Lance Reddick on the future of Destiny 2's Zavala: "I actually asked them if they were killing me off"

Bungie has been teasing the death of a Destiny 2 character for months, and Lance Reddick, the voice of the Titan leader Zavala, had to wonder if his iconic character would be the next Vanguard member to get killed off after Cayde-6. 

In an interview with Polygon, Reddick explained that "in one of my more recent recording sessions, I actually asked them if they were killing me off." Reddick says Bungie did give him a straight answer, but he didn't share what he heard for obvious spoiler reasons. 

It's unclear how "recent" this recording session was or what content it was for, but Bungie has definitely set up Destiny 2's narrative for a major death as we head into The Witch Queen expansion beginning February 22. Ikora has been leading investigations into Savathun, Crow is torn between alliances, and Zavala already had a brush with death earlier in Year 4 during the climactic encounter of the Season of the Chosen. With Caiatl, the Cabal leader whose traitorous (and promptly executed) underlings attempted to assassinate Zavala, returning for the upcoming Season of the Risen, several major characters will be on stage once again, which could be the perfect time to spring a dramatic loss. 

Game director Joe Blackburn touched on the arc of the Vanguard leader as well as how the love for Reddick, a Warlock main known to read painfully accurate Destiny 2 memes in character and record new dialogue from his closet, could shape Zavala's role going forward. 

"We love having Lance out there not just as a voice actor for us, but also as such a prominent Guardian," Blackburn told Polygon. "We obviously have plans for Zavala – Zavala could go a lot of different ways – but Lance is a pretty flexible actor in his range. So that leaves the door pretty wide open for us with Zavala." 

As for Reddick's position in Destiny 2, both in-game and among the community, he reckons he's "just a big fan who also happens to voice one of the characters." Hilariously enough, he also admits that, like many players, he often loses track of the plot and ends up focusing on "powering up and getting cool weapons and grinding through playlists." 

Last year, we spoke to Bungie about the years of narrative build-up that went into The Witch Queen and how the studio turned Savathun into the game's best villain yet.