We’re two weeks away from Destiny 2: Lightfall, the next major expansion for Bungie’s ongoing first-person shooter. Leading up to release, the developers are sharing some goals for the future of Destiny.
On Bungie.net, the studio acknowledged that its stready stream of content updates has made the game feel like a known quantity to its dedicated player base.
“But amid this quality and consistency, Destiny 2 can sometimes feel too predictable,” Destiny 2’s Joe Blackburn wrote. “While some consistency is necessary for us to be able to regularly update the game and prevent players from having to relearn Destiny every three months, as well as to maintain our team health and sustainability, it is clear that too much predictability has created a lack of surprise and delight by the time some of our major game updates get into your hands.”
The team also addressed complaints that “there’s just not enough to do” in Destiny 2, saying they recognize that the most hardcore players often run out of content to dig into at the end of each season.
With those issues laid out, the team listed four big goals for Destiny 2 moving forward: expand players’ imaginations, bring challenge back to Destiny, enrich content, and connect Guardians.
Season of Defiance
Lightfall will launch alongside Season of Defiance, which will reduce complexity in Destiny’s progression system. This includes fewer competing currencies, simpler resource management, and more. Destiny will also begin exploring a wider range of themes and fantasies, citing last year’s reapers, pirates, and cowboys as examples of how Destiny’s settings can push pre-existing boundaries.
Bungie is also planning to tune the balance between players and enemies to bring a higher sense of challenge back to Destiny 2, without making foes feel like nothing but bullet sponges. The developers also hope to bolster the pre-existing PvP and PvE content so players feel like there’s always something to do, even after completing the bulk of each season and expansion’s new content. Finally, the developers are adding new matchmaking tools to help players find a fireteam fast.
Destiny 2: Lightfall is coming on February 28. The expansion is set to mark “the beginning of the end” for Destiny 2, and will introduce a qhole new map on Neptune called Neo Luna. Bungie also confirmed it will not remove any past expansions in the Light and Darkness Saga so new players can experience the entire story.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN covering video game and entertainment news. He has over six years of experience in the gaming industry with bylines at IGN, Nintendo Wire, Switch Player Magazine, and Lifewire. Find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.
