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The former Emperor of the Cabal, Calus, has returned to Sol. The Leviathan, now derelict and covered in Egregore spores, is hovering over the Moon, and is using the Nightmares conjured by the Lunar Pyramid to attack the Guardians who investigate it. Eris Morn seeks to sever the Leviathan's-and therefore Calus'-connection to the Pyramid. But to do that, Crow, Zavala and Empress Caiaitl must face their Nightmares.
Season of the Haunted contains examples of:
- A Day in the Limelight: Crow, Zavala and Caiaitl each get two sever missions that explores their connection to their nightmares and how they are tormented by them. Zavala specifically gets a special animated cutscene explaining his relationship with Safiya.
- Alien Kudzu: The Egregore found on the Glykon is revealed to have also infested the Leviathan. Here, it's much more deeply rooted and widespread, and only a few places are spared from its influence. It makes the Leviathan look all the more dilapidated and desecrated.
- The Bad Guy Wins: "High Alert: Anomaly Detected - HELM" reveals Calus ultimately got what he wanted: the Witness accepted him into their ranks, and he hacks into the HELM to taunt the player while he does the same for the Last City's citizens with a psionic projection.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Nightmare Containment protocol has been reduced to a mere routine maintenance until they are fully eliminated. However, the Memories created from the Sever missions have disappeared, and Eris apparently has something very important to show Drifter that needs to be hidden from the player while he hides out in the Reef to carry out unseen plans, showing their struggles are far from over. Yet, it's evident Calus achieved his goal of taking control of the Lunar Pyramid and becoming a disciple of the Witness.
- The Bus Came Back: After the Nightmares were contained after the Shadowkeep story, they return as an antagonistic force spreading further than just the moon because of Calus's actions. Calus himself had disappeared in the events surrounding Season of Arrivals and Beyond Light. The Egregore first seen in Presage also comes back, but infesting the entire Leviathan.
- The Caper: The Duality dungeon is a variant. It involves the fireteam venturing into a psionic representation of Calus' mind to locate whatever secrets he may be hiding.
- Central Theme: Your past regrets and traumas will haunt you until you die, unless you make effort into accepting them and your flaws so you can see the goodness inside yourself and others.
- Cerebus Call-Back: Zavala's knitting needles are what he places as his offering to the ritual Eris conducts at the start of the Season. He offers them with the line "My heart... from a time long past."
- Creepy Good: Eris Morn is front and center for this Season, and she has bound herself, Crow, Zavala and the Guardian to the Crown of Sorrow.
- Combat Sadomasochist. Later weeks imply, and then confirm, that Calus has fused himself with the Leviathan as he uses the Egregore to reshape it according to his will. He states that he feels everything that goes on in the ship, including all the fighting between the Guardians and the Scorn and Loyalists. He then adds that he delights in all the sensations, adding a rather disgusting edge to his already detestable mannerisms.
- Darker and Edgier: This season's plot is a lore more visceral and horrible compared to previous seasons', thanks to the return of the Nightmares and the Egregore infesting the ship.
- Dragon Ascendant: Calus has previously been more of a Friendly Enemy as he is not openly hostile to humanity, but has just invited the Guardians to various challenges and manipulating them to take out threats in the Leviathan for him. While there is the Witness as the Greater-Scope Villain, this is the first time Calus has taken action that threatens Earth and reveals his allegiances.
- Enemy Mine: Since Season of the Chosen, Caiatl and her Cabal have been uneasy allies with the Vanguard, marred by a lot of bickering and conflicting actions. With Saladin officially part of her War Council as Valus Forge, the events of this season have been the smoothest combined operation they have done together.
- Healing Factor: With the Solar 3.0 revamp released this season, solar is centered in part around regenerating health. Titans in particular will restore health when they create sunspots via solar kills or fragments, but also got a new exotic helmet called Loreley Splendor Helm which will automatically drop a sunspot when health gets low. With the radical ease of creating sunspots it suddenly made them nigh unkillable (coupled with a major resistance stat buff made this season).
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Calus is still this, though the game kind of gets around it by letting you encounter his damaged robot doubles. It's implied that his fusing himself with the Leviathan has resulted in his physical body being disposed of. When the Guardian and Caiatl confront Calus in "Catharsis", Calus appears as a psionic projection similar to the one the Guardians encountered in the Leviathan raid.
- I Hate Past Me: Crow's two Sever missions revolve around him dealing with the Nightmare of Uldren Sov. He resolves it by accepting that his past self made mistakes, but that he can learn from those mistakes. The Nightmare of Uldren Sov becomes a Memory, and Crow intends to right Uldren's wrongs alongside him.
- It's All My Fault: Sever - Guilt shows that Zavala feels this way about his adoptive son's death. He notes in a HELM transmission that Guardians' minds aren't meant for living like this for so long, and that's why it burdens him so much: he's had to carry that guilt for decades, even centuries.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: The dungeon "Duality" features this in principle, as Eris uses Hive magic on an effigy of Calus that lets us peer into Calus' subconscious. Wandering a maze in the likeness of the Leviathan, the boss enemies are nightmare entities connected to Calus', with the Final Boss being a nightmare of Caiaitl (coming alongside a season that explains that nightmares are fragments representing the greatest regrets and fears of individuals).
- The Juggernaut: Throughout the various Sever missions, a reskinned Cabal Gladiator known as an Unrelenting Nightmare shows up to attack the Guardian. Nothing can even scratch it, and nothing can stop it from chasing you through the hallways of the Leviathan. All you can do is run. The only way to deal with it is found during Sever - Rage, where it's locked in the incineration hall of the Leviathan's engineering bay and burned to ashes.
- Kick the Dog: The Nightmares of Uldren, Safiyah, Cayde-6, and Dominus Ghaul really love to needle and rip into their targets' worst regrets and fears, piling on the blame and guilt and deriving power from it.
- Leeroy Jenkins: Caiatl pulls this in Sever - Rage, barging into the Leviathan with only herself and a few of her Imperial Cabal without waiting for anyone else to back her up. Eris and Zavala try to convince her to back down, but she just tells them and the Young Wolf to stay out of her way. Predictably, this means she's at risk of dying, especially as she doesn't have a Guardian by her side until the very end. She ends up faltering against the Nightmare of Ghaul, and reluctantly lets Eris perform the ritual to bind that Nightmare to her.
- My Greatest Failure: The nightmares bound to the characters each represent something from their past that they haven't fully reconciled with. Crow faces the reality of Prince Uldren, Zavala is revealed to have lost a son which caused him and his wife agony and Caiatl faces a nightmare of Ghaul, who she originally aligned with to dispose of her father.
- Orcus on His Throne: Despite the Guardians raising hell on his ship and weakening the connection to the Lunar Pyramid, Calus never once tries to stop them. It ends up justified in a way when it's revealed that he's merged himself with the Leviathan in the process of remaking it to his liking.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: Though Calus wins by becoming an official Disciple, it's implied the person whose vacancy he took - the Ambiguously Evil ex-Disciple Nezarec - is no longer aligned with the Witness, now that his connection to the Darkness has been uncovered. Context clues suggest he may be of vital importance to the coming war — whether he likes it or not.
- Sequel Hook:
- Calus is seemingly defeated in a final encounter part way through the season where his physical essence is believed to have been dissipated, but in the last week he hijacks the com systems at the Helm and the Last City to let everyone know he has actually merged with the Lunar pyramid and earned a place next to The Witness. Not long after this event takes place, information from Bungie and the trailer for Lightfall indicates he will play a major role there.
- The final radio message reveals Drifter is headed to the Reef for an unknown purpose, while Eris plans to follow him to share something in secret. What Drifter is looking to do is never hinted at, but the item Eris discusses is strongly implied to either be something connected to the Egregore or the original Nezarec's Whisper.
- Tempting Fate: The Crown of Sorrow and an Egregore colony are restrained in the HELM for various utilities, despite both Caiatl and Eris knowing firsthand how uncontrollable their powers are. The Crown thankfully doesn't do anything itself, but the Egregore colony starts getting out of control fast. Luckily, it's more gross than anything and doesn't seem to have an adverse effect on anyone or anything in the HELM.
- Caiatl herself does this, as she initially refuses to partake in the ritual to bind a Nightmare to her, citing her lack of trust in Hive magic. Only when she gets horribly traumatized by the Nightmare of Ghaul does she finally relent to the ritual, letting her best him and make him into a Memory in their next encounter.
- Took a Level in Badass: Solar Subclasses got the 3.0 treatment like Void did, giving them their own set of buffs and debuffs to play with. Most of it is focused around healing and empowering yourself and/or others, and spreading fire all over the place, alongside explosions when enemies get enough burns stacked on them.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The story follows two major plotlines at once: the first, and the one shown in gameplay, has the player work to contain the Nightmares on the Leviathan and stop Calus from using them to merge with the Lunar Pyramid. The second, shown in lore, concerns the exploration of the Lunar Pyramid itself and slowly builds up the reveal that there is much, much more to the long-forgotten Nezarec than just a case of pre-Golden Age Cult antics...
- Why Isn't It Attacking?: Eris remarks throughout the season how she keeps expecting Calus to fight back against the Guardians making progress with weakening the Leviathan's connection to the Lunar Pyramid, but instead he just lets it happen without ever intervening. It makes her worried that even if they do succeed with what they do, it still won't be enough when the Witness finally arrives.
