Destiny 2continues to be impressively successful. Bungie’s decision following its separation from Activision to refocus onDestiny 2as a platform, offering seasonal content and larger annual expansions, has borne fruit. However, there’s still an audience of Bungie fans who want the studio to take a more meaningful step forward. They wantDestiny 3. To Bungie’s credit, it’s acknowledging these fans and recently addressed their request. Unfortunately, that message is that Bungie has no plans forDestiny 3, perhaps going out as far as 2026.
The response reportedly comes from Japanese outlet 4gamer in an interview with Bungie design director Jacob Benton. Benton started by reiterating that Bungie’s focus was onDestiny 2and that all of its current plans remained with that focus. Succinctly, Benton stated that there were no plans to leaveDestiny 2behind. He goes on to note that Bungie continues to work on new stories and expansions forDestiny 2, includingThe Witch QueenandLightfall.
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What Benton does explain is a tentative roadmap of Bungie’s current plans forDestiny 2. He mentions thatThe Witch Queenis currently being planned for release in 2022. From there, he refers toLightfallas the next chapter of the game, which is said to be the name ofDestiny 2’s expansion followingThe Witch Queen. Benton doesn’t stop there, however. He saysDestiny 2will likely need another chapter even beyondLightfall. And he makes clear that Bungie wantsDestiny 2to continue being the platform for that story.
IfThe Witch Queenlaunches in 2022 and each subsequent major expansion takes a year or longer to launch, that’s 2024 just in currently plannedDestiny 2content launching optimally. But 2025 won’t be a great option either, because Bungie’s tentatively set out that year as when itsnew IP could launch. Of course, the new IP is being made by a different Bungie team than theDestiny 2crew, but that doesn’t mean Bungie would want to launch something as big asDestiny 3the same year it’s trying to launch a new IP.
So while Benton doesn’t explicitly stateDestiny 3won’t be until at least 2026, or even that it will ever be released at all, it’s somewhat intuitive to see what Bungie’s plans are. It has a story in mind forDestiny 2, including a conclusion. That conclusion is at least as far out as 2024. After that, Bungie has another game that could be launched. It’s at that point that Bungie could start working onDestiny 3, if it chose to.
That said, if Bungie’s still working onDestiny 2expansions through 2024, even 2026 seems early for aDestiny 3. A project the size ofDestiny 3could take several years. Plus,if the new IP is a service-based game, Bungie may want to focus on that for years before revisitingDestiny. The only thing that’s clear aboutDestiny 3is that, right now, it doesn’t even exist.
Destiny 2is currently available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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