The Future of Destiny 2 in New Frontiers

On the 10th Anniversary of Destiny 1's release, Bungie has revealed snippets of the Franchise's long-term future through New Frontiers. This article takes information from Bungie's New Frontiers blog post and its subsidiary "Portal", "Core Game Activities", "Core Game Rewards", and "Ten Years of Destiny" articles and condenses it down.

There's a lot of new information, from a fully reworked content delivery cycle, a new story-saga, and major changes to dozens of fundamental game systems. There's even some anniversary goodies you can get right now! So, let's get started, shall we?

A Reworked Expansion Cycle

A Word From the Game Director, Tyson Green

Two Expansions Per Year

Starting next Year, Bungie intends to break away from the previous decade's standard of a large annual Expansion. This format has had disadvantages they wish to free themselves from:

• Bungie states that large annual Expansions dominate their development effort.

• Innovation demands development needs to go towards areas of the game that feel impactful to players.
  • The annual Expansion model didn't provide enough room for Bungie to innovate.

Instead, Bungie plans to release a medium-sized Expansion every 6 months. This allows them to:

• Explore a new format of Campaign within every single Expansion.
  • Instead of the usual linear format we've had since Shadowkeep, they're currently prototyping experiences similar to Forsaken's Dreaming City, Metroidvanias, Rougelikes, and even Survival Shooters.

• Bungie feels that they can pursue these innovative changes to their content delivery without compromising on their great storytelling.

4 Seasons to 3 Episodes. Now to 4 (Free) Major Updates Yearly

Destiny 2's community was loud, and I'm certain they were clear. Since Shadowkeep, Seasons have grown stale and The Final Shape's Episodes haven't felt different enough from them.

Alongside a reworked Expansion cycle comes a reworked Seasonal cycle:

• "Major Updates" are to be released every 3 months. This means that Expansions release alongside a Major Update, and in 3 months a standalone Major Update will follow.
  • Seasonal Resets are being tied to Expansion releases, rather than Seasonal Major Updates.

• Content from Major Updates are free, they include:
  • Activities: Strikes, Exotic missions, or entirely new modes like Onslaught
  • Rewards: weapons, armor, Artifact Mods, Exotics, and more
  • New weekly events
  • New features
  • Combat meta and balance updates

Destiny 2's Next Saga Starts With Codename: Apollo

New Frontiers included the reveal of two new Expansions codenamed Apollo and Behemoth, both of these are slated to release in 2025.

A Word From the Narrative Director, Alison Lührs

Apollo's Nonlinear Campaign

Previous Expansions like The Final Shape are linear, meaning they'd have you the experience the story going from pre-determined point to another in a relatively straight line.

Codename: Apollo is being developed to be nonlinear. Bungie claims Apollo's story takes place over dozens of threads that players are free to explore and discover.

Players are going to have the agency to unravel the story in any way or order they'd like, as if it were an investigation. There won't be any timegating or waiting otherwise this time.

A Word on Future Expansions

The "Portal" to Improved Navigation

The Director Problem and Its Solution

Destiny 2's Destination Map - also known as the Director - is by now very crowded. Unwieldy in the hands of experienced players, and confusing in the eyes of anyone with less than expert game knowledge. This is a problem that significantly impacts Destiny 2's infamously bad New-Player-Experience.

According to Bungie, the solution to the Director problem is "The Portal"- which is an internal name that may change - a redesigned interface to access almost all of the game's content. The final product likely similar to the above image.

Portal Categories and Features

Bungie intends to make everything within the Portal worth your while, updating rewards every Season. They state that this is the best path to the highest tiers of Weapons and Armor available, and that any choice you make within it is a valid path to worthwhile rewards.

Activities are being grouped into different categories within the Portal. Here's Bungie's breakdown of them:

• Solo Ops: 1-3 player activities requiring very low time or social commitments. These activities are designed for solo players, yet are still fun with a fireteam, and are easy to pick up and play for a quick session. Solo Ops will also feature a new activity type which will get a deep dive soon. 

• Fireteam Ops: Three-player activities for matchmade or premade groups. Designed for fireteams with more cooperation and coordination, these will feature activities like Strikes, Onslaught, The Coil, and new types in the future. 

• Flashpoint Ops: Six-player activities for matchmade or premade groups. Planned for a future Season, this category will be introduced later next year. It will feature more chaotic six-player combat like Offensives. 

• Pinnacle Ops: Three-player activities featuring some more challenging content, including Dungeons, Exotic missions, and full-length Onslaughts. Pinnacle Ops have an exclusive reward pool to claim, but success is not guaranteed.

• Crucible: A selection of core Crucible playlists for solo players and fireteams, providing an opportunity to test your mettle against other Guardians. An exclusive reward pool is available to claim, with the same depth of tier as other Categories. 

FAQ From The Portal Article

Are old activities going away? 

• No, except for some seasonal activities that are normally removed at the end of a year. Older activities will remain available to launch from the Destination map, just as they are today. 

• Over time, it is our intention to clean up and retire some older activity offerings that are well served by the Portal, such as Vanguard Ops. These have lots of ties to existing content, though, and will need to be moved over gradually. 

What about Gambit? 

• Gambit will remain available from the Destination map but will not be rolled into the Portal Categories at the start of next year. We are still figuring out our plan for this beloved game mode, and we have some ideas ranging from closer integration into the Crucible category to standalone Events that feature it. 

Will Raids and Dungeons be in the Portal?

• Dungeon content will be featured in the Pinnacle Ops Category, with some alterations to support Challenge Customization and Reward Rating.

• Raid content will not initially be present in Portal Categories. The long clear times combined with the wide variation in experiences present some unique challenges that we are still working through. However, we are excited to get this content into the Portal offering in the future.

Deep Diving Into Core Game Activities

Destiny 2's Core Game is made up of always-available ritual activity offerings. These are activities like Strikes, the Crucible, and holiday Events. Going forward, Bungie plans to offer a wider range of these Core Game activities with more variety between them and greater depth through the introduction of Challenge Customization.

The Problem and the Solution of Challenge Customization

Historically, past Destiny Expansion releases and Seasonal Updates have focused on a small and localized offering of newly introduced content with a narrow or nonexistent range of difficulty options.

Years of development like this have left the game's Core Activities stale and mostly without relevant rewards. Bungie plans to change that with new Frontiers systems intended to release with the upcoming "Apollo" Expansion.

Players start by selecting a base difficulty we're familiar with, like Expert and Grandmaster. This applies a baseline difficulty that you can further modify through Challenge Modifiers. These allow you to:

• Introduce new enemy combatant abilities to increase their threat.
• Introduce new combat challenges that change how you play. 
• Provide incentives for changing up your buildcrafting. 
• Raise the Power target for the activity, globally increasing the difficulty. 

Reward Rating

What all Challenge Modifiers have in common is that they work to multiply your teams Reward Rating, a new point-based system that aims to reduce the existing competition between teammates for rewards. The higher your Reward Rating, the higher the quality of dropped Weapons and Armor, and the more numerous the quantity of materials like Enhancement Prisms and Ascendant Shards.

But what about PvP?

Good question!

Bungie doesn't have an answer to this just yet. You can't just add Challenge Modifiers to this or use match score like a metric for Reward Rating... They're committed to figuring this out and will share more once they find a solution.

FAQ from the Core Game Activities Article

What about Expansion activities? 

• Expansion activities, such as story missions or Destination activities, present some unique challenges in how they relate to Power and changing seasons. Our intended outcome is that Expansion content is always a great way to start off a season and will have a path to high-tier weapons and armor, but that progress via Core Game activities will be part of that path.

• Raids and Dungeons released with Expansions still represent a pinnacle challenge for players and will have their own paths to the highest tiers of weapons and armor too. 

Are old activities going away? 

• No, except for some seasonal activities that are normally removed at the end of a year. Older activities will remain available to launch from the Destination map, just as they are today. 

• Over time, it is our intention to clean up and retire some older activity offerings that are well served by the Portal, such as Vanguard Ops. These have lots of ties to existing content, though, and will need to be moved over gradually. 

How does matchmaking work with Challenge Customization? 

• For activities that support matchmaking, like those in Fireteam Ops, matchmaking will be available for some preset difficulties, but using Challenge Customization to enable different Challenge Modifiers will disable matchmaking. 

• While Fireteam Finder may be a good way to pick up some slack here, we also intend to feature higher challenge options on a daily rotation, in activities with active bonus rewards. These activities should have concentrated enough populations to ensure that matchmaking can do a good job setting up good matches with solid connections. 

A Renewed Future of Rewards

Coming as soon as the "Apollo" Expansion is a new tier system for Legendary Weapons and Armor. Tier will dictate properties like stat bonuses, enhanced perks, and other yet-unknown features. For Weapons, this is basically a more dynamic form of (Adept) Weapons.

Higher Tiered equipment is sourced from difficult activities, like those made hard through the Challenge Customization system discussed in the previous section of this article.

Reward Pools & "New Gear"

Gear acquisition sources are being consolidated into a new "Reward Pools" system. While we don't have extensive details or practical examples of this new system, Bungie did provide an outline:

• Reward Pools are complete sets of Weapons and Armor available as rewards from certain activities. While some items are available in multiple different pools, most are in only one.
• All items are available in all Tiers, meaning that you'll be able to get the full set of equipment from the easiest variation of a Reward Pool's activity.

• Core Game Reward Pools will be updated alongside every "Major Update". According to Bungie, these are:
  • Core PVE: Rewards shared among more accessible PVE activities, like Strikes. 
  • Core PVP: Rewards shared among more accessible PVP activities, like Crucible playlists. 
  • Pinnacle PVE: Rewards shared among more intrinsically challenging PVE activities, like Dungeons. 
  • Pinnacle PVP: Rewards shared among more intrinsically challenging PVP activities, like Trials of Osiris. 

• Expansions include two full Reward Pools. One encompassing an Expansion's non-Raid/Dungeon content, and the other being aforementioned Raid/Dungeon content.

"New Gear" is a category of Weapons and Armor newly introduced in the current Season, regardless of source. New Gear is partly visual indicator and partly a consolidation of the Artifact. Future Artifact Mods that applied to Specific Origin Traits will apply to all New Gear instead.

Core Game Rewards Article FAQ

Does New Gear mean old gear is being sunset? 

• No, not at all. Existing gear remains unchanged and ready for use in any activity except those set aside for experimenting with new gear. It can be infused to achieve the same Power as any newly introduced gear. 

• The only specific advantage to using New Gear will be some Artifact synergies, comparable to Origin Trait upgrades found on existing Artifacts. 

Can I still obtain old gear?  

• Absolutely. Exclusive gear will remain available from older activities, such as Raids, Dungeons, or Destinations.  

What’s happening with weapon crafting? 

• Weapon crafting is not going away and will continue to be a way to craft a specific roll of a weapon.

• Our intent is for crafting going forward to provide a catch-up mechanism for rolls you weren't able to nab from the original sources. This may be because that source is no longer available or was gated by lockouts when it was. But ultimately, we want crafting to support the weapon chase, and not replace it. We’ll follow up with more details in a future article. 

Breaking the Ice on Destiny's 10th Anniversary

Destiny 1 launched on September 9th, 2014. It's been a decade and a sequel and dozens of Expansions later.

Celebrate with Bungie by completing objectives throughout the Pale heart and earning the new and also incredibly old "Legend" Title, Seal, and an Armor Set for each class based off of Concept Art for Destiny 1.

More is coming later! They'll reveal more information as "later" approaches, but for now all we're left with is confirmation of a certain Solar Exotic Sniper Rifle with infinitely regenerating ammo coming back in an upcoming dungeon.

Art!

Bungie's partnered with ArtStation to showcase a LOT of art from 67 past and present Bungie Artists from all sorts of different disciplines, each having helped define the worlds of Destiny. See for yourself!

Guardians of Los Angeles, New York City, and London, keep your eyes out for an Art Show coming near you! See their official website for more details.

Summary

Looking for more news on Destiny 2's future within New Frontiers, the "Apollo" Expansion, or have other questions about the game? Then head over to our Discord and select the Destiny 2 role in Channels & Roles to stay up to date with our content development. See you starside, Guardians!

Written by: Xtra37

Reviewed by: Tenkiei