Destiny 2
While a marker of the Destiny community is always being discontent with some aspect of the game, the rollercoaster ride appears to be at a dip at present, with a number of factors coming together which have resulted in some rather forceful pushback against Bungie.
On the PvE side, many players dislike all the content they’ve lost, four zones, five raids, seven strikes and more, as a part of content vaulting, along with the sunsetting of weapons and armor for those activities.
On the PvP side, frustration is boiling over at Bungie seemingly ignoring the mode and not listening to feedback for months, years even at this point, as Beyond Light arrived without a single new Crucible map, and Stasis seems like a subclass entirely crafted for PvE with little to no thought given to how it might disrupt PvP (and disrupt it, it has).
For me, this is part of a larger issue, and what I see as a fork in the road for Bungie. No “make or break” moments here, but rather, I wanted to talk about the situation we see unfolding here, and where it seems to be leading in the future.
When Bungie left Activision, that opened up many doors, like the game being allowed to go free-to-play, or having Bungie make direct deals to get Destiny on Xbox Game Pass. But it also closed some, as Bungie lost the massive help they were getting from Activision support studios, High Moon and Vicarious Visions, who helped create some of Destiny 2’s most beloved content, from Warmind to Forsaken to Season of Opulence and more.
Destiny 2
One comment that Luke Smith made this past fall still stands out to me, the fact that they lost those studios, and with the current pace of production, he says that it’s unlikely that Destiny will ever make an expansion as big as Forsaken again. This is why Destiny feels like it’s getting smaller. Seasons of the Forge, Drifter and Opulence had more content than Season of the Dawn, Worthy and Arrivals a year later. Beyond Light was bigger than Shadowkeep, but well short of Forsaken, both in terms of size and loot.
Here’s the fork in the road.
Bungie is thriving. Destiny, despite the complaining, is a very healthy game in terms of playbase size and revenue compared to its competition, and that has allowed Bungie to expand immensely. I read a stat that said 25% of all current Bungie employees have never even stepped foot in HQ, because they were all hired during the pandemic, and that number may be even higher now.
But it’s what Bungie does with that success that’s the key here.
They can throw all of that weight into the Destiny franchise, and try to build up a team that can make Forsaken-sized stuff again and keep up with the demands of the playbase for constant, substantive content.
Or they can task teams to make new games. Which is what they are doing.
Blizzard
In short, I think Bungie wants to be Blizzard, Bungie wants to be BioWare, back in the glory days of both studios. They want multiple properties to rely on, rather than focusing on Destiny and Destiny alone, even if those extra hires could be used solely to make Destiny better.
It stands to reason that Bungie has multiple games in the works, though perhaps not all of them may make it to release. The one talked about most frequently is codenamed Matter, and only scarce details are known about it from various job listings, a tone that seems like it could be more lighthearted than Destiny (maybe closer to Overwatch) and something that focuses on multiplayer. My own personal theory is that Bungie is going to try to get back to its PvP roots with a mainly PvP-focused game, though I am expecting something rather unique, and not just another Fortnite or CS:GO clone (though that certainly worked out for Riot and Valorant). But to me, this also explains why Destiny PvP may be taking such an obvious backseat.
The Destiny player in me is sad that Bungie is not using 100% of its considerable hiring power and new resources to bolster the game and make up what it lost when Vicarious Visions and High Moon were severed from it. And yet I can also understand the desire for a company A) not to put all its eggs in a single basket and B) want to grow with new franchises, and not just solely work on a single series for a decade or longer.
But this creates a conflict, because Destiny may continue to fall short of where the playerbase wants it to be if more resources are not devoted to it. It’s possible Bungie gets so big they can do both, manage alternative projects while also bolstering the Destiny team a large amount, but I’m not sure if we’ve seen that in action yet.
Destiny 2
I don’t blame Bungie for choosing to work on new games, but I think players have to understand that yes, this is what’s happening and why Destiny 2 is not as expanding as rapidly as it could, and in some senses, is actively shrinking. Again, this may change as Bungie continues its explosive growth, but I think they will probably be able to manage both Destiny to a certain extent for the indefinite future as their main priority, while also releasing at least one new game, one that I am eager to play, of course, no matter what it is.
It’s a strange time for Destiny as a series, but if things feel slow (and obviously the pandemic hasn’t helped matters), I think there’s a lot to consider about what’s going on here.
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