If you’re not out shooting things in Destiny, chances are you’re in the Tower, jumping from potted plant to potted plant while you wait for your team to get ready. We know that the Tower is located in “the last city” on Earth, but where is that, exactly?
One clever Destiny player seems to have hit upon an answer. In an enjoyable Reddit post (thanks, Zee), sundial enthusiast dwntwn_dine_ent_dist has used the position of the in-game sun — after determining that the day in question is an equinox — to figure out Tower’s geographic location.
Shadows of vertical objects cast on the level ground by the sun move counterclockwise. From this, it must be that the Tower (and the City) are in the southern hemisphere. This is consistent with the name “North Tower”, which is roughly the northwest part of the Tower overall. (True north is roughly the direction you would walk from Rahool to Xander 99-40.)
On an equinox, an observer’s latitude is 90 degrees minus the altitude of the sun at local noon. The screenshot shows a shadow cast by a tall object at noon, as viewed directly from the side. It shows a latitude of about 29°.
There are three places where there is land at 29° south:
1) Chile/Argentina/Uruguay/Brazil
2) South Africa/Lesotho
3) Australia
Only one of those options has the mountains that can be clearly viewed from the tower, meaning that, according to the sun’s position, the Tower is located somewhere in South America, nestled in the Andes mountains.
Of course, that’s all assuming that Bungie didn’t just pick the sun’s position at random, and that someone made a conscious decision to put the Tower in a specific location and not just in “a cool-looking place with mountains.” But hey, the Tower’s gotta be somewhere, right? Might as well be there.
Comments
10 responses to “Destiny Player Thinks He’s Figured Out Where The Tower Really Is”
I remember reading else a while back that the tower was in Australia. I get a feeling it was here on kotaku too. Anyone else know what I’m talking about?
Nah its in Strayah mate.
Straya it is. The hive don’t like snakes and spiders.
If only we introduced cane toads to the Hive then things may have been different.
Just make them above an R18+ classification – then they won’t be allowed in!
Or tell them to come on over by boat, and have Tony turn them back
Plot twist: the hive’s origin is from Straya’s fauna being mutated and twisted by the dark.
Heh – the Hive aren’t that dangerous!
I think this is accurate.
I thought in one of the multiplayer maps in the game you could see the traveler and that is in Old Russia. So wouldn’t that make it either in Russia or some European country nearby? Regardless of the suns position.
There’s one of these types of posts everyday on the Destiny Reddit with people claiming they have the definitive answer as to where it is. Himalayas, Canada and Puerto Princesa have all been mentioned in the last week alone.