The last few months has seen Bungie tease plenty of things in the works to continue growing Destiny 2. Full class reworks, an updated vision for Crucible, and more avenues for rewards are just a few of the things players have to look forward to as the studio marches toward the 2022 release of the Witch Queen expansion. However, one of the biggest additions coming is crossplay, which is set to debut when Season 15 begins on August 24, and Bungie has given a fresh outline as to how a new name system will help simplify the cross-platform experience when crossplay launches.
Bungie spoke about the new naming system, titled Bungie Name, as part of the latest This Week at Bungie post. Crossplay is the main focus of the post, outlining how matchmaking will work and limitations being put in place to even the playing field between console and PC players. That said, a large focus was given to the Bungie Name system which will serve as a player's unifying Destiny 2 ID between platforms.
The Bungie Name system is being put in place as a way to address any potential "identity crisis" in game for players already playing on multiple platforms thanks to cross-save. Bungie said it will be a "one-time naming reshuffle" at the start of Season 15 to generate a single name which will serve as a player's ID for Destiny 2 crossplay. The name will consist of the player's "display name" followed by a hash and number ID which will appear on a player's profile regardless of platform.
Bungie said as part of the name reshuffle, all players' names will be filtered to check for any characters which cannot be displayed and any offensive terms. If either are found, they will be removed and the final, edited name will serve as the player's Bungie Name when going into crossplay. Bungie cautioned the end result could be a generic "Guardian[Random Number]" will be created to serve as a player's Bungie Name. The studio added that a name-change feature will not be immediately available and is encouraging anyone with questionable names to change them before Season 15 kicks off.
As mentioned above, the new naming system is another step in Bungie trying to unify the community around Destiny 2 now that platform barriers are coming down. Cross-save was the first step in this when it launched in 2019 ahead of Shadowkeep, effectively kicking off the post-Activision Destiny 2 experience. Simplifying the experience further with a new naming system for the introduction of crossplay makes sense, but it remains to be seen how well it will work once it is out in the wild.
Destiny 2 is currently available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S/X.
Source: Bungie