We’re approaching the end of 2023, so it’s a good time to look back at the year. An optimist might say, it’s not really gone to plan, although a realist might say it’s been an absolute disaster and a year to forget for Destiny 2. Today I’m going to try and cover all the major beats for Destiny 2 2023 in review.
It’s been a hectic 12 months, more so than other years and we’re going into 2024 with a very long season ahead of us given The Final Shape’s delay. But I’ll get to that later, lets dive back in time like the Vex and look at 2023 in review for Destiny 2.
Lightfall
Lightfall seems like a long time ago now, all the way back in February 2023. We’d just come out of a good season, Season of the Seraph was the end of the story for the Warmind, and one of Destiny 2’s best narrative seasons yet.
Turning for a moment to the positives of the Lightfall Campaign. The gameplay is good, Strand feels great and there’s a good variety of encounters. The initial cut scenes in the campaign are also great; The Witness feels dangerous, and there’s an Avengers Endgame feel to seeing Zavala, Mara and the gang on the ship looking out into space. The Traveler attacking the Pyramid Fleet is welcome… This huge static ball has been in our skies for 6 years, baring moving even though it’s called The Traveler. Seeing it go out to meet the Witness and the Pyramid Fleet was great, and go on the offensive for once.
Unfortunately, that’s where the positives end for me when it comes to the Lightfall campaign. Everything was very condensed. I haven’t had the time to build up an emotional connection with the Cloudstriders, therefore Rohan’s death fell very flat. Tonally, Nimbus doesn’t feel like a well written character, he seems to get over Rohan’s death far too quickly.
Then we have The Veil. We’re told fairly early on about The Veil, but we’re not told about what it is, or what is does and why it’s important. I understand over the months of Lightfall we’re going to get more information related to The Veil, but to introduce something like this so late on in the saga, and then not resolve it through this campaign just feels bad. Then we have references to The Radial Mast and the Veil is connected to The Black Heart from The Black Garden, tying it all back to Destiny 1. This story feels like Destiny 1… confused, and it feels like it’s been quickly written. Then post campaign we have Zavala and Ikora saying The Traveller is gone, when I though it was still there, but The Witness has cut a portal into it and stepped into it.
Lightfall’s campaign felt like a disperate set of ideas that were barely held together with a very thin campaign. Too much emphasis on Strand, not enough story development with The Witness and Calus. By far the best moments of the campaign were with The Witness and Calus. Calus clearly is just a pawn to the used by The Witness, which in itself is disappointing.
Strand, by comparison was a positive. It came into the game in a much better state than stasis, with Bungie spending much of the year following Beyond Light fixing Destiny 2, and driving away many top pvp players in the process. Strand was different, it gave up the grapple, and season over season we;ve had weapons and aspects and fragments added to really bring Strand to life. While the story was weak (we literally found it in an alleyway on Neptune), the gameplay was great.
Seasons
Seaons following Lightfall have been mixed. Season of Defiance released alongside Lightfall and didn’t keep me engaged, Season of the Deep introducing fishing, plus a lacklustre dungeon, but a very good exotic mission. Season of the Witch stepped things up a notch with Eris taking centre stage with Savathun, then we have Season of the Wish. Ultimately we’re trying to figure out how to get into the Pale Heart of the Traveler, and follow The Witness so we can finish the fight.
The Veil weekly story missions triued to right the wrongs of the Lightfall campaign, but the slow dripfed story beats have become tired. The seasonal model is showing its age, with it’s weekly story missions keeping us engaged for about an hour, but hopping all over th eplace, speaking to the seasonal NPC, doing the seasonal activity, going back to speak to an NPC, then the terminal, then the activity again. We’re rich in activities, but we’re tired of the gameplay loop. While the gameplay is still top quality from Bungie, the seasonal model needs shaking up, and the core playlists need some love as we’ve been playing the strikes and PVP maps for nearly 10 years. Overall, I’d say the first two seasons of Lightfall were a let down, but Witch and Wish have got things back up there to a decent level. However, Wish is going to have to sustain us for a little while longer yet, due to The Final Shape Delay.
Showcase
The showcase took place in August 2023. It seemed to be well received, but shortly after the backlash started, with less fans than normal preordering copies of the Final Shape. Normally the showcase would be the place where Bungie would bring the hype, but this year it felt a little flat. They talked about The Final Shape, Season of the Witch, plus the next steps for the Destiny 2 story, Episodes. Bungie are doing away with 4 seasons per year and moving to a 3 episode structure, which will have more stand alone stories, as Bungie looks to introduce a new saga following the end of the light and darkness saga with The Final Shape.
Craftening
This was one of the highlights from 2023 in Destiny 2 for me, even though it was a bug. But this was the mother of all bugs. Word started to spead of this issue on 15 September, which Cheeseforever (a well known Destiny 2 glitch hunter) making a series of videos. It started with exotic weapons, specifically Dead Messenger, with people taking the Exotic perk Trinary Vision and placing it on legendary weapons. Things then ramped up a notch when players figured out how to apply an aggressive shotgun frame to auto rifles, which essentially would dish out shotgun level of damage on an Auto Rifle rate of fire weapons.
Once word got out the Destiny 2 community got to work to find the most deadly, damage inducing combinations. Grandmaster Nightfalls were a breeze, the recently added Crota’s End Raid was being beaten in record time with Guardians absolutely melting Crota at the end of the raid in double quick time.
Trials of Osiris went live around a similar time the news started to spread like wildfire and many expected Bungie to cancel Trials. Many people had been looking forward to Trials last weekend because it had recently 2 weeks off, plus the Igenous Hammer was returning. However, Guardians soon realised, this was much more fun, and everyone waiting with baited breath to see what Bungie would do.
Bungie then confirmed there would be no rollback. This meant players could keep the loot they earned. For example, many Guardians had been farming Grandmaster Nightfalls for their god roll Warden’s Law, others has been farming Dungeons for artifice armor, plus more Guardians had been farming raid bosses for exotic loot. The fact the game wasn’t going to be rolled back meant we’d get to keep everything.
Layoffs and missed revenue targets
Bungie laid off 8% of staff in October. As well as the layoffs, Jason Schreier also confirmed The Final Shape has been delayed from February 2024 to June 2024 (still yet to be confimed by Bungie).
The effect of this delay to June 2024, means our final season in the Lightfall DLC is going to be 7 long months, plus that pushes back the start of the episodes narrative framework. Delays aren’t neccessarily bad, it means Bungie has had a hard look at the content and said that isn’t good enough, or it isn’t ready, therefore it needs more time.
According to another report from Jason Schreier at Bloomberg, revenue is down 45% against projections for the year. Bungie’s CEO Pete Parsons put the poor performance down to poor player rentention following a lacklustre major expansion in Lightfall, and less than expected pre-orders for The Final Shape, the upcoming DLC, which is also the final expansion of the light vs darkness saga. Bungie staff were told player sentiment is at an all time low, which had been flagged to leadership in the months leading up to the layoffs. Staff wanted to turn things around and work on features to bring back Destiny 2 fans.
At the time of writing player numbers are at an all time low with average players at 32,000 over the last 30 days, comapred to a high in March 2023 of 135,102. Thing have been on steady decline since the start of this year, which puts an emphasis on Season of the Wish and Bungie needing to pull an absolute blinder to recover for The Final Shape.
Final Shape Delay
This was released on Nov 27, 2023.
Hey everyone. We’ll keep it short and simple. The Final Shape needs more time to become exactly what we want it to be, so we’re moving its release date to June 4, 2024.
The Final Shape is the culmination of the first ten years of Destiny storytelling and, for Guardians everywhere, countless hours spent together. We want to honor that journey, so we’re taking the time we need to deliver an even bigger and bolder vision, one that we hope will be remembered and treasured for years to come.
Naturally, this change brings up questions about our upcoming release calendar. Season of the Wish begins tomorrow and will extend until the launch of The Final Shape in June. While the majority of content and narrative for Season of the Wish will run from late November to February as originally planned, the team is adding new content available for all players to jump into until the launch of The Final Shape.
In February, this will include new weekly progression-based quests called Wishes, and the launch of Moments of Triumph with unique rewards. Next, we’re moving Guardian Games up to March with a refreshed focus on class vs. class competition. Then, beginning in April, we’re delivering a two-month content update available to everyone called Destiny 2: Into the Light, which will prepare players for their Guardian’s journey into the Traveler. All of this is in addition to the ongoing efforts from our PvP Strike Team, including three new PvP maps dropping in May.
We know you’re eager to get your hands on The Final Shape. In that sense, delays aren’t fun. For our part, we are excited to have the extra time needed to bring our vision for The Final Shape to life for all of you. We’re looking forward to sharing much more in April, including all-new gameplay, to showcase the significant content additions currently in development.
It’s been a year of ups and downs. Ups – gameplay, some good seasons, some good exotic quests. Downs – pretty much everything else, especially the player count and player sentiment.
Personally, I’m optimistic about the future of Destiny 2. A delayed Final Shape means Bungie want to nail it, and they’ve been in this position before with their backs against the wall. The interesting thing will be watching Sony in 2024, and how much good will they will extend to Bungie. If the Final Shape bangs, then the future could be bright. If the Final Shape flops and then we have lacklustre Episodes, things could be very different. Bungie will their backs against the wall tend to perform well and pull one out of the bag, but this time its a tall order. However, I’m rooting for them, and look forward to what 2024 brings in and outside the game.
Finally, I’d like to wish you a happy new year as we say goodbye to 2023, and ahead to 2024. Thanks for watching everything this year, I have plenty more planned for 2024, and look forward to that journey with you all. Happy new year and wishing you a very successful 2024 and beyond.
Let me know in the comments what you think.
