Skip to main content

Bungie promises big changes ahead for ‘Destiny 2’ in 2018

It’s been over four months since Bungie unleashed Destiny 2 on the world, and it’s fair to say that the response from fans has been a mixed bag. While there was significant praise for the much-anticipated sequel at launch, the game has struggled to keep its audience engaged since then — but now the studio has detailed some of the changes that are in store for 2018.

Game director Christopher Barrett begins a blog post detailing Bungie’s future plans with an explanation of how content will be split between free updates and paid DLC. Seasons are free content drops that will be available to all players, while Expansions will bring new story content, destinations, and gear, alongside new additions to the Crucible, new Strikes, and new Raid Lair content for a price.

Recommended Videos

Barrett then dives into some upcoming tweaks to the Eververse system, which he describes as never having been intended as a substitute for endgame rewards. Content that could previously only be obtained via Bright Engrams will now be added to achievement reward pools, and there’s set to be new methods of earning Bright Engrams via gameplay.

The way that Destiny 2 players earn XP is also set to change, in light of recent controversies. Barrett acknowledges that a previous attempt to do so was “unworkably buggy” and pledges that the next attempt will speed up leveling and remove some of the grind that’s currently present.

The post also details a wealth of new features that are set to drop over coming months. Private matches are coming, as well as two new ranking systems that will help give Crucible matches some long-term progression, new playlists and events, an expansion of the Masterwork system to include armor, and plenty more.

There’s certainly a lot for Destiny 2 players to look forward to in terms of changes to the current game, and Barrett also promises a forthcoming look at the game’s second expansion, which will apparently be unveiled sooner rather than later. The point of this communication is transparency, which is something that the game’s fanbase has spoken out about in the past, but it needs to come to fruition for players to stick around. As Barrett notes in the opening paragraph of the post, everything he’s saying is subject to change.

Brad Jones
Brad is an English-born writer currently splitting his time between Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. You can find him on Twitter…
Ninja Gaiden 2 Black reminds me just how much games have changed
Ryu faces a boss in Ninja Gaiden 2 Black.

I still vividly remember Ninja Gaiden 2’s launch in 2008 even though I never played it. It may be hard to imagine now, but back in the 2000s, Team Ninja’s hack-and-slash series was briefly on the Mount Rushmore of action games (depending on who you talked to). It was praised for its stylish hyperviolence and its extreme challenge, earning Team Ninja the kind of loyal following from action aficionados that FromSoftware would begin to amass as the 2010s rolled around. Its star quickly faded in 2012 after the divisive Ninja Gaiden 3, but I still remember the series as a pillar of the early Xbox age.

It was those decades of memories that buzzed around me as I downloaded Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, a surprise remake revealed and released during this week’s Xbox Developer Direct. After admiring the series from afar for such a long time, I’d finally get to see what made Ninja Gaiden such a foundation action series. Instead, I spent my first hour with it scratching my head. This is the game people made such a big fuss about?

Read more
Stalker 2 gets its first big patch with over 650 bug fixes
Key art for Stalker 2. A character in a lit-up gas mask and a gun on their back.

GSC Game World has released Stalker 2: Heart of Chornobyl's first big patch for PC and Xbox. It has over 650 fixes across the spectrum, including ones that would prevent the player from progressing and fixing an issue where corpses had terrifyingly long limbs.

The studio posted the Patch 1.0.1 patch notes Friday, and there are almost too many fixes to highlight. The lot features fixes to memory leaks and crashes, NPC behavior, movement issues, objectives that couldn't be completed, and physics where objects would just float. There were also problems with character faces where eyes and teeth just looked ... off. Fixes have been released for those, too.

Read more
Destiny: Rising: release speculation, platforms, trailers, gameplay, and more
A giant firefight in Destiny: Rising.

The next chapter in the Destiny saga is approaching, but it isn't in the form most Guardians were expecting. Instead of a proper Destiny 3 from the original developer Bungie, Destiny: Rising was revealed by developer NetEase Games as a free-to-play mobile game. While the mobile market has no doubt come a long way in terms of delivering console-quality experiences — there are plenty of upcoming mobile games on the horizon — Destiny fans are rightly cautious about how the massive live-service formula will translate. Perhaps even more important is the story, which some have invested over 10 years into. Let us act as your Ghost to guide you through all the information you need about Destiny: Rising.

If you're on the lookout for new games on your favorite platform, don't forget to visit our list of upcoming video game release dates or our articles on upcoming PS5 games, upcoming Switch games, upcoming Xbox Series X games and upcoming PC games.
Release date speculation

Read more