After Destiny players purged SIVA-infested Cosmodrome back in 2016, the game’s striking red-and-black nanomachine technology became a hotly contested topic on the community forums. Some believed that it was just a matter of time until SIVA sprung back up, while others felt that the story of SIVA was done and dusted already.

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Up until now, however, Bungie kept mostly mum on the topic of SIVA. Rasputin’s incredibly potent living weapon got a number of major references over the years, granted, with Destiny 2’s Outbreak Perfected and the legendary Zero-Hour mission being the most pointed of them all, suggesting that something may be happening with SIVA in the background. In a new interview with PC Gamer, however, Bungie’s senior narrative designer Nikko Stevens has outright confirmed that SIVA is done: “Whenever the Warmind comes up, whether it was back in Season of the Worthy or now, SIVA has been a part of the conversation narratively. We talk about it, we kick it around. But ultimately, I think SIVA is a story that was told in Rise of Iron, and was finalised in Rise of Iron,” he concluded.

According to Stevens, bringing back Destiny’s self-replicating SIVA nanotech would be looking backward in a narratively unsatisfying way, and it’s unlikely to happen while there are more important considerations about, such as the story of Lightfall’s metropolis of Neomuna. Granted, Stevens didn’t outright state that Bungie wouldn’t eventually circle back to SIVA proper in due time, but the obvious implication in the interview is that it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

Stevens specifically mentioned that SIVA does get referenced where it makes sense for the narrative team to bring it up. The ongoing Destiny 2 Season of the Seraph, for one, touches upon much of Rasputin’s past. The AI’s slaughter of Iron Lords using SIVA is a major turning point for the machine mind, for example, but the technology itself hasn’t been seen in-game for quite some time now, having fulfilled its narrative goal.

In conclusion, it does appear that Destiny’s SIVA will remain an in-universe artifact and a lore-bound curiosity for the foreseeable future. Yet, it may be worth pointing out that the description of one of the new Exotic weapons, the Quicksilver Storm auto rifle, very pointedly references the technology as a potential precursor to the stuff that Lightfall DLC’s mysterious Cloudstriders leverage in combat.

Destiny 2 is currently available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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Source: PC Gamer