Destiny 2’s recently launched Warmind expansion contains a lot of new content to unearth, but one of the expansion’s biggest surprises was a well-hidden puzzle that actually led fans to a real-life treasure cache.
Shortly after Warmind’s initial launch last Tuesday, a group of eagle-eyed players discovered a series of symbols tucked away in the bunker of the AI Rasputin (the titular Warmind). Those symbols turned out to be a cleverly hidden cipher with an elaborate hidden message that members of the r/raidsecrets subreddit were able to slowly decode over time. A mere five days after Warmind’s arrival, the r/raidsecrets group had decoded the entire cipher and unveiled a hidden message from someone who should be familiar to those who played the original Destiny:
“thank you for taking the time to piece together this message, friend. the time of our final conflict is drawing closer and you and ana have an important role to play in the events to come. so watch over her, guardian. i would have no life without ana or the exoprogram. i regret that we have become strangers, but we each have a path that we must walk. and, ironically, there never seems to be enough time. tell her, rasputin’s first attempt was in the right location, but the wrong moment. look here: 43.549573, -73.544868 – e”
The “e” signature reveals that the message was written by none other than Elsie Bray, sister of Warmind’s new quest giver Ana Bray. If the name Elsie Bray doesn’t immidiatly leap out at you, that’s because you probably know her by her more formal title, The Stranger, i.e. the mysterious female exo who players met during their journeys in the original Destiny. As for the coordinates included at the end of Elsie’s message, they led to a real-life treasure cache in upstate New York (the hometown of lead Warmind developer Vicarious Visions), a cache that contained a box of gold coins, a congratulatory note from Vicarious Visions design lead Rob Gallerani, and a replica of the Valkyrie spear, a new weapon players can wield in the Warmind DLC.
According to Gallerani’s note, there are only three of the Valkyrie spear replicas in the entire world, one at Vicarious Visions, one at Bungie, and the one included in the cache.