Sources: Destiny 2 also dropping on PC, will be “totally new game”
We all know Destiny 2 is happening. Now we (sort of) know that it’s also going to be happening on PC. I can’t wait for the title, since all Bungie has done since dropping the initial installment is improve upon their franchise.
Destiny 2, the currently unannounced 2017 sequel to Destiny, is coming to PC in addition to Xbox One and PS4, according to several sources. The first game was exclusive to consoles, much to the dismay of Destiny fans with beefy computers. We also hear that Bungie aims to make Destiny 2 feel like an entirely new game rather than a Taken King-style expansion—even if that means leaving old characters behind.
The PC rumor first popped up on NeoGAF today. This afternoon, a GAF poster named benny_a wrote that a friend at Activision had told him that Destiny’s much-anticipated sequel will indeed be on PC. The publisher informed employees about the news during an internal presentation today, according to benny_a. He added another interesting tidbit: that the Activision-owned studio Vicarious Visions is also helping out on Destiny 2. Although that isn’t public knowledge, I had heard the same thing a few weeks ago, which adds credence to benny_a’s report.
Earlier this year, I’d also heard from a person familiar with Bungie’s plans that Destiny 2, which is currently slated for a late 2017 release, will be on PC. This isn’t a shocker. Releasing Destiny’s sequel on PC will give Bungie access to a giant new potential audience, one that wasn’t around for the first game. Ditching last-gen consoles, which Bungie has already done for the recently released Rise of Iron expansion, ensures that they no longer have to worry about antiquated memory restrictions.
Over the past few months, I’ve heard that Bungie’s leadership wants Destiny 2 to feel like a proper sequel, even if that means leaving old planets, characters, and activities behind. In conversations with me, people connected to Bungie have made comparisons to Blizzard’s Diablo 2, which iterated on the first game in some incredible ways but didn’t carry over characters or content from Diablo. I don’t know exactly how much will change in Destiny 2, but all signs point to the developers starting from scratch. “D2 is a completely different game,” said one person familiar with development. “The Taken King was a reboot for Destiny 1 to fix small things. This is the overhaul to fix big things.”
One of the terms we’ll be hearing often with Destiny 2, according to sources, is “play-in destinations”—a new activity model that will revamp how Destiny’s world functions. The plan, from what I’ve heard, is for Destiny 2’s planet areas to feel more populated with towns, outposts, and quests that are more interesting than the patrol missions you can get in Destiny.
Assuming Destiny 2 won’t let players carry over their old characters, Bungie will likely offer something to players who have poured hundreds of hours into the first game. (Last I heard, Bungie has not yet finalized these decisions.)
In April, according to several sources, Bungie had a staff reorganization. During this process, The Taken King director Luke Smith and executive producer Mark Noseworthy became, respectively, director and executive producer of Destiny 2. They rebooted the story that had been written up to that point. A number of veteran Bungie staffers also left the studio around that time. Some went to big companies; others moved into indie development.