Destiny 2 post-launch content will be more regular thanks to Activision’s support studios

As much as I love Destiny, it’s not the kind of relationship that has me blind to some of its more glaring flaws that it developed over its initial three-year run. A rubbish in-game story and a confusing system for growing your Guardian’s power may be forgivable, but a lack of content certainly wasn’t. That’s Destiny’s greatest sin, as the end result may have been thoroughly enjoyable despite its faults. If you were patient enough to wait for new content to pop up that is.

It’s that very drought of content that developer Bungie and its parent company Activision want to avoid for Destiny 2, a promise that’ll have them chucking plenty of their considerable resources at the sequel in an attempt to keep that franchise populated between the months of expansions that are on the horizon. “I have not been happy with the cadence [of new content]. We got a lot right with Destiny 1, but one of the things we didn’t do was keep up with the demand for new content,” Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg said to GI.Biz.

I feel like that, as great as The Dark Below, House of Wolves, The Taken King and Rise of Iron all are, clearly there was appetite for more.

Specifically an appetite for player-versus-enemy content I’d imagine. It’s certainly something that I wanted more of, as the Crucible was a limited appeal event to me due to my laggy connection and that arena being populated by people whose reflexes were too good. PvP fans got plenty of that content with Destiny, having monthly Iron Banner tournaments and Trials of Osiris events on the weekend to keep them invested in Destiny. Also, Sparrow Racing League stuff. Man I miss that.

PvE players got…an April update. That’s about the gist of it really, as the bulk of the PvE content was reserved for the expansions. Activision’s solution then, is to flex their considerable support studio muscle to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.

“One of the things you’ll see post the launch of Destiny 2, is that we have got additional AAA developers from inside the Activision ecosystem working with Bungie on Destiny content, including Vicarious Visions and High Moon. That will allow us to keep an even more robust pipeline of content in the ecosystem,” Hirshberg explained, adding in how Destiny 2’s potential longer lifespan could be used to introduce new ideas usually reserved for annual releases such as the Call of Duty games that are out every year.

Destiny 2 is a sequel, a hard reset, and that choice was not a casual decision. It was something we really debated, because if you are in a persistent universe, then obviously people’s investment continues to have value in perpetuity. However, it can also become intimidating for new players to join.

I think that in terms of extra content, I’m not expecting new weekly story quests (that would be superb though), but rather a sense of mystery. Take the SIVA mystery from Rise of Iron or the Sleeper Simulant surprise quest that popped up in 2015. Missions that were present, but unlocked and had the entire community racing to solve them to earn new rewards.

Content like that, out of the blue but on a regular basis, would make me happier than a Titan with unlimited Void bubbles. Activision has quite a few studios to throw at Destiny 2, with High Moon, in particular, doing some solid support work over the last two years for the series. Hard workers, solid direction and regular content. That alone would make Destiny 2 a tempting sequel to jump into.

Last Updated: July 4, 2017