With the relative lukewarm response to Marathon, and the strong player turnout for the final Destiny 2 update, Bungie’s new leadership team has unveiled a new path ahead.
In this next chapter for Bungie, its new leadership team is promising greater focus, and putting players first, with them focusing first on Destiny 2, and the high turnout that came for the previously final Destiny 2 update. In their post, Bungie calls Destiny foundational to Bungie’s future, and that they are not done with it. In the video, Head of Product Josh Deane says they want to “return Destiny to its original promise,” with a focus on community. He goes onto say, “that has to start with restoring what is rightfully yours,” referring to vaulted content.
“We’re going to commit to unvaulting the Destiny 2 campaigns, the destinations, the raids, that never should have been ripped away to begin with. They were an essential part of our journey together and definitely a place where we built memories with you all.” — Josh Deane, Bungie Head of Product
This is in direct contrast to how the vaulting process was revealed back in 2020 as necessary due to Destiny 2 becoming too large to effectively manage when they first vaulted a bunch of the content in the game. It also, according to Bungie, won’t be as easy as flicking a switch as the changes to Destiny 2 since the vault was introduced along with the Beylond Light expansion require changes to things like lighting, opponents, systems, and more of the content. The post explains that it will take time, but they feel it is necessary to have it meet the stability and gameplay standards that are of Destiny 2 today, but will allow players to experience the old, previously locked out campaign.
That won’t be the end of things, as it is according to Bungie only the first in a restoration that will “hopefully lay the foundation for how we reforge into new Destiny stories and games that you all deserve, and that we want to create.” This would hint at future updates for Destiny 2, as well as possibly expansions and even a possible Destiny 3 at some point. Deane would elaborate a bit saying, “We need to restore Destiny to a place you can call home again,” as the new studio leads are focused on player experience.
Head of Studio Poria Torkan wasn’t quiet during all of this either, though much of his discussion in the video was focused more on Marathon. He did state clearly that Marathon “isn’t, and never was intended to replace Destiny” something that acquired increase importance as speculation accumulated about them merging the two IPs. Who is going to be working on Destiny 2 isn’t completely clear as earlier layoffs hit most of the team working on the game, but it may be part of why Marathon‘s update was delayed.
