Which side are you on?
During a livestream yesterday afternoon, Bungie unveiled Destiny 2's next big expansion, Beyond Light, which will launch September 22nd this year, alongside plans for the games future.
The new expansion dubbed Beyond Light, will introduce a variety of new additions to the game, including the new explorable location of Europa, a frozen tundra that's full of areas to explore and secrets to uncover; as well as new enemies to face. This expansion also promises to uncover the truth behind the games long foreshadowed evil, the Darkness, who's arrival has been teased since the release of last year's expansion, Shadowkeep. The expansion will allow players to wield the power of the Darkness for the first time, adding a brand new subclass to all existing classes; and for the first time since Destiny's inception, introduce a new element type to the game called Stasis. This new element will not only be attributed to the new subclasses, but also weapons, joining the Solar, Arc and Void weapon types already in the game.
The expansions story will have players face off against a new faction of the games classic enemies, The Fallen, led by the expansions antagonist, Eramis, who seeks to unite The Fallen under one banner, and get revenge on the Traveller; and will probably be more than happy to kill a few guardians along the way. Game Director, Luke Smith, also hinted that these Fallen may be slightly different than usual, and that Eramis in particular, may have a few tricks up her sleeve:
"As a player, you're going to face Eramis, a Fallen warrior wielding a brand new power, born from a very ancient darkness."
The story will also feature known and old characters alike, including Eris Morn, The Drifter and perhaps the most interesting, The Exo Stranger, last seen during the story of the original Destiny. For many in the community this is big, as the Stranger has been a character dearly missed by players following her apparent disappearance way back in 2014.
This new expansion wasn't the only thing discussed during Bungie's livestream though, as both Destiny 2 General Manager, Mark Noseworthy, and Luke Smith, revealed the developers plans for the game going ahead:
"Though we're excited about what we're delivering this fall, we did say that Destiny 2 Beyond Light was the beginning of a new era"
"We're thinking about Destiny beyond just any given year, and thinking about it over time."
With this, they showed what the games future will look like, notably, the games next two expansions; The Witch Queen, coming 2021, and Lightfall, coming 2022. These next two expansions, along with this years Beyond Light, are said to be part of a larger story that Bungie have planned for players, promising twists, turns and the upkeep and continuing evolution of Destiny 2 as a whole.
"We are all in on Destiny 2" said Mark Noseworthy.
"We don't want to start over from scratch, and build a sequel."
However, they added to this saying that because of this continued support for the game, they plan to introduce a new system called the Destiny Content Vault, which they plan to use as a way of ensuring the games file size isn't too large, and allowing them to deliver these new expansions without fuss. To do this, some older content in the game will be removed, and placed in this vault, clearing space for new content, but also the return of older content too.
On stream, they discussed how they want to bring back some fan favourite, and classic elements from the original Destiny, into Destiny 2, starting this Fall with the return of the explorable location of the Cosmodrome, along with its original strike activities first seen back in 2014. Additionally, players can also look forward to the return of Destiny's first ever raid activity, The Vault of Glass, updated for Destiny 2, coming some time during the games year 4 content window.
With next-gen consoles coming out this year, players who already own and will own Beyond Light on current consoles, will have all their content waiting for them, free of charge, should they upgrade to the next-gen version of the console platform they made the purchase on.
If you can't wait for Beyond Light's release, you can jump on Destiny 2 right now and partake in the new Season of Arrivals, which is serving as a prelude to the upcoming expansion. This new season adds a variety of new features, including a new dungeon activity available free for all players, as well as a new public activity called Contact, where players will fight off waves of enemies while collecting motes of dark for The Drifter. Players will also get the opportunity to earn new armour sets and weapons during the season.
Whether you are excited or not, Bungie has set out a grand vision for Destiny 2, one that I hope will not only deliver an exciting and memorable experience for all players, but also attract new ones too. The future of Destiny is looking bright, even with all the Darkness.
Destiny 2: Beyond Light is available now for pre-order on Xbox One, Playstation 4 and PC.