‘Destiny 2’ Endgame Updates Will Come Soon, Say Bungie Devs
Destiny 2 has been having a rough go. From a mediocre PS4 launch of around 50,000 copies sold in the first week (it did go on to eventually claim best-selling game of 2017, to be fair), Destiny 2 has been steadily hemorrhaging players over the span of the same month it’s been available — from 3.5 million down to 1.5 million active accounts.
Opinions are divided on the cause of Destiny 2‘s lost appeal, but many players agree that the end-game is sorely lacking. Some observers have opined that, while the game is miles ahead of its predecessor, it’s perfectly-balanced for new players, and experienced Destiny fans simply reached the endgame too quickly, leaving them with little to do in a poorly-fleshed-out endgame environment. That’s not uncommon for new releases; developers don’t spend nearly as much time on a new game’s endgame content, for obvious reasons. But it’s become apparent that Bungie didn’t account for their already-experienced player base, and their drive to get back to max level. A plethora of bugs following Destiny 2‘s PC release on October 24 hasn’t helped matters, leaving many fans of the series frankly enraged.
Now, according to DualShockers, Bungie has announced plans to significantly expand Destiny 2‘s endgame. According to Game Director Christopher Barrett, Bungie is currently working on a variety of ways to reward players even after they’ve completed the “final challenges” of the current endgame, Trials Of The Nine, and the prestige Leviathan raid. They’re also looking to expand the replayability of Strikes and The Crucible.
The full list of incentives and rewards is impressive, if distressingly vague. Bungie is promising “new systems and rewards” to keep players engaged in the endgame, including “additional pursuits,” improved rewards for prestige activities, strikes, adventures, Lost Sectors, Crucible, Iron Banner, and Faction Rallies. There are, unfortunately, no details available on what those rewards are actually going to look like.
But it doesn’t end there. Barrett also indicated that they’re planning to add private matches for the competitive community, and greater penalties for competitive Crucible match disconnection, improvements to Exotics, which will include a decreased chance of duplication, new ways to spend surplus currency and materials, changes to the mod economy, and, randomly, a new emote interface.
As Stevivor points out, the game’s 1.0.6 patch has been released since Barrett’s remarks, and it does include a number of Crucible improvements.
Hopefully, this is a good sign for things to come for Destiny 2. The original reached well over 55 million monthly users, and that was in 2016. Bungie and Activision have a long way to go if they want to replicate or exceed Destiny‘s success.
[Featured Image by Bungie/Activision]
