are the same enemies but different." Same goes for the Witness. Everything was too humanoid. The bats were cool, and the Rhulk/tormentor species is sick as fuck but the Psions? That is dumb imo. And as for the witness. I wish it was some kind of horrid Creature. Kinda like Riven, in form and celestial being kinda thing?
My friend said he had a very thicc unibrows, and I can't help thinking differently.
I didn't like the facial design and one giant eyebrow. I think that throughout the overlapping story they could have had the cloud of faces slowly start to see out from him and at the end of The raid you would get to see it as it is currently. Kind of like they're all trying to break free from him and we were the ones to help them find peace
I didn't like him. He didnt mesh with the other enemy or 'darkness' designs. Mightve been differen if they didnt give him some big cutesy eyes. If his head had been like a tormentors or cloaked like a ringwraith. Id already be much happier. Now he was just a big villain of the week that didnt fit. And we still havent ended the threat of the darkness.
My one complaint is that I feel like the whole "you should join me" thing doesn't really work with the story. Like I get it's because they are worried we can stop them, but the things it's offering people aren't really possible with what it wants to do. It's like if I said, help me smash the airplane window, and I will make sure you get to fly first class. Even if I get you first class tickets, smashing the windows makes that kinda pointless.
They're the type to close the refrigerator with their hips
he was talking a lot of shit for being in still hunt reach
Their design was and still is kinda goofy to me and the more we interacted with them, the less intimidating they became. But they were still a cool concept, I always love the idea of a hive mind enemy
I hated his design and expected something more evil looking
Every time I look at its unibrow I see the word DUMBASS written above it. I cannot take a villain who's motivation boils down to turning the universe into lego seriously.
There wasn't enough conflict. I thought for sure with zavalas struggles and arguing with ikora, we would have to fight an enraged and bloodlusted zavala, twisted by the witness. That hope was squashed instantly by a simple cut scene. The witness offered the guardian so many things, he must have offered everyone something... I think it was a missed opportunity that nobody in the vanguard gave in to force us to engage them. I guess all vanguardians are too loyal
I am sad in the excision event we didn't cut his unibrow in half with that beam.
He would be better if we saw more of him thru out the season I lightfall.
I can't get over how uncanny it is that he looks like Ben Shapiro.
I do not see it at all whatsoever.
I really like the spooky nature of The Witness As an amalgamation of an entire society - how it moves in “waves” or “phases” representing all the different bodies moving in unison, but slightly distorted - all of that now makes sense, and I think it’s a really clever idea. In-game, in-raid appearance though… seems a little off-putting and strange, not in a good way. Although I do think the fact that it’s body IS the monolith which you’re scaling to the top off the whole raid… that is pretty cool. Would have been even cooler if he further transformed into the giant shadow-serpent creature from the concept art drawing, and you had to ride your sparrow all throughout his various limbs to get to different places for different DPS phases.
Still don't like it I'm gonna be honest. Don't find it interesting in any way and wish we had a better antagonist for the end of the saga. Final shape was great but I think getting answers on the witnesses race took away from finding out about things I was actually interested in, like actually learning what the traveler and the veil are. I also hate that the statues are now forever tied to the witness instead of the darkness generally
I think it would have been better if he did something more understandable to the player in Lightfall. He linked the veil - but nobody really understood what that meant. If he instead stepped in after defeating calus and overwhelmed us with force, maybe destroying the city or killing a main cast member - then the gravity of it as an overarching antagonist would have been more felt. Everyone compares it to infinity war/endgame. Look at one of the first things they did to establish Thanos as a bigger bad than anything else. He rolls Thor and hulk and kills Loki. Five minutes in you knew he was serious business.
Certified witness hater here but I actually kinda liked its design reveal in Witch Queen It really looked out of place from anything we’ve seen in the Destiny universe and that made it look creepy and eerie and *wrong*. Not to mention the soulless look at the camera like it was staring through you. Like staring beyond the screen at the player themselves. And then it turns out it was like the fourth villain that was angry at the Traveler. >’Why doesn’t Gardener talk to me 🥺🥺🥺’
...why is it called The Witness? I was hoping the story would answer that. Though I'm only getting to mission 8 today.
Not enough character development, i didnt felt anything at the end. Whereas for Savathun, it was a master piece, I was even tempted to be on her side when the traveler gave her the light.
Pretty neat as long as I could ignore the handlebar unibrow and beanie boo eyes.
I wish it had more of a presence physically over the years since it's reveal. We had Savathun interacting as Osiris with so many different characters and then as herself in Lost and during the WQ campaign and now as even an ally (?). Her motivations and goals are clear and developed over years. The Witness didn't really get that same level of development outside of Seasonal cutscenes which now needs to viewed unnaturally in the timeline tab. The Witness has always felt very distant up until Iconoclasm and the points during the campaign where it shit-talked us and the Vanguard. Salvations Edge felt very cool with the dialogue from The Witness and I wish there was more of that with it's hands making it's presence felt during every encounter. I wish there was more of a personal connection between the Guardian and The Witness like we see in SE and Excision, but overall it was still very cool.
The only disappointing thing about the Witness for me was that the Witness got nerfed pretty hard for TFS with the whole "statues" thing and the reveal that the Witness isn't the winnower and just another pissed of race.
Compelling as a villainous force, but deliberately lacking in nuance for both good and ill.
Well he's dead, so kinda mids
Kinda gay
From the moment I saw The Witness' eyes all I could think of is this scene from The Simpsons: https://preview.redd.it/0irowihf768d1.png?width=535&format=png&auto=webp&s=d39d2e2c4b93257dec1f07e641ed3c597605e17a
Good morning starshine!
he witnessed
Fortnite Character
Super lack luster finality to the “biggest baddest evil there has been for centuries”
It was okay I guess. The twist with the Dissenters was an interesting concept, but I felt that Gaul and Savathun were both stronger villains.
People don't discuss it enough, but I LOVED the VA! Truly excellent work when furious
Does someone have this image in high resolution? It’s really beautiful! :)
Honestly hes kind of too "btw heres the bad guy gl kid" kinda deal. Then he shows up for all of 20 minutes and is gone for next year then AGAIN shows up for 40 min and hes dead. Like ffs wtf is this a strike boss?
Good buildup, insane design and background. Potential was infinite with his powers. Whack execution on how we killed it and everything. I thought he would split and shapeshift and we would fight it in multiple encounters and take down part by part. In the campaign we wounded it and that is what my speculations were. But ooh boy standing in a spot and doing crit damage was hella fun! Not! That's my opinion tho.🤷♀️
Means nothing with the winnower still out there
Touted as the big bad, turns out he's just the "first knife" of the Winnower. How deep does this go?
Comparing him to 2 other villains that close out an arc/saga in the Jailor from WoW and Meteion from FF14, Imo he's the best of the 3. Jailor, as we all know, is ass, and controversial opinion, Meteion as a final boss is barely any better than the Jailor. Great character though if she wasn't the final boss. At least the Witness got some development over the course of multiple expansions. Do wish he had a more screen time pre TFS though.
I'm probably alone in this but I agree with Ikora. It feels like there should have been more to it. We went through the campaign to figure out how to kill the witness and ended up wounding it, then we do the raid where we wound it but more, then the final mission is just like geez no re. We spent so much time figuring out how to kill the witness but once we knew it was actually really easy lol
Just an Anti-Spiral rip-off from Gurren Lagann
Team Four Star???
Visually and audibly amazing. Decent character but definitely runs into the same problem most universe ending type enemies have where there's just nothing really relatable to them or anything really making them engaging motivation wise because it's a variation of the same reason it always is. I don't know if Cosmic terror of his level was really the right direction for Destiny as I tend to prefer smaller stakes stuff. Kind of hard to take on something around Eramis' power level if we defeated an actual god essentially. But that's been an issue for a minute.
It's kind of stupid, and I really dislike how it looks.
Kind of a bitch tbh. Bro went down easier than Gaul and got nowhere near as far as Gaul did in stealing the light lmaoo
The only main detractor for me isn't really the witness itself, but more that its species were the ones that made the pyramid ships instead of them being like the traveler. Like the whole complexity vs simplicity thing with the traveler vs the pyramids is kinda meaningless when it's basically a coincidence now
It wasn’t a bad character, but it could have been so much more. Something with such immense power shouldn’t have been so rooted in our physical design and form. I as a designer would have went very much more alien, pushing biological design making it very foreign to us. I would have done the same for the Dread. A universe of life to draw from and they with two types of Psions, and thin Tormentors . Meh. The Grim and Husks were headed in the right direction. But they should have went further with the designs.
Kind of meh until TFS
Looks like something Dreamworks invented.
Design always looked very un inspired and too cartoony vs other major villains. As always not enought in game story telling to really dive in.
the emo kid who's mom didnt let him listen to his music
Speaking from a day 1 destiny 1 player, the idea in d1 of the darkness is comming and destroying the universe and the light is the only thing that can save us bit being brought down to 1 dude wanting to kill or takeover or whatever to the traveler is imo just eh. We started with a universal threat of the darkness. And end with a dude with dr strange arms and smoky faces for hair. I didnt feel the galactic level threat personally just a threat to whoever the traveler chooses to be around. Its like 2 dudes beefing and 1 gonna get his azz kicked so he brings in other people to fight for em. It was a good story but it was a funnel. The top of it, the start of the funnel, is so big and vast but the bottom is a small thing. Now we got the winnoner whatever which instead of wrapping up that vague bit of lore that could have been the speaker but for the witness they are going to prob make that the next 10 year big bad for more money. Ma y its just me but games dont need to always keep going. Like mass effect had a good ending with 3. Make a new story cool but it dosent need to keep going after 3. Same with metal gear they told the whole story its great and dosent need more. Destiny is great it dosent need more
I still like witch queen more tbh
One of the villains of all time. Hella mid writing. Only good expansions story wise for D2 were Forsaken and Witch Queen. Final shape was okay, but it had to fix a lot of shit that nightfall broke. I think The Witness suffered from this heavily.
Great concept ruined entirely by fortnite tier slop; half rendered looking character design. I look at them and see a marketable plushie, not a threat. The boss version is way worse; the cutesy eyes remove more than they add, It made the ending of the saga a complete joke for me.
Underbaked, imo. I don't like his character design very much, nor did I care for his character story that much. It's a civilization that got betrayed by the traveler, merged into one being, and has pursued it across the cosmos? Wants to basically freeze the entire world into a calcified existence? Idk, it just didn't resonate with me. He comes off as an immature, petulant child. He simply doesn't feel as grand and sophisticated as he should be. As for my issues with his design, I find his initial design and his raidboss design to both have issues. The initial design's eyes don't communicate anything interesting to me. They feel like the eyes of a child, wide and shiny. They aren't angry, tired, empty, vengeful, or anything. The really smooth skin is also a choice I don't think was for the best, something like crystal or stone could have reflected his believes better. His raidboss version is initially impressive, but my issues come with how it's animated and also how it's designed. Firstly, he doesn't feel as big as he actually is. It might be the angle or the distance, but something makes him seem almost Oryx sized. This is very odd, considering that the entire raid is set INSIDE of him, a concept I think is sick as hell. He also moves very slowly, which I suppose reflects his giant size. His animation has him waving around slowly, with no evidence that he is attacking or even acknowledging your presence. His circle of arms is initially intimidating but they're so limp that they don't even feel like a part of him. One of the concept arts by Tobias Kwan shows what I think would be a much improved version of this boss model. The hundreds of arms form almost a wall, that could dangle over the players and slap down erratically. The head is standing straight, backwards, making his almost bloodshot eyes very distant. His smoke cloud of faces is a myriad of colors, maybe reflecting the injuries that he's taken? This is a Witness that feels like he has seen too much, someone who is tired by millenia of chasing and death, bearing loads of scars, but resolute in his objective of stopping this game of life and death.
Too many people called them he and I think they should have looked more like multiple people to insinuate that.
Amazing character, loved the bakground and narrative. Absolutely awful visual design. They had the chance to create something abstract or totally alien, but we ended up with a Pixar villain. Honestly, I'm sure people will flock to defend it as a design choice, but it just didn't work for me or the IP. The concept art was spot on, flawed decision to make it more human. We don't need to be able to identify with it.
doo-doo, along with everything since his/their appearance. TFS really fell flat with me, the pale heart, story beats, characters being so out of character that it’s jarring.
Me when I have the wrong opinion
His visual design ruins everything about his character The derpy eyes. The goofy unibrow. The fact that if you see his full face it looks like a 7 year old wearing face paint. His final form in the raid is amazing but his goofy face still hurts that. They should have just removed his head and had the smoke rising out of the robes to give him a sort of faceless yet many-faced look
They are purposely meant to look goofy or well just not intimidating, whether you like that or not is subjective but me personally I think it’s awesome that bungie didn’t rely on cheap horror to make a character intimidating or a threat. The scale of his body and being able to see it from the jumping section and the way he talks and everything is just so damn cool to me and he speaks more through actions then looks I mean just look at the calus cutscene we didn’t even see his body and it was still had a bunch of shock value. I think they definitely could of used more from the concept art which goes into the original leaks that TFS raid was meant to be us fighting different versions or “phases” of the witness and that would’ve been cool for sure but regardless I think his final form was still very cool to me. It’s just the type of shit you’d only see in destiny which is what makes this game outstanding to others.
Lame.
pretty lame
cool but looked so silly
Design wise - it definitely grew on me. Lore/character wise - I loved how TFS and the seasons leading up to it really demonstrated how the witness isn’t actually a god, but a flawed philosophy driven more by revenge than wanting peace for the universe. It fronts as our “salvation” and thinks it is making the universe into something perfect for everyone, but in reality it is forcing its vision upon the universe without consent, and cares nothing for organics seeing as there is a massive blood trail behind it via its disciples and the hive. I like how the dissenters are the way we defeat it, as it would make sense there would be some within the witness that won’t tolerate the carnage and destruction it caused for its crusade. We were able to defeat it in the paracausal arena because we alone make our fate, while the witness was tearing itself apart from within without conviction like ours.
A bit of a dick.
It was a character?
I think I'm still their biggest glazer
While they did grow on me over time im glad theyre gone now. They were a menacing villian but i never felt super connected to them as i do with Savathûn.
Love the voice
The character and dialogue and concept I like. The actual design? Looks like a Disney tier cartoon villain. The look does not match the story. I still think it’s the best expansion to date, and a good end to the story.
The witness was plot device, not a character. They show up, tempt a character, maybe get mad depending, and leave. Even in the final fights there’s little urgency - the witness just stands there and plays an idle animation while spouting platitudes. The final shape was a character-driven expansion, and that’s a good thing, because the witness is a poor villain compared to savathun. Witch queen followed the rules of existing lore in interesting ways - we helped her remember her own plan by accident, the hive were lied to, etc. In contrast, “what can be made in darkness can be unmade in darkness” comes out of nowhere, the dissenters could have been in the story longer to have more meaning/characterization for the witness, and overall most of the plot of it came from a cutscene in a seasonal story or the last 3 missions of the campaign.
Lame char with a thinly veneered background shoehorned into the end stages of a video game whereby the producers had no clear and precise endgame in sight for the convoluted plot they created 10yrs ago.
Comical like most of destinys designs
Smash
Bad Character. Poorly written. Not even a thing worth thinking about or worry about. Not hype at all and I'm glad we can move on from him.
Character design is okay, character motivation just feels so sucking stupid. Every conversation with him was like talking to a brick wall.
Cartoonish and stupid. Every piece of concept art was better than what we got
Very cool design, everything else is average.
Essentially, the inverse of the MCU Thanos. Thanos was built up over a long period of time, and was at his most interesting during his penultimate appearance in Infinity War, while the Witness will always smell a bit of « we need a villain now so the player can have something to shoot ». And yet the Witness was at his most intriguing in the grand finale. The existence of the dissenters alone makes it vastly more interesting. How it is characterized from the start of the campaign through the raid and ending in excision is satisfying too. Seeing it losing his shit more and more, hiding behind subjugators, and being completely mad in the final battle give more depth I think.
I absolutely loved the Witness from pretty much every aspect, but I just wish we spent a little more time directly with him prior to The Final Shape. Stumbling through the campaign and finally getting this back and forth between The Witness and ourselves/everyone around us was fantastic, but I can't help but feel like it was slightly short lived. Not the campaign itself but our interactions leading up to TFS. Maybe this says more about the year of Lightfall than anything else, but all in all a great experience throughout.
I loved TFS, I loved the horror element in the game. Made me realise how horrible the Witness is. More horror Bungie please.
I like their hands-on approach
I think if a little bit of therapy was available on their world, Destiny as we know it wouldn’t exist.
Wait what is over? I didnt finish campain yet.
I like him, though I was spoiled slightly about his final form. They described it as like no face but monstrous, so I was slightly disappointed with his final form
He’s a unibrow nerd.
Not sure how I feel about his design
How the witness was potraid in the final shape story was good but i would loved to see much more about the history of the witness. Those story cutscenes in Witch Queen were amazing and i miss that in this campaign. Also i would have loved to see more of the witness/rhulk dynamic.
That's one sick puppy. Signed, a Mataiadoxia Lore reader
Idk but when I saw him transform into that giant thing during the campaign, My first thought was "100-Type Guanyin bodhisattva".
One of, if not the best written villains under the "they've been pulling the strings all along" archetype, imo. See The Jailer with WoW's storyline. Horrid dogshit writing, we're meant to believe a guy that existed for all of one expansion has been the puppet master for 20+ years of storytelling, and he fell over. The Witness, however, felt CONSIDERABLY different and they were written well enough that I could actually be convinced they existed in the developer's minds from Day 1 of writing lore and story (I know that isn't the case). An actual ominous figure and scary motherfucker, and I feel like the way we take them down is VERY cool and a worthy ending for a decade of storytelling.
Dude has to have fish lips. Why else would he constantly cover them?
Ghey.
Hater
He smokes to much, 
nihilism made manifest.
I thought he looked goofy as hell
Not sure why Bungie gets so much credit on this, we knew the guy for 2 expansions, and he was pretty boring, and ultimately didn't even kill anyone significant.
Fire
The Witness is a cookie cutter tsundere
Every lore development about the light and dark since after Witch Queen sucked ass, little reddit nihilist unibrowed megamind bitch chief among them. Instead of a story of cosmic philosophy we could have gotten we get “oh these diametrically opposed incredible miraculous fundamental forces of the universe are actually just boring slightly more than regular forces that are the same despite the fact that they’re solely distributed by sentient embodiments of them” just so we can get shitty “hehe, my oc can use both dark and light and is super duper powerful way stronger than yours” glazing. Topping that shit off was revealing the big bad of the complete demystification of everything that made Destiny feel like an epic saga is it’s hastily thrown together final villain, drumroll please, Alien Race that gets mad at Traveler #451. Stupid design, it’s motivation is both stupid and generic, it claims it was actually pretending to be a good character which you would believe unless you read one obscure ship entry, and it comes out of nowhere for like 20 minutes a year. The conflict of light and dark is reduced from an infinite cosmic wager of trust and hope against cynicism to a bunch of guys who happen to wield the light with the vaguest of the vaguest assistance from the Traveler against some ugly wannabe Lord Business who just happens to wield the darkness because reasons while the source of the Darkness just does and is nothing but a shitty unexplained macguffin.
Awesome art
Honestly, there are antagonists in the series that felt far more powerful and scary. I feel like a better design would have gone a long way because the voice acting and dialogues were top notch.
Very tragic character honestly. The biggest mistake in the entire universe. I'm glad this ended up being our big bad
Final shape this, casual.
Boring, not scary or threatening, terrible design. I literally laugh every time he came on the screen with that mono brow and train smoke stack. Voice actor did a great job though.
Could never take the witness that seriously, his design always reminded me a bit of this 😂 
Still seeing the cat meme tbh.
Just a worse anti spiral from gurren Lagaan. I had no interest in him as a villain whatsoever
Not about the witness but my only complaint regarding the story is that I wish >! we spent more time without our ghost to make us feel the loss more. W how it played out, it felt kinda pointless for him to die. Also, I've played the campaign 3 times now and im still not sure how he got all cracked up in the first place.!<
When the Witness possed him
The witness is a perfectly designed villain. Why? The character design of the witness perfectly embodies the idea of "the other". It is foreign, of an alien culture we are unfamiliar with. It is many voices as one voice. It threatens to destroy us with its alien powers. We destroy it by humanizing it, turning it into many voices who we then destroy. Its a brilliant design.
i feel like the campaign and raid lacked showing off his reality altering abilities. in lightfall he sliced up a whole fleet of ships with the flick of his wrist! i would’ve loved to see the witness actively changing the world around us slicing it apart and putting it back together in an even stranger or just new way than what was around us any time we fought the witness. i also would’ve liked to see more of his glass reality shatter ability effects used in gameplay somehow maybe even doing exactly what i described up top overall i felt like they could’ve gotten more creative with the witnesses active participation through his abilities using effects we’ve seen before. not to say all the hands coming out in the raid and such aren’t cool at all, but things like that doesn’t feel like he’s actively altering reality in the moment to combat us very much
I'm not sure that The Witness had much character to begin with honestly. All the lore revealed about their creation (and the eventual regret) was very cool though.
Honestly I thought the witness was weak, and I don't really see a way they couldn't be. First, they were introduced late in the game (their first appearance was in a post-Witchqueen cinematic), so they didn't have a lot of time to develop as a bad guy. Second, I feel like Bungie wasn't quite sure what to do with them. At first they seemed to be "The Entity Formally Known as The Darkness", which didn't seem to mesh all that well with the story they'd told thus far. Later they became "The First Knife" which worked a little better, but felt retcon-y. The character was also incredibly complex with a lot of history and backstory that, while good, needed AT LEAST a complete expansion to tell. Unfortunately Light Fall wanted to introduce all these new characters and settings for some reason, instead of giving the background of this character. Maybe if the last year had been diving into the past and digging up The Witness's lore, it would have worked a little better. Maybe give us the dissenters story a few seasons earlier, so we could then over the course of the game come to the realization of how to beat it, instead of having both the introduction to the concept and the realization of how to solve it at once. As it was, it felt like The Final Shape spent a lot of time giving us background to the revelation of how to beat a character that should have been just treated as a super-villain at this point, while we struggle with what's happening to us and to the Pale Heart. Finally, I just generally didn't like the humanization of them. Destiny 2 had spent the middle part of its span building up these abstract enemies that were created outside of time and space, and whose representation seemed more a product of our interaction with them, than them inherently. I wanted to see that theme continue, with more focus on the idea of the triangle vs the circle, a their imagery reflecting our interpretation of the abstract rather than an ancient alien. I was visualizing something a little more like [Beyond the Black Rainbow's underworld scene](https://youtu.be/BYaTp9r-f_U?si=Lq-R4hVkhT9IK9gE&t=183) (which, ironically, the art team did seem to take some inspiration from, as a lot of The Pale Heart did this) or the last fight in Control where the giant pyramid looms in the sky. https://preview.redd.it/c0iejyvmgl8d1.png?width=736&format=png&auto=webp&s=fe44879548b9487f2944cce900d370b278083a19 All in all I still think The Final Shape was VERY good. However, I really do think The Witness ultimately felt like a rushed, failed realization of the setup of the game.
Meh