Bungie outlined its vision for the future of Destiny 2 in its “State of Destiny 2” statement on Wednesday. Instead of the third Curse of Osiris preview stream originally scheduled, the dev team revealed several improvements (including new features) that will hit D2 in upcoming patches. Fans usually have to wait a long time for hard data on new Destiny content, but the studio was shockingly detailed in its descriptions of each new addition, many of which already have launch timelines.
The “State of Destiny 2” comes during a period of great upheaval in the Destiny 2 community. Fans were enraged to learn Bungie had been throttling experience gains and that anger only increased when the studio’s “solution” was to raise the experience needed to earn Bright Engrams. That controversy, compounded by simmering unhappiness tied to a litany of D2 criticisms -- from issues with the campaign’s brevity to Bungie’s recently revealed plan to use the Leviathan raid setting throughout Year One -- made it clear the Destiny 2 community didn’t want to see a parade of new exotics this week. Instead, fans demanded answers about the future of a franchise.
Via Bungie’s announcement on Wednesday, changes to D2 will run the gamut. Bungie will implement a new weapons tier, Masterworks, that exists between traditional Legendary equipment and the Exotic gear at the top of the loot hierarchy. Masterwork firearms will have slightly better stats than its Legendary counterparts, along with improved orb generation, re-rollable stat bonuses and the ability to track/display the number of kills. Down the road, Bungie says it also plans to “extend Masterworks to other gear.” However, it’s not clear whether other loot tier(s) will be altered. The dev team will also introduce new Armor Ornaments earned by completing objectives, associated with each armor set, and players will soon be able to purchase faction gear with legendary shards.
Many of the changes mentioned in the “State of Destiny 2” are clearly outlined and it’s easy to see how they’d improve the experience. Xur is even going to be consistently useful in 2018. But the studio was still incredibly vague about its plans for Faction Rallies, the Iron Banner and other endgame content. A promise to “introduce improvements” to the game’s mostly lackluster timed events would mean more if we had even the slightest notion of what that means. Today’s letter to the community would also be more encouraging if Bungie had actually addressed some of the most common criticisms levied against the game, like widespread hatred for the token system.
For more on the changes coming to Destiny 2 in December and 2018, check out the full “State of Destiny 2” post on Bungie.net. And if you’ve already read the complete breakdown, scroll down to the comments and let us know what you think of Bungie’s plans for the future of Destiny 2.
Destiny 2 is currently available on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Be sure to check back with Player.One and follow Scott on Twitter for more Destiny 2 news in 2017 and however long Bungie supports Destiny 2 in the years ahead.
