· Updated 12 November 2026 · 3 min read · Build 56578 · Commit 766318fc0f
On 8 November the game went from the end of A Guardian Rises, through the story cinematic that follows it, into Tower North, with the project's local stand-in services answering every step. After both scenes of the cinematic the game launched the Tower by itself, and eleven seconds later the Guardian stood in Tower North with the HUD and minimap. Until now the cinematic ended back in orbit, and the Tower could only be loaded on its own.
What's new
• The cinematic after A Guardian Rises now hands over to Tower North: the game launches the Tower itself, and the Guardian appears there in third person with the HUD and minimap.
• The new-player chain runs in order: the mission's results screen, Continue, both scenes of the cinematic, then the Tower.
• The character screen draws the Guardian again, and the emblem is back to full brightness.
• New Guardians start with their class's armour set and Ghost shell, and a new Warlock holds Sunsinger beside Voidwalker.
• Lens flares and lamp glare no longer shine through walls: lights in view flare, lights behind a wall don't.
• In the Breach, the tripmines arm as the Guardian reaches them, and their red laser beams draw across the corridor.
• The Awoken, the cinematic after A Guardian Rises and The Speaker now each count as completed on the Guardian's record.
How it works
The Tower handoff was held back by teams. After the cinematic, the game asks to join the Tower as a public activity and puts the player on team 0, but the server had prepared the Tower's spawn points for a different team, so the Guardian never appeared and the screen stayed black. Serving the Tower's team 0 spawn points fixed it. Earlier the same night the server learned to record when a cinematic starts and ends, which is the signal the game waits for before it asks for the Tower.
The empty character screen came from the test characters themselves: each was stored with a Hunter's identity, a Titan's gear and an all-zero appearance. They now have a consistent identity and a placeholder look, the game's own default Titan from character creation, and the screen draws them again. The black shading on the Guardian is a separate fault in the emulator.
Destiny's lens flares check how much of each light is actually visible. The emulator used to answer that every light was fully visible, so flares shone through walls; the project's changes to shadPS4 now measure it. The Breach's tripmines needed the right instruction to arm, sent when the game reports that the Guardian has reached them.
Still in progress
• In the Tower run, A Guardian Rises was completed by a test shortcut a minute after the start, so the whole mission into the Tower hasn't been played in one go yet.
• The Guardian still draws shaded black, a fault in the emulator.
• The Khvostov's sight shows no reticle when aiming down it.
• None of this is a playable game: it is experimental work seen in test runs.
What's next
• Play A Guardian Rises through to Tower North in one run.
• Fix the black shading so the Guardian's face and gear can be seen.
• Bring back the Khvostov's reticle.
Changes in this update
• The cinematic hands over to the Tower, and the Guardian spawns in Tower North (15a7c38cfebf, 766318fc0f02, 238f9ac6f349).
• The Awoken, the cinematic and The Speaker count as completed (cce822cd8540, e26eee2ed1ca, fa41e56c9fcb).
• The test characters get a consistent look, so the character screen draws the Guardian (29f333fe1962).
• New Guardians get their starting record, armour, Ghost and second subclass, with a note on a new Warlock (6d07425cb1fd, d6227b5bbc14, 2dd007023926, f72f0f6809c4, f06bcb1bf170).
• Lens flares no longer show through walls (86647291ffb3, 6f6397f20c12).
• The Breach's tripmines arm and draw their beams, and the Guardian is unarmed until the rifle (072ff10a8935, a9b3cf3390ce, 3b1955824b70).
• The server can set activity options, items carry their talent grid numbers, and a test setting starts the Guardian holding a chosen item (98aa558cc099, 04ac6d27fd26, d82b61c7f45f).
About this update
No new footage arrived for this update, so it has no screenshots; the results come from the project's own test notes in the public repository. The PS4 work is built on aknumbers' Destiny 1 Preservation Project and runs in shadPS4, and it is experimental.