The Future Of Destiny Looks Dark (Finally)

The Summer Of Games has officially begun, with indie juggernauts Bungie announcing details of Destiny 2’s upcoming Year 4 expansion, Beyond Light. Though all the trademarks of a Bungie announcement were there, such as gorgeous cinematics and Luke Smith’s humble evaluation of seasons past, the obvious effects of the last six months were clear to see. We only heard from Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, game director and general manager respectively, rather than the whole team due to Bungie’s work from home policy amongst the COVID crisis, as well as an 8-minute 46-second silence to mark the time George Floyd was strangled by police, with links to organisations such as Black Lives Matter (https://blacklivesmatter.com/), Anti Racism Center (https://antiracismcenter.com/), Equal Justice Initiative (https://eji.org/), Colorlines (https://www.colorlines.com/) and Showing Up For Racial Justice (https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/).

The team at Bungie handled both of these moments with dignity and soon moved on to give us information pertaining both to the new expansion as well as the future of the Destiny franchise. But rather than give you a blanket rundown of everything, I want to narrow in on four key points that show that Destiny is not only here to stay, but is starting its journey towards being an unmissable experience. 

Beyond Light Will Plunge Guardians Into Darkness

Bungie revealed two new trailers for Beyond Light, both packed full of enough juicy content to keep us guessing right up to the 22nd September release date. Though the cinematic trailer does give us a glimpse of the long-forgotten Exo-Stranger and her new, adorable ghost alien (which I will pay good money to get), a new destination, the long-teased icy Europa, The Drifter’s new dope-ass Bane mask and the naughtiest handbrake turn on a Sparrow you’ll ever see, the biggest announcement comes in the form of a new elemental type - Stasis. 

LOOK. AT. THAT. CUTE. BOI.

“It’s time to wield The Darkness, we’ve been waiting,” Mark says just as the gameplay trailer finishes. Though few details were given for the exact implementation of this new damage type, Luke clarified that “Stasis, this new power isn’t just gonna be Guardian’s supers and abilities. It’s a brand new damage type, so that means it will ultimately sit alongside solar, arc and void as the first new element we have introduced to the game since the original Destiny release way back in 2014”. 

The importance of this information cannot be stressed enough. Adding a whole new elemental type to the game will open up new styles of gameplay, new abilities and new weapon varieties which will, in turn, make the legacy content feel fresh and different. Mark promises Beyond Light will “kick off a new era where players will discover the true nature of the light and the dark” giving the flagging Destiny story a much-needed injection of grey in what has been otherwise a pretty black and white universe. Beyond Light looks like the next big leap in Bungie telling a complex and engaging story narratively, rather than through flavour text and lore cards. But, as Mark says so tantalisingly, “this is only the beginning”. 

The Next Two Large Expansions Already Have Names

Bungie’s ever-expanding scope of transparency hit new highs as Luke and Mark not only announced the name of this year’s large expansion but gave us a glimpse on what the future holds for the following two years. 2020 will bring us Beyond Light, 2021 The Witch Queen and 2022 Lightfall. This openness will not only alleviate any anxieties about data miners and leaks, much like the ones that marred the release of last years large expansion Shadowkeep but also gives the Destiny fanbase a real, tangible long term plan for the future of the franchise. 

We now know for a fact, for example, the much teased Savathûn will finally be making her long-awaited arrival in the autumn of 2021 after spending the better part of four years cursing The Dreaming City destination. What has really gotten fans excited is the 2022 expansion labelled Lightfall. 

The trailer constantly references the “line between dark and light [being] very thin” as well as asking us to “choose a side”. This is a mechanic Bungie has play-tested before when, in the Season of The Drifter, we had to choose an allegiance between The Drifter and the Vanguard. It seems that the team at Bungie are now taking that one step further, having Guardians decide whether their allegiances lie with Light or Dark. Luke consistently spoke about wanting to “evolve Destiny as an action MMO”, so making the decision to hard-split the community, much like MMO giant World Of Warcraft did with the Hoard and The Alliance, might be the step Bungie needs to take to make Destiny a serious MMO. 

With this information, as well as the commitment to improve the seasonal model of content that will tie these expansions together by addressing fans’ biggest concerns such as bounties and FOMO, Bungie’s commitment to the future of Destiny is clear, obvious and exciting.  

We Move Another Step Closer To Cross-Play With Inter-Generational Support

One of the burning questions about the new Destiny DLC was “is it worth getting straight away or waiting for the next console generation?”. Bungie has addressed this by making it clear that whatever you have purchased on your current console will all carry over to the next generation. This means that you do not need to shell out another £60 on Destiny 2 when you upgrade to the PS5/Xbox One X. Not only this, but Bungie has also committed to inter-generation cross-play. “This means that if your brother is playing on PS4 and your sister is on PS5, all 3 of you can play together” as Mark clarified. 

One day we will explore the icy moon of Europa all together.

The good news continues also as if you do decide to upgrade to the next generation hardware, Destiny 2 will run at 60fps and 4K resolution (much like how us PC master race people are living now *insert zany memes here*) giving players a very smooth and silky experience. What does this mean for cross-platform across all eco-systems? Well, Mark says that “this year we’re focused on inter-generational play, hopefully, next year we can do the thing and finally get them all playing together in the same eco-system” which for me, as a PC player who’s clan is predominately PS4, is incredibly exciting. 

Out With The Old And In With The… Old

Destiny 2, currently, has a lot of content. I mean, a lot of content. As written on a recent blog post, “Destiny 2 features nine destinations, 40 story missions, 54 adventures, 42 Lost Sectors, 17 strikes, 31 PvP maps, 12 one-off special activities (like Menagerie or Zero Hour), seven raids, six Gambit arenas, three dungeons, many, many quests, patrols, public events, and of course, thousands of associated rewards. All of that, plus hundreds of game systems which layer on top of that content.” This has made the game rather flabby, with some activities ignored as they are just not part of the current cycle of content and the game ballooning to over 100GB in size. To avoid having issues with patching and updating, the team at Bungie have devised the “Destiny Content Vault”. This is a place where legacy content can be stored to both free up space in the live game and still be accessible at a later date for development. 

This, in turn, means that old Destiny 1 content can and will make a long-awaited arrival into Destiny 2. This will start with the return of the Cosmodrome destination on Earth, but the real excitement comes not in what destinations will make a return, but what legacy content will come back. Luke has already teased the return of legendary Raid “The Vault Of Glass” for Year 4 and the prospect of re-visiting Destiny 1 locations for iconic armour and weapons is one I simply cannot contain my excitement for. 

This does have the knock-on effect of meaning that certain worlds, and their content, will not be available when stored in the vault. Thankfully, Bungie has already compiled a list of locations and provided a map so us Guardians know what to get done before it takes a temporary hiatus. 

When all is said and done, there will, of course, be those people de-crying that “Destiny is a dead game”, but by the evidence from our first real taste of what this summer holds for gaming news, the future couldn’t be looking darker for Destiny, and it’s about time.