Destiny 3 may never happen, here’s why

Instead of releasing Destiny 3, Bungie will build on Destiny 2.

Bungie has no plans to develop and release Destiny 3 — at least not any time soon. In revealing Destiny 2‘s next expansion, Beyond Light, which releases this fall, the developer also laid out the vision for the franchise’s future. It includes at least two more expansions for Destiny 2; The Witch Queen in 2021 and Lightfall (working title) in 2022.

In talking about “building a viable future” for the franchise, Bungie laid it all out very bluntly. They don’t want to repeat the same mistakes they made in the past.

"With Destiny 1, we solved the “ever expanding, exponential complexity” problem by making a sequel in Destiny 2. We left behind all of Destiny 1’s content and many of the features players grew to love. We believe now that it was a mistake to create a situation that fractured the community, reset player progress, and set the player experience back in ways that took us a full year to recover from and repair. It’s a mistake we don’t want to repeat by making a Destiny 3."

As of right now, there seem to be no plans to develop Destiny 3, at least not until well beyond 2022. Instead, Bungie will continue to expand upon and grow Destiny 2 with annual expansions. And with the newly announced Destiny Content Vault, Bungie will be able to push out newer content more regularly, ensuring Destiny 2 continues to evolve without becoming too cumbersome.

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It’s a development cycle we often see with MMOs and free-to-play games, which makes sense considering Destiny 2 was originally marketed as an MMO and the core experience is offered for free. Right now, with the free version, you get access to all of Destiny 2‘s year one content including its two expansions, Curse of Osiris and Warmind.

Bungie’s new approach to Destiny 2 reminds me of Digital Extremes and Warframe. That game is completely free to play and introduces new content regularly for free. Unlike Destiny, however, there is no vault, so you can experience all of the original content from when the game first launched. Obviously, Bungie is unable to do that due to the way in which Destiny 2 was probably developed, but the DCV seems to be the next best option.

Admittedly, I haven’t played Destiny 2 for quite some time now. I was hoping with the release of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 this year, we would get a Destiny 3. But I can imagine those who have sunk hundreds of hours into Destiny 2 would be pretty pissed off to once again have all of their progress wiped, so it’s an understandable decision by Bungie.

If they can continue to release expansions and evolve Destiny 2, and even improve upon its engine with the release of next-gen consoles, then I don’t have a problem with them not releasing a full-fledged sequel. In fact, I think most would actually prefer this method of a long-running game that isn’t fractured with sequels.