Loosely organized thoughts from a 10 year veteran on what I believe the current trajectory should be or will be considering all the latest drama.
Change in Service
I want to believe that the end of the seasonal model and the change to episodic is a step in the right direction. How this change actually lands will be a mystery until then.
What bungie does now is only keep the endgame worthy activities from season to season with those loot pools, dungeon-like exotic quests, and playlist activities thrown in PVE playlists in some form. Narrative and story missions (when they exist) are removed from the game before the start of the next year. With the final season of the year always featuring the most content in the game at any other given point in time.
Interestingly enough, when expansions have been delayed, previously with Witch Queen and now Final Shape, the final season of the year runs longer and player sentiments increase. There’s more time to get the most out of all the year’s content and a reduction in FOMO.
When the game moves to an episodic model content will be given a longer stretch of time to breathe. This gives friend groups more time to actually have fun with game and chase everything they could possibly want as they naturally get hyped for the next major expansion.
Another Content Vault
Content curation is necessary. To continuously bloat the game has consequences in thinning out player pools available for any given activity (weekly rotation helps this). You also want the lesser received content sorta parsed out of the game entirely. Older content is also victim to “power creep” and loot losing relevancy as time passes. Quality over quantity. Bungie has the data to see what players don’t care to play and what they love to play.
Then there’s the physical limitations of memory. Players will be less inclined to keep a 200 gig game installed on their hardware to only revisit for a week every three months. Bungie seems to want to keep it closer to 100 gigs and have claimed in the past to be looking at technological solutions to keep older narrative content as it seems endgame activities like raids and dungeons are safer mainstays moving forward. I believe this technological solution is having “retired” expansion campaign data playable thru cloud tech innovations. Only current narrative arcs should be local to hardware.
Then of course there’s asset creation. Destiny 2 is actually quite the beautiful game but it is also a Frankenstein’s monster as year over year improvements to assets, art and lighting leaving older content looking like older content.
This is where Marathon comes into the picture. It is using the Destiny engine or an updated version of that engine as it began to exist with the last upgrade with the Beyond Light expansion. There will be shared engine improvements which ideally would help more efficiently build both games and improve tech for both. Bungie is hiring to accomplish this very goal.
This will not address all presentation woes. Perhaps something more extensive where loot and armor from a certain date is carried forward, be it from Witch Queen (introduction of weapon crafting) or … a bit more ballsy… only the gear earned from Final Shape and the episodes.
I’d also like to add that many weapon types, like 180 handcanons, adaptive smgs, adaptive pulse rifles and other sub categories of weapons useless in PvP be completely removed from the game. (PS - Bows should use special ammo)
Marathon’s influence continued
Rumors/leaks for a Destiny event coming April the 9th have indicated the after Episode 6 of this new content delivery system Destiny will launch its next major story arc in 2026 and also leave last gen PS4 and Xbox consoles behind (wouldn’t be the first time) with the updated engine shared by Marathon. Will it debut with Destiny or Marathon? With dedicated servers be featured for both games?
Marathon itself seems like an evolution of PVEPVP ideas first introduced in the Gambit activity debuting with the Forsaken expansion. Makes sense as many of same leads from Forsaken created Marathon and anyone keeping track of the Bungie rumor mill since the Activision days… it’s fair game to assume (and very likely) that Marathon actually started as Activision’s Destiny 3.
Gambit development is on indefinite hiatus and likely to be deleted in the next year. Marathon effectively replaces gambit with a bigger and better attempt at offering something similar to it. I agree with the removal as it is currently irrelevant and soon to be redundant to even design for.
Extraction vs Arena
Destiny still does the Halo model where all we really want year over year is a fun 8 hour campaign with great soundtrack, a great endgame dungeon or raid and somewhere to shoot other players in the face.
There’s a synergy with pve and arena PvP that is part of the magic and keeps bungie’s pvp divisive yet still loved. And for many of its fans… Destiny’s arena PvP is the meat and potatoes and why we play. To use endgame loot to shoot other players in the face.
Marathon will not do traditional Bungie arena PvP. Battle Royales and Extraction shooters don’t have the same kind frequency in player engagement as an arena shooter. To assume there’s a player overlap in appeal isn’t necessarily true. And now with rumors of Marathon featuring heroes over player created avatars … that’s even less true. I believe both can co exist and actually deliver some friendly and healthy internal competition.
This is one area I won’t offer many suggestions or criticisms on. The current work being done on PvP has been substantial and I hope it continues now that Halo 3 PvP designer Tyson Greene is now Destiny director. I hope they stay the course and looking forward to reserving criticism till their next PvP update and map drop in May.
Monetization… A la carte needs to go
Destiny 1 required owning previous game and expansion content to play the newest. You had to also complete all that content to move to the next.
At the time, when vanilla Destiny 2 and Forsaken content went f2p, moving to an a la carte model, where all you had to do is buy the most recent piece of content and go to stay current actually seemed more consumer friendly. Years later this distribution method has become the game’s worst enemy. Why it’s a mess has been documented in many videos. It is… They need to bundle all older content into a single purchase.
I would go further however with the intention of eventually vaulting all campaign content prior to Witch Queen sooner than later. That content, being Shadowkeep and Beyond Light campaigns, should be f2p as the f2p version offers nothing in story content or much to play at all other than casual playlist for pve and non endgame PvP playlists. It’s a launcher at best as the free to play listing is mostly deceptive and on console also behind PS plus and Xbox Live paywalls.
I would go further than even this considering revenue issues and include both Witch Queen and Lightfall with pre-orders of Final Shape’s deluxe edition including annual pass etc… Although that new vehicle type and ghostbusters bundle seems to have been easy money desperately needed for them from what it looks like.
And one final note… Bungie and Sony are hurting themselves by keeping Destiny behind paywalls when it charges players $100 a year to stay current while their competition, be it Warzone, Apex or Overwatch 2 have access to all PlayStation owners with an internet connection for zero dollars while their own products require an additional paywall.
Change in Service
I want to believe that the end of the seasonal model and the change to episodic is a step in the right direction. How this change actually lands will be a mystery until then.
What bungie does now is only keep the endgame worthy activities from season to season with those loot pools, dungeon-like exotic quests, and playlist activities thrown in PVE playlists in some form. Narrative and story missions (when they exist) are removed from the game before the start of the next year. With the final season of the year always featuring the most content in the game at any other given point in time.
Interestingly enough, when expansions have been delayed, previously with Witch Queen and now Final Shape, the final season of the year runs longer and player sentiments increase. There’s more time to get the most out of all the year’s content and a reduction in FOMO.
When the game moves to an episodic model content will be given a longer stretch of time to breathe. This gives friend groups more time to actually have fun with game and chase everything they could possibly want as they naturally get hyped for the next major expansion.
Another Content Vault
Content curation is necessary. To continuously bloat the game has consequences in thinning out player pools available for any given activity (weekly rotation helps this). You also want the lesser received content sorta parsed out of the game entirely. Older content is also victim to “power creep” and loot losing relevancy as time passes. Quality over quantity. Bungie has the data to see what players don’t care to play and what they love to play.
Then there’s the physical limitations of memory. Players will be less inclined to keep a 200 gig game installed on their hardware to only revisit for a week every three months. Bungie seems to want to keep it closer to 100 gigs and have claimed in the past to be looking at technological solutions to keep older narrative content as it seems endgame activities like raids and dungeons are safer mainstays moving forward. I believe this technological solution is having “retired” expansion campaign data playable thru cloud tech innovations. Only current narrative arcs should be local to hardware.
Then of course there’s asset creation. Destiny 2 is actually quite the beautiful game but it is also a Frankenstein’s monster as year over year improvements to assets, art and lighting leaving older content looking like older content.
This is where Marathon comes into the picture. It is using the Destiny engine or an updated version of that engine as it began to exist with the last upgrade with the Beyond Light expansion. There will be shared engine improvements which ideally would help more efficiently build both games and improve tech for both. Bungie is hiring to accomplish this very goal.
This will not address all presentation woes. Perhaps something more extensive where loot and armor from a certain date is carried forward, be it from Witch Queen (introduction of weapon crafting) or … a bit more ballsy… only the gear earned from Final Shape and the episodes.
I’d also like to add that many weapon types, like 180 handcanons, adaptive smgs, adaptive pulse rifles and other sub categories of weapons useless in PvP be completely removed from the game. (PS - Bows should use special ammo)
Marathon’s influence continued
Rumors/leaks for a Destiny event coming April the 9th have indicated the after Episode 6 of this new content delivery system Destiny will launch its next major story arc in 2026 and also leave last gen PS4 and Xbox consoles behind (wouldn’t be the first time) with the updated engine shared by Marathon. Will it debut with Destiny or Marathon? With dedicated servers be featured for both games?
Marathon itself seems like an evolution of PVEPVP ideas first introduced in the Gambit activity debuting with the Forsaken expansion. Makes sense as many of same leads from Forsaken created Marathon and anyone keeping track of the Bungie rumor mill since the Activision days… it’s fair game to assume (and very likely) that Marathon actually started as Activision’s Destiny 3.
Gambit development is on indefinite hiatus and likely to be deleted in the next year. Marathon effectively replaces gambit with a bigger and better attempt at offering something similar to it. I agree with the removal as it is currently irrelevant and soon to be redundant to even design for.
Extraction vs Arena
Destiny still does the Halo model where all we really want year over year is a fun 8 hour campaign with great soundtrack, a great endgame dungeon or raid and somewhere to shoot other players in the face.
There’s a synergy with pve and arena PvP that is part of the magic and keeps bungie’s pvp divisive yet still loved. And for many of its fans… Destiny’s arena PvP is the meat and potatoes and why we play. To use endgame loot to shoot other players in the face.
Marathon will not do traditional Bungie arena PvP. Battle Royales and Extraction shooters don’t have the same kind frequency in player engagement as an arena shooter. To assume there’s a player overlap in appeal isn’t necessarily true. And now with rumors of Marathon featuring heroes over player created avatars … that’s even less true. I believe both can co exist and actually deliver some friendly and healthy internal competition.
This is one area I won’t offer many suggestions or criticisms on. The current work being done on PvP has been substantial and I hope it continues now that Halo 3 PvP designer Tyson Greene is now Destiny director. I hope they stay the course and looking forward to reserving criticism till their next PvP update and map drop in May.
Monetization… A la carte needs to go
Destiny 1 required owning previous game and expansion content to play the newest. You had to also complete all that content to move to the next.
At the time, when vanilla Destiny 2 and Forsaken content went f2p, moving to an a la carte model, where all you had to do is buy the most recent piece of content and go to stay current actually seemed more consumer friendly. Years later this distribution method has become the game’s worst enemy. Why it’s a mess has been documented in many videos. It is… They need to bundle all older content into a single purchase.
I would go further however with the intention of eventually vaulting all campaign content prior to Witch Queen sooner than later. That content, being Shadowkeep and Beyond Light campaigns, should be f2p as the f2p version offers nothing in story content or much to play at all other than casual playlist for pve and non endgame PvP playlists. It’s a launcher at best as the free to play listing is mostly deceptive and on console also behind PS plus and Xbox Live paywalls.
I would go further than even this considering revenue issues and include both Witch Queen and Lightfall with pre-orders of Final Shape’s deluxe edition including annual pass etc… Although that new vehicle type and ghostbusters bundle seems to have been easy money desperately needed for them from what it looks like.
And one final note… Bungie and Sony are hurting themselves by keeping Destiny behind paywalls when it charges players $100 a year to stay current while their competition, be it Warzone, Apex or Overwatch 2 have access to all PlayStation owners with an internet connection for zero dollars while their own products require an additional paywall.
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