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Bungie talks Destiny 2's future: twice-a-year expansions, free seasons, core activity changes & more

Codename: Frontiers is the catch-all title for Destiny 2's future as Bungie looks to dramatically overhaul the game's content.

Sam Chandler

September 9, 2024 6:10 PM

Bungie

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Codename: Frontiers is the term Bungie is using to describe major innovations coming to the game over the next few years. In a slew of Deep Dives, Bungie has given players a look at how Destiny 2 will be changing, including insights into Codename: Apollo, the next expansion coming in summer 2025. Beyond this, the team has hinted at the next expansion, Behemoth, and detailed how it plans to tackle seasons, content, and more.

To celebrate Destiny’s 10^th anniversary on September 9, 2024, Bungie released several articles detailing how Destiny 2 will be changing over the coming years. Firstly, Bungie is shifting to a twice-a-year expansion model, where each expansion will be smaller than what players have come to expect from the one-a-year big drops.

The expansion drop will initiate a new season, which looks to last until the arrival of the next expansion. During this six-month-long season, Bungie will be releasing two major updates that add free content for all players:

• New and reprised activities
• New gear and artifact mods
• New modifiers and challenges
• New sandbox meta
• New events

Codename: Apollo, the summer 2025 expansion, will be a non-linear experience where players can choose to complete missions in any order. Apollo will take place in a new location, and though the story structure is non-linear, Bungie says the story makes sense. The team also notes that not all expansion will have a non-linear story, they will have stories that make sense for their structure.

Bungie also offered insight into how it is redesigning access to activities in Destiny 2. As it stands, finding new activities is a challenge for veterans and newcomers alike, so Bungie is developing a new tab called Portals that will house the majority of activities.

The Portal page will have activities sorted into groups with titles such as Solo Ops, Fireteam Ops, Flashpoint Ops. These will house the activities that match their theme, so Solo Ops will be the smaller activities for one to three players, Fireteam Ops is idea for premade teams that can communicate, while Flashpoint Ops are where you’ll find six-player activities. There are a couple of other categories for some of the endgame content.

These activities will also feature bonus rewards that change daily. Bungie also notes that Gambit will remain in its Destination tab and that the team is investigating ideas for the mode.

The reason players do anything in Destiny 2 is for the rewards and Bungie is taking another run at improving this aspect of the game. Moving forward, Legendary weapons and armor will have a tiered system that improves the gear with things like stat bonuses, enhanced perks, and other benefits. These rewards will also be dispersed into “pools,” with certain weapon drops only available from things like Core PVE and PVP modes or Pinnacle PVE and PVP modes. New gear each season will also be labeled as such, making it easier for players to see what is actually new without needing to learn seasonal icons.

Finally, Bungie gave some insight into the activities themselves. Destiny 2 will have a new difficulty customization system whereby players can manually alter the level of challenge. By altering the challenge, players can have a direct impact on the rewards.

All of this news seems to be pushing Destiny 2 in a positive direction. After ten years, the game was in desperate need of a shake-up to its core systems and this could very well be what’s needed to keep players engaged and new players funnelling in. Be sure to check out our Destiny 2 Strategy Guide for more information as we approach the release of Codename: Apollo and the other content dropping in Codename: Frontiers.

Sam Chandler

Head of Guides

Hailing from the land down under, Sam Chandler brings a bit of the southern hemisphere flair to his work. After bouncing round a few universities, securing a bachelor degree, and entering the video game industry, he's found his new family here at Shacknews as Head of Guides. There's nothing he loves more than crafting a guide that will help someone. If you need help with a guide, or notice something not quite right, you can message him on X: @SamuelChandler