When Bungie announced that it would be holding an announcement stream in Early June detailing the future of Destiny 2, fans were expecting to get an in-depth look at the brand new season, as well as the reveal of this year's major Fall expansion. And while Bungie did reveal those two things, it also went about seven steps further and revealed a three-year content roadmap for Destiny 2, upgrade options for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and a new content vaulting system where activities and locations from Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 will be cycled in and out from season to season, including the return of the iconic The Vault of Glass Raid.
With Bungie stepping away from Activision and transitioning into self-publishing, the studio has plans to not only expand its own portfolio of games beyond Destiny 2 but also move into the publishing business for smaller studios. Bungie's three-year roadmap for Destiny 2 promises a long and bright future for the looter shooter and the studio as a whole, a move that is sure to please long-term fans of the game; however, there's the big question of what that means for the developer's new IP, Matter.
Destiny 2's Expansions: Beyond Light, The Witch Queen, Lightfall
Bungie's vision for the Destiny franchise is to create an action-MMO that would evolve time as one evolving world, a vision that it couldn't fulfill while under contract with Activision. If Activision was still in the picture, the team would be gearing up to release Destiny 3 later this year, but now that Bungie is in full control, the developer doesn't want players to start over. It's made that point clear with the announcement of three new expansions: Beyond Light in September 2020, The Witch Queen in 2021, and finally, Lightfall in 2022.
In the transition to the next-generation of consoles, Destiny 2 will also make the transition and be available free of charge to all existing owners on PlayStation 5 and Xbox One. Each of the new expansions will introduce brand new locations, new enemies, exciting loot, new activities, and of course, four seasons of content to keep invested throughout the year. On top of new expansion content, Bungie has created a system called the Destiny Content Vault which contains everything released in Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 to date and will bring old content back and remove lesser-played content to keep the game fresh from season to season as it did with Trials of Osiris.
Bungie's Next IP: Matter
In September 2019, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons revealed the developer had plans to become a multi-franchise studio by 2025. "We have a pretty specific path to make sure we transform Destiny," he said, "and that we have other franchises within the marketplace by then." The news came a little over a year after the studio obtained $100m in funding from Chinese publisher NetEase, allowing them to split from its publishing contract with Activision, and file a trademark for new IP, Matter.
Bungie has never officially commented on the trademark, but a series of job listings have started painting a picture of what the new franchise could look like. Currently, Bungie is advertising for multiple positions which all specifically state they are for a new IP including an Incubation Art Director, Incubation Investment Designer, and an Incubation Senior/Lead Combat Designer. The advertisements talk about building loot systems, designing a game economy, a necromancer dungeon, fan cosplay, and most notably, "something comedic with lighthearted and whimsical characters." Whatever Matter ends up being, it sounds like Bungie is looking to make something more lighthearted and family-friendly than Destiny.
The Future of Matter
Bungie is a huge studio with more than 600 staff internally, so taking on multiple projects and running with multiple teams isn't too farfetched for a developer of this size. Where it starts to get complicated and potentially spell trouble for Matter is the amount of resources required to create new expansions and multiple seasons each year for Destiny 2. The studio has often struggled with meeting the content demands of the Destiny community, even during its time with Activision when support studios like Vicarious Visions and High Moon Studios were there to help out. And that's to little fault to the studio; live-service games are very difficult to maintain.
The team has already had to scale back its seasonal content since the release of Destiny 2: Shadowkeep after being unable to meet its previous output, and yet again will need to make major tweaks for the oncoming year. Committing to Destiny 2, committing to annualized Fall expansions, and committing to four seasons of content each year is going to take up a significant portion of of the studios' resources, and if either side starts to fall behind, one project will likely suffer at the hands of the other.
Right now, this is pure speculation based on the studio's history, but it's also likely Bungie already has systems in place to manage its future endeavors. Bungie is likely aware of the amount of work for itself and is hopefully finding that happy medium to manage both, which is he biggest question mark here. Matter needs to matter too, lest it just exist in Destiny 2's shadow. It sounds like it'll be awhile before it sees the light of day, probably until 2025 or so. In the meantime, Destiny 2: Beyond Light is right around the corner and it's full of exciting new content including a brand new location and the return of the mysterious Exo Stranger from vanilla Destiny 1.
Destiny 2: Beyond Light launches September 22 on PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the base game are in development.