Destiny 2’s next big expansion postponed to 2022

Destiny 2 has seen a big expansion every year since its release, but 2021 will be different. Bungie announced today as the witch queen, originally planned to launch in the second half of this year, will be delayed until 2022 due to its size and persistent problems with working from home during the covid-19 pandemic.

“As we started to scale production of Witch Queen last year, we made the difficult but important decision to move its release to early 2022,” the studio wrote. “[W]We also realized that we needed to add an unexpected extra chapter after Lightfall to fully end our first saga of destiny. ”

As well as teasing this follow-up to the expansion previously slated for 2022, which will now presumably be pushed back to 2023Bungie Deputy Game Director Joe Blackburn explored the causes of the delays more in detail:

• The Witch Queen represents a significant development in the ongoing story of Destiny 2. Beyond Light laid the groundwork and allowed us to weave together the building of the world of Destiny and Destiny 2, but The Witch Queen will kindle fire on a narrative. Strongly interconnected across Lightfall and beyond unlike anything we’ve ever attempted before, with characters, arcs, heroes, and villains lingering through multiple future releases. More importantly, the conclusion of these builds will also conclude the “Light and Darkness Saga,” the conflict we first introduced with the launch of Destiny many years ago. As we developed The Witch Queen, we realized we needed this version to be the first of many pivotal moments in Destiny history. With so much leading up to and depending on what happens in The Witch Queen, we wanted to make sure we gave ourselves plenty of time to build this journey the right way, starting with an outstanding first chapter of The Witch Queen.
• With Destiny now determined to be an ever-changing world, we want to make sure that we always take the time to upgrade Destiny 2’s system base to support whatever we want to do in the future. Our ultimate vision for Destiny 2 still stands: a definitive action MMO, a unified global community where you can play Destiny anywhere with your friends. For 2021, that means improving our approach to keeping Destiny’s weapon and armor set fresh, refining our vision for PVP, implementing transmogrification, and adding Crossplay. More below.
• Last but not least, we are proud to be uncompromising on our commitment to the health of our teams. With COVID-19 pulling us away from the office and the sheer amount of work on our plates, we needed to change the date in order to ensure this year’s updates and The Witch Queen both delivered with the quality that we are looking for. and on a schedule that makes sense to everyone involved.

Fundamentally, The witch queen it looks like it will kick destinyThe story of, which has been incredibly slow since the release of the first game, overdrive, and in order to get it right and lay the groundwork for the fix, Bungie needs more time.

Traditionally, destiny extensions were launched in September. Last years Beyond the light was the first to slip, arriving instead in November, the first expansion the studio delivered after their split with Activision. With the announcement of these latest delays, it looks like the series’ original predictable release cadence give way to the more realistic “it’s over when it’s done” approach.

In the meantime, Bungie is focused on overhauling a number of things in the game, including its recently added and much-criticized timeout system in which new loot has an annual expiration date.