Destiny 2 and Bungie are going through some major troubles right now with a 45% drop in revenue, the studio laying off 8% of staff and a major reduction in player rentention. What can Bungie do to stop the rot and turn things around? Well, the Destiny 3 conversation has resurfaced, and this time the context around the topic has significantly changed. Today I’d like to have a closer look at the prospect of Bungie launching Destiny 3, plus have a look at the pros and cons of the potential release.
Here’s a quick recap of the situation with Bungie and Destiny 2. Last week, Bungie laid off around 100 members of staff. At first we thought this was the direct action of Sony, but it later emerged that Bungie was behind the decision due to a 45% miss on their revenue projections, largely due to a falling rate of player retention due to a lacklustre Lightfall expansion and increased compeititon in 2023. Player sentiment is at an all time low, and The Final Shape has been delayed until June 2024.
In the Destiny Community we’re no strangers to diffcult situations with the game. Destiny 2 launched to a major distaster, having removed random rolls and making the game much slower with the introduction of 4v4 PVP. Curse of Osiris was the first expansion released for Destiny 2, and many people look back on that time as the dark days of Destiny 2. Bungie managed to turn things around with a great Forsaken expansion, but then things took a turn for the worse again in Beyond Light with the release of stasis, turning many PVP players off the game for good. The Witch Queen expansion was arguably one of the best expansions in the Destiny 2 era, but all that good will was wasted with the release of Lightfall, and since then the game has been on a serious downturn in player sentiment and retention. October 2023 saw the lowest player count for Destiny 2 in a long, long time and then Bungie were hit with the layoffs.
The Destiny 3 conversation has started up again as a potential way to turn things around. Bungie have come out and said they aren’t going to be making Destiny 3 a couple of times, and Destiny 2 is here to stay. To support that they have invested in engine improvements and have removed then reintroduced upgraded environments. However, given the current situation Bungie finds themselves in, it’s hard to see how they are going to turn player sentiment around and get back to growth. Currently in Destiny 2 we’re seeing smaller, incremental improvements and while Season of the Witch (current season) is largely seen as a successful season, the small improvements over time aren’t likely to dramatically improve player numbers.
Lets have a look at some of the pros and cons of Bungie releasing Destiny 3.
Onboarding
It’s almost impossible for new players to get into the game. Bungie removed the Red War campaign and vaulted much of the first two years of Destiny 2, and introduced a ‘new light’ experience in Beyond Light. This takes roughly an hour to get through and introduces you to the major systems in Destiny 2, however, once you are done with that you’re then placed in the solar system with little direction. I see a lot of reddit posts complaining of the new player experience with players confused with what to do. If Bungie were to develop a Destiny 3 then they could introduce a new player onboarding system and learn from their mistakes in the past.
New saga
Given The Final Shape is the end of the 10 year light vs darkness saga, this feels like the perfect time to kick off a new saga with Destiny 3. The current plan is to have 3 episodes, and then we don’t really know what we are getting after that. Are we getting any more major expansions? Are Bungie planning to continue with episodes indefinitely? If Bungie want to kick off a major new saga in Destiny, then Destiny 3 could be the perfect vehicle to do so. New locations, new enemies, new abilities, new subclasses, this is the major boost we need to help get players back.
Fresh start
For many of us veterans we’ve got a vault full of roughly 550+ weapons, armor and items. At this point I’d welcome a fresh start, a clean break from the vault filled with weapons I never use. I’d also appreciate the chase once again.
Less micro-transactions
Bungie could introduce a new financial model into the game, and have less micro-transactions. Since Witch Queen Bungie has really ramped up the micro-transactions, and this turns players off. Single costmetics can cost between $10-20, which is the same price as a season. If Bungie were to introduce a monthly subscription, I’d be interested, if that meant less in-game micro-transactions and less in the eververse store and more earnable in-game items.
Technology innovations and experiments
Season of the Chosen increased the enemy density, which at the time made the game feel much more alive and seasonal activities more challenging. I’d like to see things like 12 man raids, and 6 person strikes and dungeons. Gambit was a decent innovation back in 2018 with the release of Forsaken, and since then Bungie hasn’t really raised the bar on gameplay innovations.
Next lets have a look at the cons.
Time and cost
If Bungie were to develop Destiny 3, this is going to take time and effort. Since the layoffs they have less people to work on the game, and all resources are focused on the next major expansion or supplying the neverending feed of seasonal content. Not to mention they are developing Marathon, plus another project codenamed Gummiebears. Bungie would need the time and space to develop Destiny 3, and that would take a number of years. In theory they could cut the Destiny 2 team in two; one team to work on the current game and one team to work on the sequel.
Last time it didn’t go well
When Bungie moved from Destiny 1 into Destiny 2, it didn’t go well and it’s worth learning from that experience. At that time Bungie made a lot of changes to the game by making it primary weapon focused, 4v4 PVP, didn’t have half the content that Destiny 1 had, and it didn’t go down well with fans. Forsaken managed to turn things around, or set Destiny 2 in the right direction, but it took a long time and the content was seriously lacking in the first year. Plus Bungie had help back then from Activision with Vicarious Visions.
Bungie said it’s not happening
Bungie have come out and said they are not making Destiny 3, they want to focus on Destiny 2. However, they made this statement when Destiny 2 was performing well, they were in the midst of the success of Witch Queen, and they seemingly had a plan for Lightfall and the Final Shape. I think the context has changed significantly. We have the final chapter coming next, then after that we have episodes, which lead to… what? At the moment we don’t know what the episodes lead to. Bungie have said they want to talk more about their plans for Final Shape and beyond. I am hoping this means another expansion, now most likely in 2025.
Ultimately it would be very challenging to develop Destiny 3. Personally, if they were to develop something like Destiny 3, I would drop the 3 and simply call it Destiny, or give it a tagline like Destiny Infinite or something… the numbered system doesn’t really make sense in the context of the live service model. I would like to see Destiny 3, but do Bungie have the time or the resources to develop that kind of project? We’ll have to wait and see.
As always, let me know what you think.