Who is Eva Levante? Genuinely, I have no idea. I’ve been playing Destiny 2 for around four years now, since before Shadowkeep arrived, and in those years the soft-spoken grandma has dominated the game’s seasonal events as their host. It’s not even a question of someone else doing the job anymore; if there’s an event, we all know we’re going to be listening to Eva saying “I could use some more coffee” or “Carlos and Maria” or “Have you grown bigger or have I grown shorter?” on repeat for a month.
That’s nothing new, though; ask a Destiny 2 player and they could probably quote any number of voicelines from Banshee, Master Rahool, or Tess Everis on command. Hanging out around The Tower inevitably leads to them bleeding into your subconscious until, one day, you realise you can quote everything and should maybe find somewhere else to hang out. That’s not what bothers me most about Eva Levante; it’s that I don’t think she’s an important enough character to deserve to host every event.
(Image credit: Bungie)
Sean is being very nice here—he just wants a bit of variety! Some spice to showcase the personality of each seasonal event on the calendar. Me? I’m a purist. I dislike Eva Levante’s whole situation.
Right now, in Destiny 2, the Witness is coming to usher in the second Collapse. Our allies are reckoning with traumas that have haunted them for centuries. But let’s forget all that so we can do errands for this doting grandma and suffer through her whole “aww shucks, isn’t it nice to be nice” vibe while twee event music plays in the Tower. In a universe of wish dragons and worm gods and unknowable consciousnesses that evolved out of the vibrations of dark matter through planets, Eva Levante is the worst thing you can be. Basic. Silly. Get rid of her.
I’m sure some people who played the first game hold a special place in their hearts for Eva and her grandmotherly ways, but she’s just some random lady to new players. When Destiny 2 reintroduced the Cosmodrome from the first game as a tutorial area, revamped the starter experience, and added smiley-android-face Shaw Han as a guide, it feels like Eva should have retired. We could’ve even had a brand new character specifically for hosting events. I think new hosts would go a long way to making things feel a little more refreshing and actually seasonal, which is what those events are supposed to be in the first place.
One of my favourite things about the last couple of seasons was getting to fight alongside Mithrax and the Fallen as well as the Cabal, because having alien allies is cool. It can’t help but remind me of the great Spider stuff in the Tangled Shore, doing missions alongside his mercenaries, and how good it felt to have proper NPC allies for the first time. Someone like Mithrax would’ve been perfect to host the Solstice, or it could’ve been an opportunity to meet his daughter, Eido, who we learnt about in the audio diaries from the Season of the Splicer. Considering Zavala and Caiatl are good pals now, it could’ve been her, or just some random Cabal emissary who likes the idea of burning stuff to celebrate summer. Hell, you could even free Ada from the synthweave basement and she’d still be a better host than Eva.
Destiny is flush with amazing characters; too many for just some old lady to host every event in the game, especially when newer players don’t have any idea who she is. Before the Witch Queen, it even got to the point where players were speculating that Eva Levante might be Savathun, as if that was the only way to explain why she was always there. Though that could also be because of that time her face was glitching out like she was a hologram. She wouldn’t even have to go completely, either. The Dawning was always her event, so why not let her come out of retirement to host that? All the baking fits with her whole fussing grandmotherly vibe anyway.
I have nothing against Eva Levante aside from that I never want to have to listen to her or interact with her ever again, but a part of me also feels like she’s come to represent Destiny 2 at its driest content wise. Seasonal events in the past have been quite repetitive, borrowing the same formula from previous years without many significant changes. It’s one of the reasons I was happy to see that Bungie had revamped the armor system in the Solstice of Heroes this year, and all in all, this last season has been great. I think Duality is the best dungeon in the game mechanically, and getting to revisit the Leviathan and face off against Calus was everything I hoped it would be.
I like the direction of the new Solstice event; it’s simple, easy-to-understand, and you can actually get some extremely strong weapons and armor sets while doing your weekly play. If this is a sign of Bungie starting to put more effort into revamping seasonal events from previous years, then I think they should also hire a new host, too. Eva’s done her due; let her retire and bake some cookies or something.
