In the next Destiny 2 expansion will not be launched this year. Bungie says he’s delaying The Queen Witch until 2022, partly due to complications from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With COVID-19 keeping us away from the office and the large amount of work on our plates, we need to change the date to make sure that this year’s updates and The Queen Witch were delivered with the quality we were looking for and on a schedule that made sense for everyone involved, “wrote game assistant director Joe Blackburn. The studio also realized that it needs to add another chapter after Lightfall (the expansion that was originally planned for 2022) to complete the “first Destiny saga”.
Bungie was already considering transferring the annual expansions to the first half of the year, mainly because of “team health”. The impact of COVID-19, coupled with the complexity of The Queen Witch and other plans the studio has for 2021, apparently made that call easier.
On the other hand, Blackburn revealed some positive news for Destiny 2 players at your post. Bungie is. He said the studio will conduct alpha tests during the 14th season with the aim of launching cross-play for everyone when season 15 starts in the fall. The studio will not combine PC and console players, unless those on the PC invite friends from other platforms to team up with them.
From the 14th season, Bungie will go back on an unpopular mechanic that it brought to Destiny 2 as part of last year (which was also). The studio brought a sunsetting system, by which it effectively gave each weapon and loot piece (except for exotic ones) an expiration date, as grades. It was no longer possible to increase the power of the items a year after their introduction.
The aim was to bring a better balance to the game and prevent certain weapons from becoming dominated. Players can still use finished equipment for patrols and other activities where the power level does not matter much, but these weapons are much less useful in attacks.
“This is a big change for Destiny and one we didn’t do lightly, ”wrote Blackburn. “However, we believe that there is nothing more important in Destiny than getting our rewards right.” Bungie will look for other ways to create “a new and balanced ecosystem for our most ambitious content”, but it is unlikely to announce a new plan to do this until later The Witch Queen.
Blackburn mentioned a few other points in his long post, including Bungie’s plan to fight cheaters – to begin with, he’s doubling the size of his security team this year. He also revealed the first concepts of art (photo above) for one of Queen witch armor sets.