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Bungie outlines its plan for ‘Destiny 2’ content through May

Destiny 2 – Expansion I: Curse of Osiris Launch Trailer
Destiny 2 has had a pretty rough last few months. Players who have stuck around since the game launched in September have been voicing their frustrations with Bungie’s lack of consistent new content, and after the underwhelming Curse of Osiris expansion, the pressure is on the studio to right the ship. Bungie has released a “development road map” that looks primed to do that, but players are going to have some waiting to do.

The development road map, which you can view in full on Bungie’s website, first outlines the upcoming additions and changes coming to season 2, which kicked off in December. On February 27, changes are planned for multiplayer strikes and social interactions. These include reworking emblems and auras, unique rewards for Nightfall strikes, a Nightfall scoring system with high-score tracking, and the ability to see fireteam members of the “destination” map before touching down — the Nightfall strike rewards are a “stretch goal” that could release later than February 27.

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On March 27, changes are coming for the competitive Crucible mode as well as “sandbox changes.” The update will introduce six-versus-six Iron Banner multiplayer, walking back Bungie’s previous commitment to keep all competitive modes at eight players total. Changes will also be made to avoid having players repeat the same Crucible maps or strikes multiple times, and there will be quitter penalties for those who quit Crucible matches early.

Season 3 of Destiny 2 will kick off in May, likely alongside the release of the second expansion, and more substantial changes are on their way. The raid lair “Eater of Worlds” will be getting a Prestige difficulty mode, and the game will be adding Exotic Masterworks — these items are currently limited to Legendary. You’ll also have the ability to form private multiplayer matches — a long-awaited feature — and there will be season ranks for Crucible. “Valor” will progress as you complete matches, while “Glory” will go up and down depending on your performance.

Destiny 2‘s most recent update added the ability to earn Masterwork armor in addition to weapons, and it made it more convenient to get raid gear that didn’t drop during your run. The update also added new “raid mods,” which only give bonuses when you’re in the Leviathan.

Destiny 2 is out now for

Xbox One

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PlayStation 4

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PC

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Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Destiny 2 studio Bungie hit by layoffs, internal game delays
A runner runs in Marathon.

Amid a wave of layoffs at Destiny developer and Sony subsidiary Bungie this week, Destiny 2: The Final Shape and Marathon have both reportedly been delayed.
On Monday morning, tweets from developers revealed that Bungie, which was acquired by Sony in January 2022, was suffering layoffs. This was followed up by a report from Bloomberg that went into more detail about the layoffs and their impact on Bungie's future games. Sony and Bungie have not officially commented on the delays yet, although the Bloomberg article mentions that Bungie CEO Pete Parsons will hold a team meeting later today to discuss the layoffs further. This all follows contractor layoffs at Sony studio Naughty Dog earlier this month, which happened as that studio struggles to develop and release a The Last of Us multiplayer game. 

Bloomberg suggests that these layoffs, like others at Sony this year, are tied to internal game delays. While Destiny 2: The Final Shape is publicly slated to come out in February 2024, Bungie reportedly told staff that it's now going to come out in June 2024. Meanwhile, we learned that Bungie's revival of Marathon was apparently targeting a 2024 launch -- although no release window was given officially -- but will now come out sometime in 2025. These delays make the PlayStation 5's 2024 game lineup look pretty sparse right now outside of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and it suggests that Destiny 2's next season will be one of its longest.
As of now, Sony and Bungie have not publicly commented on the layoffs or delays, but we will update this post when they do say more about it.

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What is Marathon? Bungie’s mysterious Destiny 2 follow-up, explained
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This week's PlayStation Showcase featured a lot of surprises, from Square Enix's Foamstars to a full Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake. The biggest shocker, though, came when Bungie's logo flashed on the screen. The developer has been solely focused on the Destiny series for the last decade, so any new announcement would be significant news. For a moment, the sci-fi trailer looked like a teaser for Destiny 3. The truth would be far more surprising when we saw the game's title: Marathon.

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Destiny 2: Lightfall fails to deliver its Avengers: Infinity War moment
A titan wielding a grenade launcher in Destiny 2..

The comparison between Destiny 2: Lightfall and Avengers: Infinity War is immediate from the opening moments of Bungie's latest expansion. There is no more exposition to get through; the Witness, a mythical villain that represents the root of the Darkness that Guardians have fought against for close to a decade, is here, and the Traveler who has given our heroes the Light and their god-like abilities is under direct threat. The stakes couldn't be higher, but Lightfall doesn't live up to that moment.

I'm not drawing connections here that shouldn't be made -- the bombastic opening moments of Lightfall call back Infinity War's unrelenting momentum in its first act. The Traveler is under siege in Lightfall and Guardians are dismantled by a flick of the Witness' wrist, echoing the immediate slaughter brought by the hands of Thanos moments before he arrived on Earth. That feeling is the same; our antagonist is here, and there's nowhere else to run. In the final moments of the campaign, a member of my fireteam even exclaimed, "hey, that's a line from Infinity War."

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