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Bungie Outlines The Road To A ‘New, Forever Destiny‘ Given The Cards It’s Been Dealt After A ‘True Reset Moment’
Destiny 2 has a future again, but what exactly will it look like and how long will it take to manifest? Bungie tried to answer questions like that in a new community update it published this week. The short answer is that much of the sci-fi shooter’s older campaign content won’t be “unvaulted” until sometime in 2028. The long answer is that Bungie wants to make Destiny 2 feel “whole” again, but the road to achieving that will be long, difficult, and hard to predict. If successful, the studio is promising fans “a new, forever Destiny.” Let’s dig into what all this might mean.
“It’s important to know that this is a true reset moment for Bungie, Marathon, and Destiny,” head of product Josh Deane said in the Q&A. “We also know time isn’t our friend; we’re playing from behind with the cards we have and I’m sure we’ll have to take more punches and make some hard decisions along the way.” He basically admitted that things are kind of a mess after the latest mass layoffs, and far from ideal for accomplishing the studio’s new goals. A small team is necessary for exploring and incubating new ideas, but a bigger team would help expedite much of the grunt work involved in trying to rebuild all of Destiny 2‘s older content inside the modern version of the game.
“Knowing both of the above states are true in our current world is the puzzle we’re working through for how we get to our end game, a new, forever Destiny, while rebuilding a relationship with a vibrant community along the way,” Deane said. “So, knowing we are early in incubating our future and actively working on projects to bridge us to that new home, don’t expect us to make a Destiny announcement at the TGA’s this year, or to randomly drop a logo that sets the world on fire right away.”
In the short term, Bungie is currently in “pre-production” on unvaulting the Red War campaign and Destiny 2‘s other legacy content that’s currently inaccessible. The team is aiming to be in full production by February 2027. “From that point we expect full production will be about 12 months to fully complete the porting process,” Deane said. Confirmed pieces coming back to the game include the Red War, Forsaken, Curse of Osiris, and Warmind campaigns; Strikes, Raids, and Raid Lairs from those releases; and Menagerie Activity with reprised rewards.
A second phase of the unvaulting process will look at restoring and refreshing more of the connective tissue for Destiny 2. This means the Free Roam Destinations (Public Events, Lost Sectors, Escalation Protocol, etc.), Seasonal Activities from Sundial (Season 9) to The Coil (Season 23), Raid and Raid Lair Weapon updates, and last but not least, PvP Maps. A third section of content has the potential to be unvaulted but isn’t currently part of the roadmap. That includes overhauling the introductory New Light Experience, bringing back Seasonal Story Missions, Seasonal Hubs (e.g. Eliksni Quarter), and the missing Gambit Map Kell’s Grave from the Forsaken expansion.
It sounds simple when you just list out everything, but Destiny 2 was like a house built over multiple generations. Different sections arrived with different architectural sensibilities and were constructed from different materials. A deep-tissue renovation requires not breaking the past while also integrating it more seamlessly into the present. A simple directory that lists every instance of a mission you can do in the game would technically make the content available again, but it won’t produce the broader experience of magic and mystery that fans want. I know what making Destiny 2 “whole” means in my head, but that version might still be much more ambitious than what the team is currently targeting or even capable of producing at this point.
It sounds like there will be reasons to return to the game before 2028, however. A third section of the community update teased upcoming “celebrations” that sound like they’ll be more extensive than the small event that was originally supposed to be