On June 9, Bungie unveiled Destiny 2’s newest season, Season of Arrivals, as well as the fall expansion, Beyond Light, and some teases for the next three years of the franchise. While the main focus of the stream was on Season of Arrivals and Beyond Light, we still learned a bit about Year 5 and Year 6.
That’s a lot of Destiny 2 to take in, so here’s a distillation of everything we learned.
The Destiny Content Vault
Starting in the fall, Bungie will start taking some content away from players to make room for new spaces. This comes after a year of Bungie telling players it can’t grow the game forever.
In the fall, as Bungie adds Europa to the game in Beyond Light, it will also remove some of Destiny 2’s Year 1 planets — alongside the Leviathan raids and activities. Starting in Beyond Light, players won’t be able to patrol Mars, Mercury, Io, or Titan anymore. However, these planets will not be gone forever. With the studio’s new ability to move things in and out of the game easily, players will lose access to locations for a year or more, and then potentially go back to them in a later expansion — with the spaces evolved and reprised.
Bungie also left players with an exciting announcement: the beloved Vault of Glass raid — the first raid in Destiny history — will return sometime in Year 4. Players will also be able to revisit the Cosmodrome location this fall, and play all three of the Cosmodrome’s old Strikes by the end of the year.
Destiny 2 game director Luke Smith told Polygon that the Destiny Content Vault isn’t just a Destiny 2 Content Vault, it’s a vault of everything the team has done in the franchise, all of which now has the potential to come back. But Smith was clear that the next three years will take players to new locations, even if it also offers old spaces and activities.
Destiny 2: Beyond Light — Year 4
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Beyond Light is the first expansion in Destiny’s new era — which seems to start with the war against the Darkness. Players will work alongside The Drifter, Eris Morn, and the Exo Stranger to understand the Darkness better, and even acquire some of its powers.
Guardians will venture to Europa and race against Eramis and her army of Fallen to attain this new strength. The members Eramis’ house will serve as the primary antagonists for Beyond Light.
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen — Year 5
Bungie didn’t talk much about the two expansions after Year 4, outside of giving players a title. But unlike Year 6, The Witch Queen title tells us quite a bit about 2021’s expansion.
The Witch Queen is the subtitle for Savathun, the trickster sister of Oryx — Destiny’s main antagonist in the series’ first expansion. This title even bears a similar name to the Oryx expansion, The Taken King. The title alone suggests players will likely spend 2021 hunting down Savathun and ending her once and for all.
Destiny 2: Lightfall— Year 6
Aside from the title, we know almost nothing about where players can expect Destiny 2 to go in Year 6. However, Lightfall suggests players may finally lose out to the Darkness.
Bungie will launch Destiny 2: Beyond Light for Google Stadia, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows PC on Sept. 22. Next-generation versions of Destiny 2 and Beyond Light will launch on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X later this year.
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