Destiny 2 Lightfall’s final boss fight is absolutely brutal and I loved every second of it

Destiny 2’s Lightfall DLC has caused a lot of controversy and disappointment with how the story has unfolded. However, if there’s something to take away from this, it would be the awesome final boss fight. While it wasn’t anything special in terms of cinematics, it was an overall tough fight that made it all the more enjoyable. Let’s break it down.

*** Destiny 2 Lightfall Campaign Spoiler***

Calus (Stage One)

If we compare this fight right off the bat to last year’s final fight with the Witch Queen Savathun, then Calus is beaten by a wide margin in terms of pure spectacle/movie factor. It definitely wouldn’t have hurt to include a cinematic or two during the fight to improve the overall ambience, especially given our history with Calus.

It’s nice that it gets to the point though, considering we have to repeat this mission throughout the year to get materials like Ascendant Alloys for craftable weapons, so adding extra cinematics would have lengthened the fight and dragged it out longer than necessary. The Witch Queen fight is excellent for nostalgia purposes, but it sucks when you have to do it multiple times for the alloys, and the cinematic adds so much extra time.

Phase One of Calus is fairly easy as he uses his new Darkness powers to create a giant machine gun and shoot Darkness Orbs much like the Janitor from the Vow of the Disciple heist. This isn’t too big of a deal considering it’s the usual trend with the dark enemies like the Janitor and Rhulk. It’s a massive step up from our previous fight with Calus during the Leviathan raid where all he did was stand still and shoot a laser out of his head since now he was actually moving to fight us !

In terms of setting, the arena where the combat takes place is fairly small, with three mini-platforms encompassing the area populated by a range of Cabal enemies such as Psion’s, Incendiors, and Legionaries, meaning yourself if you try to move away from Calus, you still meet stiff resistance. I enjoyed this much more than the witch queen fight as her arena was very spacious and allowed us to step back and catch our breath unlike this fight which kept us on our toes the whole time.

Even if you freed the Cabal enemies from the mini-platforms, they would just reappear after about thirty seconds, barely giving you the luxury of relaxing. Calus himself also hits pretty hard, but not enough to panic after a single blast from his Orb of Darkness, although taking several in a row could spell trouble.

It was a lot easier to deal with than the Witch Queen, because even if you were at the same power level as her during the campaign, one bow thrust from her was enough to essentially one-shot you.

Once I finally got a good rhythm, I thought it would be ok to damage it, which was ok for a bit. At this point, Calus just waves his hand to bring out a tormentor, which makes my heart sink, but also gets my adrenaline pumping through the roof in a good way, as I figured he wasn’t going to make it that easy.

Dealing with the Tormentor was a top priority as it would have been a great agony later in battle. Unfortunately, as soon as I could think, “Ok, I can breathe now, so let’s start damaging Calus again,” he waved his hand off again, and another Tormentor appeared – I won’t confirm or deny that I screamed when I saw the second one.

After what felt like an eternity, the second tormentor was defeated and Calus finally fell. That’s when you realize that Calus is still talking, and you turn to see him not only getting up and removing his armor, but now holding two swords and RUNNING AT MACH 10!

Calus (Stage Two)

I didn’t go into the campaign thinking I’d ever see Calus coming at us with murderous intentions, but boy was I wrong because here comes phase two of the fight. All of the mini-platforms around you are now surrounded by the Veil (whatever that is), and now it’s just you and Calus left on a small platform as he runs towards you at full speed.

We’ve had many moments in Destiny that would be described as an “adrenaline rush,” but nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever gotten my blood pumping more than watching Calus run swords at me the whole time. The worst thing is that he doesn’t stop either. No animations, no cinematics, just pure murderous intent until either he or we bite it.

The Witch Queen has had some adrenaline rush moments here and there, but after she has us dragged between reality and the Ascendant plane, the fight becomes boring, especially when you have to repeat it.

Remember those lovely tormentors from back in the day? Well, if you ignored them in phase one of the fight, they’ll happily join you in phase two along with Calus, so make sure you defeat them beforehand – I learned that the hard way on my first try.

As a nice tradeoff for instilling fear in players about the Traveler, Calus now trades his monstrous attack power for poor defense, allowing us to deal massive damage after dodging one of his attacks. Now it’s just a matter of timing to dodge his attacks and then retaliate, which presents a challenge on the first try.

You could use Strand to swing back and forth, but there’s also something weird about running in circles from a giant space rhino with swords. Psions will occasionally spawn during combat, but they’re mainly there to help refill your ammo, so their presence isn’t much of a problem.

After his health bar drops to zero for the second time, Calus cries out in agony and becomes a strange tree-like statue like Rhulk did at the end of the Vow of the Disciple heist.

As mentioned above, this was by no means a cinematic extravaganza like The Witch Queen. However, watching Calus grow into a tree was a much more satisfying feeling than watching Savathun fall to the ground simply because of the sheer difficulty of the fight.

Was it a perfect end to our years of bickering with Calus? Probably not, but I take the quick 15 minutes of pure adrenaline with Calus every day over the hour-long film that was the Savathun fight.