All Expansions Canceled, Maintenance Mode Incoming
The dying of Destiny and its sequel have been significantly exaggerated at factors over the past decade, however now? The invoice has come due. Bungie announced today that Destiny 2 as we all know it would not exist, its future expansions canceled, and the sport successfully put into upkeep mode, all of this coming after a six-month content material hole that had gamers on edge, one thing like this can be coming. Well, right here it’s.
The sport will obtain a handful of ultimate updates this June, extra tiered loot, a ultimate Moments of Triumph and, after a few years, Sparrow racing. But that is it. Nothing extra, exterior of a tease of us shall be “the first to know” if there’s extra Destiny information. A sequel or something prefer it was not introduced.
It is an enormously maddening state of affairs for a lot of Destiny followers, the place a sequence they’ve sunk tons of or typically 1000’s of hours into was badly mismanaged when it reached the top of its “Light and Darkness” period, at a time when the sport was hitting lifetime peaks as lately as two years in the past. Its slimmed-down plans have gone disastrously, the sport unable to even get a full 12 months of diminished content material out with two small expansions and two smaller main updates, ensuing on this most up-to-date yawning content material hole.
Past that, a number of anger is directed towards Marathon, which has taken tons of of builders away from Destiny 2, which has very clearly suffered badly for it. The extraction shooter had an underwhelming, below-expectations launch, and on the finish of its very first season, is already placing up numbers effectively under Destiny 2’s even with that sport in the course of its worst content material drought in historical past. There shall be many accusations that Marathon killed Destiny. It’s extra sophisticated than that, however sure, the shift in focus was positively an unlimited issue.
It’s not clear that persevering with on Destiny 2 eternally was even the right transfer, nevertheless. Rather, there was a push for this to have technically occurred earlierthe saga reaching its pure conclusion on the climax of The Final Shape. The hope was as an alternative that Bungie would get busy on the one factor that appeared prone to stick with it the franchise sooner or later, a full-on Destiny 3. Despite some rumored rumblings, there has by no means been any affirmation that is occurred, nor does it appear seemingly that after rounds of layoffs and drastic reallocation to Marathon, there would even be sufficient individuals round to make that in any respect. And that will be 4-5 years away in any case, and Sony has not precisely proven the form of persistence that would appear to permit for that kind of factor.
What occurs from right here is probably going very dangerous for Bungie. With no Destiny 2 content material coming previous this gentle replace, it appears very seemingly the studio will shift to Marathon, a sport that has but to point out any indication it may well drastically flip round its personal fortunes, so some degree of layoffs appears seemingly. Sony was even shedding Bungie workers when Destiny was placing up file numbers, so now? You can think about what’s coming.
Best case, no less than some extra devs transfer to Marathon and maybe others are absorbed into Sony for brand new tasks, like we have seen with the current, nascent Gummy Bears tasks, now official underneath Sony. Sony has taken impairment losses towards Bungie to the tune of $765 million thus far, though even with that, it nonetheless values it at as a $2.9 billion asset. It’s arduous to imagine that it’s in any respect grounded in actuality primarily based on the place we are actually.
While in recent times, there was a chorus from outsiders of “people still playing Destiny?” the reply, earlier than this final 12 months, was a convincing sure. Destiny and Destiny 2 stay two of essentially the most profitable live-service video games in historical past, spawning many imitators that attempted and didn’t emulate its success (though one in every of its largest opponents, Warframe, is as robust as ever, determining easy methods to proceed to thrive as Destiny’s dropped). It is the top of an period and genuinely unhappy for gamers who simply wished one thing, something to do of their favourite sport, and located a void the place content material was.
What occurs subsequent is not totally clear but. The deliberate “midseason update” drop gamers have been ready to listen to about for months continues to be taking place, nevertheless it’s primarily high quality of life upgrades and shock, reprisals of previous content material. It’s to not say nothing new is ever coming to Destiny once more in any capability, but when the period of expansions and seasons is totally over, it is not clear why virtually anybody would stick round, and we have already hit file low participant counts for months earlier than at present even occurred.
I’m actually unhappy. Destiny has been the literal cornerstone of my complete profession, and I’d not be the place I’m with out it. I’ve written no less than a thousand articles concerning the sport, its ins and outs, its issues (many, many issues), its victories and the whole lot in between. There’s nothing to fill this hole in my gaming life, actually not Marathon, and I’m in truth fairly offended at how all this has been dealt with underneath the newest Bungie administration, and the way the previous leaders virtually fleeced Sony with the overvalued sale earlier than dancing out themselves.
Bungie won’t be the identical after this. Not even shut. I feel it would live on, therefore Sony’s it is still-worth-a-lot-to-us valuation, however it will get smaller, and it will be centered on a sport that would seem to have much less potential than even the twelfth 12 months of Destiny would have. Ironically, with pure PvE and PvP modes on the way in which, it seems Marathon is making an attempt to change into…extra like Destiny, with a view to appeal to these gamers. But it doesn’t matter what, it won’t be the identical.
Destiny may have ended with a Final Shape bang and regrouped to convey us the sequel it deserved. Instead, it has slowly melted into nothingness, and at finest, it would exist as a mere shadow of itself. It deserved higher than this. So did its builders. So did its gamers.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
