The Mysteries Of Destiny 2’s ‘New Era’ Heading Into 2024

Well, it’s January 1, 2024, and I would be remiss if I didn’t, of course, write an article about Destiny 2 on day one here. Not necessarily one packed with complaints, but one that looks ahead to the rather odd year that’s coming.

I think there are a number of open questions about all the content coming out this year as one ten year “era” of Destiny 2 ends and another one is supposed to begin. Kind of. We think. But there is a lot we don’t know that we are waiting to discover.

So, here are some questions I have about 2024, some that I imagine others will share. I’ll try to go in chronological order here.

What is the mid-season “delay content”? – Given that the Final Shape delay happened relatively late, Bungie has no chance to build something as robust as the 30th Anniversary content we got last time, something that I’d argue had a lot of great weapons and a great activity in Dares of Eternity. But now? We are getting something called “Into the Light” which will be released in April and last two months until The Final Shape launch until June. One thing we know about it is that it’s meant to also appeal to new players who want to jump in before the last expansion, which I guess is a group that exists.

But we have zero indication of what type of content it will be, other than something that takes place over a period of time, indicating drops at reset rather than one big thing like the 30th was. It is also unclear right now if it will be free or paid. Free would make sense if it’s less than the last content drop was, and players are mad about being milked for money. Paid would make sense because Bungie…needs money. Delaying a season is a financial loss because you’re not selling the season itself or its battle pass, a fully new slate of Eververse items, any of that. So I would not be shocked if it did cost something, even if everyone will be mad.

How do we actually finish the Witness/Traveler fight? – This is more a mechanical question than a story question. Bungie almost always runs into a bit of an issue when its planning out its storylines and raids. It seems pretty obvious that The Witness would be the raid boss, and yet Bungie often does a thing where say, Savathun is the campaign boss, then someone we didn’t expect like Rhulk is the dungeon boss. But we are out of secret villains, it seems.

The running theory, and one that Bungie has hinted at, is that while we will take on The Witness in the raid, what happens after the raid is some sort of large scale activity that all players can take part in which can end The Witness for good. We don’t know exactly what this means, and some people are dreaming of some sort of wild 12-person activity at last, but I do understand why they’d want a fight that more than the 20-25% of people who raid get to experience.

How are these “Episodes” gonna go? – We are heading into uncharted territory where Bungie is debuting what it believes is a shake-up from a seasonal model that players claim to be tired of. Episodes are larger stories that are not directly connected to each other, and can be played in any order. There’s a Scorn one, a Hive one and a Vex one coming after The Final Shape, presumably a sort of “aftermath” exploration of what happens to those largely Witness-serving groups after its gone. And you know, I’m not sure the Traveler will be sticking around either, so we kind of have to deal with that.

While Episodes are supposed to be more substantive than seasons, as they are longer and will supposedly have more things like full cutscenes, it remains to be seen just how large they are. Part of Destiny 2’s issue has been the need to put out so much content on a quarterly basis, and even if Episodes are bigger, it is entirely possible the sum total of content and development work on three Episodes may be less than four seasons. And that may just need to be how things are going forward, given the situation at Bungie.

Is Bungie going to keep doing yearly expansions? – This is one thing that Bungie has said nothing about. While the Episodes have been announced, and Bungie has talked about a “new saga” after the Light and Darkness one ends in Destiny 2, they have not announced a new expansion for 2025, leading many to wonder if they’re continuing to do them at all.

My answer is yes, they are. They pretty much have to. The reason they have not announced it is because they do not want to take focus off The Final Shape at all, as they really, really need everyone to pre-order than without being distracted about what comes next. And I say they have to because if you stop selling yearly expansions and their $100 yearly bundles, your revenue will plummet, which they can obviously not afford as they won’t even have Marathon out by then, most likely, to start earning. So yes, I believe Bungie will continue to make expansions, though I am most curious about whether they will serve as any sort of true reset for the game to finally allow new players to jump in without feeling totally lost. I have my doubts.

More to come, but that’s what I’ve got for now.

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