The next Destiny 2 expansion will not be released this year. Bungie says it is procrastinating The Witch Queen until 2022, partly due to complications from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Because COVID-19 keeps us away from the office and the large amount of work on our board, we had to reschedule the date to ensure that both the updates and the The Witch Queen were both delivered with the quality we strive for, and on a schedule that made sense for everyone involved, ” wrote Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn. The studio also realized that there was one more chapter to be added after Light fall (the expansion originally planned for 2022) to complete the “first saga of Destiny”.
Bungie was already considering moving the annual expansions to the first half of the year, largely in the interest of “the health of the team.” The impact of COVID-19, along with the complexity of The Witch Queen and other plans the studio has for 2021 apparently made that phone call easier.
On the other hand, Blackburn revealed positive news for it Destiny 2 players in his post. Bungie is. He said the studio will run alpha tests during Season 14 with the goal of rolling out cross-play to everyone when Season 15 kicks off in the fall. The studio will not match PC and console players unless those on PC invite friends from other platforms to work with them.
Starting in Season 14, Bungie returns to an unpopular mechanic it led to Destiny 2 as part of last year (whichever was). The studio brought in a sunsetting system, basically giving every weapon and piece of loot (except exotics) an expiration date, such as notes. It was no longer possible to increase the power of items a year after they were introduced.
The goal was to bring a better balance to the game and prevent certain weapons from being overpowered. Players can still use sunsets for patrols and other activities where power levels don’t matter, but those weapons are much less useful in raids.
“This is a big change for that Destiny and one that we have not taken lightly, ”Blackburn wrote. “However, we believe there is nothing more important in Destiny than getting our rewards right.” Bungie will explore other ways to create “ a fresh and balanced ecosystem for our most ambitious content, ” but it is unlikely that a new plan to do so will be announced until after that. The Witch Queen.
Blackburn touched on a few other points in his lengthy post, including Bungie’s plan to deal with cheaters – it will double the size of its security team this year, to begin with. He also unveiled early concept art (pictured above) for one of the Witch Queen armor sets.