Bungie revealed its livestream for the new era of Destiny and it was quite a spectacle. Most players across the internet were not prepared for what Bungie revealed. The livestream started with a brief tribute to George Floyd, as well as a short “ViDoc” or Video-Documentary showcasing how Bungie has responded to working from home with the COVID-19 crisis.
To start, Bungie kicked off the reveal with a brief talk from Luke Smith, Game Director and Mark Noseworthy, Project Lead for the game.
A New Era
The stream kicked off with both parties discussing how Destiny has evolved and where it’s going. Through the stream, Smith stated that Bungie is firmly committed to the future of Destiny 2 and future installments coming to the game, as well as stating that a Destiny 3 would require too much unnecessary work to accomplish.
The trailer for Beyond Light, the next fall expansion for Destiny 2, was then shown. Multiple fan-favorite characters were witnessed during the trailer. Eris Morn, whom players had teamed up with last September during the Shadowkeep storyline. The Drifter, a mysterious character that some players allied with during Season of the Drifter and The Stranger, a time-travelling Exo who led players along their initial path during the Destiny 1 vanilla campaign. These three characters converge on Europa amongst an activating Darkness Pyramid ship. Some streamers have stated this feels like Bungie’s version of Avengers: Infinity War, with multiple characters teaming up to understand and combat the upcoming threat. The listed release date was shown to be September 22, 2020.
Luke Smith stated that with the release of Beyond Light, “It is the beginning of a brand new era in Destiny 2.” Part of this new era involves the release of a brand new destination, Europa. Europa, a frozen moon of Jupiter, was teased by Bungie back in 2013 with the initial concept art of Destiny. Through the cinematic trailer and gameplay trailer, we see that this location includes glaciers, frozen cities, a possible entry into another Pyramid ship, etc. Smith and Noseworthy explained how players will face a new enemy, a Fallen warrior named Aramis. Aramis, a character teased in the lore for the Outbreak Perfected mission, Zero Hour, has been gathering Fallen to her side to as Smith states she, “…is a Fallen warrior wielding a brand new power born from a very ancient darkness.” Noseworthy explains that Aramis, “…seeks revenge against the Traveler for scattering her people’s once great Houses to the cosmic winds.”
We see in the trailer multiple kinds of Fallen enemies, including another version of the boss from Scourge of the Past. We also learn from Smith that a new element will be added to the game, Stasis. It will be included not only as a new damage type, but as a new subclass type for all three main classes. Transmog was also repeated as something that the team is currently working on, as well as the fact that if players purchase any DLC content on the current-gen consoles, they will still have them on the next-gen, such as Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X, for free. Bungie is also working on implementing cross-gen crossplay and eventually , “hopefully next year” as stated by Noseworthy, cross-console crossplay.
DCV: Destiny Content Vault
The stream went on to showcase a montage of the biggest moments in Destiny history, from Crota’s End to The Taken King. From Ghaul stealing the Light to Cayde’s death. With this showcase came the announcement from the duo of the next two big expansions, The Witch Queen (2021) and Lightfall (2022), as well as the DCV or Destiny Content Vault.
The DCV is Bungie’s initiative to solve the increasing memory space being taken up by Destiny on consoles. Smith stated, “Each year, just as a new expansion comes out, we’re gonna cycle older, less actively played activity and destination content out of the live game and into what we’re calling the Destiny Content Vault.” With this model, Bungie is hoping to preserve Destiny 2 for future years. In the stream, as well as the blog post released today, every year with the release of a new expansion, certain locations, with all their activities as well, will be removed from the game and replaced with what is left, a new location and refurbished Destiny 1 content. With the release of Beyond Light, the stream showcased that the Cosmodrome of Destiny 1 will return, along with Vault of Glass and the three main strikes of vanilla Destiny. The pan for Bungie seems to indicate that they plan to do this for every year of new expansions, so a possible remastered version of King’s Fall could happen in the future.
Season of Arrivals
The current season that dropped today at 10 A.M. PST, Season of Arrivals, is adding a new public event, Contact. The event, a public space event that features Gambit-style mechanics as well as Champion enemies first featured in Shadowkeep, is shown to be one of the main draws for the summer season. A new dungeon, Prophecy, was teased at the end of the stream and drops today at 5P.M. PST, and features a collection of older Destiny 2 weapons and Trials of the Nine armor, as well as Daito foundry armor, which was originally meant to be the new Eververse set, but this was changed by Bungie after backlash over the Eververse and microtransactions reached a fever-pitch last season. While not much of this seasons’ story is known, it is seen that Eris Morn and the Drifter will play a pivotal in the story and the understanding of the Darkness’ messages, amongst the meddling of the Witch Queen, Savathun.
This livestream can easily be seen as the best stream done by Bungie in the last couple of years and the hype can be seen throughout the community on Reddit, Twitter and Twitch. After the immense letdown that was the Season of the Worthy, Destiny players are looking to the fall expansion, always a success by Bungie, as a savior for their favorite franchise. All eyes will be on Bungie this summer as more information is revealed about this new era in Destiny, with Bungie truly leading this future on their own without the influence, positive or negative, of Activision over them. From one Destiny player to another, the hype train is full-steam ahead and I am most definitely onboard.