During Destiny 2's Halloween event, Festival of the Lost, a peculiar reward awaited players who completed the holiday's greatest challenges. An item called the Ascendant Lens has had players stumped since they've acquired it.
There are some theories as to the Ascendant Lens' purpose, but nothing concrete has been established. Theories range from describing the Lens as a catalyst to unlock new powers in Destiny 2's forthcoming expansion, Beyond Light, to a simple trophy of a holiday conquest. Whether you have it or not, it's okay; no one knows what the Ascendant Lens really does.
The Ascendant Lens could be obtained by players who participated in Destiny 2's Festival of the Lost Halloween event. The event reintroduced a spooky activity that Guardians could run over and over to claim spoils. This year, the event had a slight twist; the Fallen warlord The Spider wanted players to collect Cipher Decoders to open more loot chests at the end of the activity. It took 45 Cipher Decoders and opened chests before The Spider sought out Guardians again. As a token of appreciation for their participation, he offers up the Ascendant Lens.
The Ascendant Lens will reside in players' inventory alongside items like Crucible Tokens and Dusklight Shards. Hovering over the item provides a very vague tidbit of information; "A focusing lens from the Dreaming City through which the Ascendant Plane can sometimes be seen..." interestingly, the Lens can also be spotted in a new Collectibles tab in Collections. The new section is located under Flair and then in the Miscellaneous category. The Ascendant Lens is the only item that appears in Collectibles, and this location offers no additional clues as to its purpose.
Destiny 2's player base is no stranger to cracking the tough puzzles Bungie layers into their game. There have even been community-wide attempts at solving mysteries just in the game's last year. Needless to say, the community is abuzz with theories and questions surrounding this peculiar reward. Some say that the Ascendant Lens is nothing more than the first item in a new line of Collectibles that will be featured within the game, starting with the Beyond Light expansion. If this is so, this item, and those that would follow, amount to nothing more than past deeds reminders.
Other players have pointed to the shifted timetable for Beyond Light as a possible explanation. This theory positions that originally, the 2020 Festival of the Lost should have happened after the expansion launched. Beyond Light was pushed back from its original Sep. 22 release date to Nov. 10. Some players believe the Lens will be the key to unlocking some secret or power when the expansion is live; Bungie just didn't remove it from the holiday event.
Though, if the Ascendant Lens is connected to a secret power or weapon in Beyond Light, it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to make it a reward tied to a limited event for the prior season. Regardless of whether you got one or not, no one's sure what the Ascendant Lens is for or if it'll be important in the coming expansion.