Destiny 2

• 1. Introduction

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  Destiny 2 is a shooter made by Bungie, and in June 2026 it receives what is billed as its final update, called Monument of Triumph. That update ends active development. The servers will stay on, though. Bungie confirmed that the game will remain online and playable, much as the original Destiny, released in 2014, still does.

  The game calls its setting "mythic science fiction". It is a shared online world where players team up against alien armies and against each other. How did a sequel that arrived in 2017 grow so large that its own developers had to start shelving parts of it? What did players actually do in its worlds for so many years? And why did a story planned to continue past its final expansion stop short? The answers begin with a city under attack.

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• 2. The Red War

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  One year after an earlier trouble known as the SIVA Crisis, Cabal soldiers of the Red Legion fall on the Last City from the air. They wreck the main portion of the Tower, the headquarters of the Guardians. Their commander, Dominus Ghaul, has a device fixed to the Traveler, the great sphere hanging over the city, and it begins draining the Light. That is the power the Guardians fight with. The player's Guardian loses it and is nearly killed by Ghaul.

  Two days pass before the Guardian wakes. Their Ghost, an AI companion, can still heal them but can no longer bring them back from death. Help comes from Suraya Hawthorne, a human from outside the ranks of the Guardians. She leads them to a haven called the Farm in the European Dead Zone. In a nearby forest, a vision guides the Guardian to a hidden shard of the Traveler. Ghost connects with it, and the Guardian's link to the Light returns.

  A distress call from Commander Zavala, intercepted by Hawthorne, sends the Guardian to Saturn's moon Titan over her objections. The moon is overrun by the Hive. There, Deputy Commander Sloane helps the Guardian learn why the Red Legion came. It answered a distress call sent during the Taken War, two years earlier. Ghaul also commands a superweapon called the Almighty, a space station that can destroy stars. It sits near the Sun, breaking up Mercury for fuel. Whole star systems that resisted Cabal rule have already been destroyed.

  Zavala sends the Guardian to find Ikora Rey and Cayde-6. On Nessus, a centaur planet largely remade by the Vex, an AI named Failsafe from the crashed colony ship Exodus Black helps free Cayde from a Vex portal loop. Ikora is on Io, a Jovian moon the Traveler had partly terraformed before the Darkness arrived. She is searching for answers with the researcher Asher Mir. They point the Guardian toward a Warmind, an ancient defensive AI. Its intelligence shows that destroying the Almighty would take the Sun down with it. So the Vanguard decides to shut the weapon down first, and the Guardian boards it in a stolen Cabal ship and disables it. That signals Zavala to begin the counterattack.

  Ghaul's own rise is told in glimpses. Aided by his mentor, the Consul, he overthrew and exiled Emperor Calus, then studied the Traveler to learn how to use the Light. When the assault begins, the Consul scolds him for his obsession and urges him to take the Light by force instead of trying to earn it. Ghaul hesitates until the Consul kills the Speaker, a prisoner Ghaul had tortured for answers. Then Ghaul vows to take the Light, and in a fit of rage he strangles the Consul.

  The Guardian returns to Earth and, using Cayde's Vex teleporter, slips alone aboard Ghaul's command ship. Ghaul, now holding the stolen Light, turns it against the Guardian and still loses. He rises again as a massive ethereal figure and speaks directly to the Traveler. The Traveler wakes from its apparent long sleep, destroys the draining device, and kills Ghaul. Its shockwave restores the Light to every Guardian and shatters the Red Legion's forces.

  The game closes with a posthumous message from the Speaker, reminding everyone that the Light can never be stopped. A post-credits scene then follows the shockwave out of the solar system and beyond the Milky Way. There, in extragalactic space, a fleet of dark Pyramid-shaped ships sits waiting. The ships activate and begin moving toward Earth.

  The Leviathan, a massive Cabal ship, appears in orbit of Nessus after Ghaul falls, and it slowly begins to consume the planet. It belongs to the exiled Emperor Calus. He invites Guardians to pass a series of challenges before reaching his throne, in a raid that shares the ship's name. A fireteam overcomes his strange powers, only to discover they fought a mechanical doppelganger. The real Calus then speaks through the machine. He claims that what the Guardians know is a lie, and that a truth lies beyond what the Speaker told them.

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• 3. Darkness and Fate

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  Shadowkeep begins when Eris Morn discovers a Pyramid ship buried beneath the surface of the Moon. A Voice from the Darkness warns the Guardian that the fleet will soon arrive in the system. The ships take positions above Io, Titan, Mercury and Mars. Meanwhile Hive and Vex forces loyal to the Darkness trouble the Vanguard. The Darkness tries to speak with Eris, but Savathûn blocks it. Guardians defeat Savathûn's forces, and that gives the Darkness a chance to point them toward a new power waiting on Europa.

  The Vanguard pulls its people off the occupied planets before a strange force abducts them. Deputy Commander Sloane, Asher Mir and Brother Vance choose to stay behind as the worlds vanish. Elsewhere, the Traveler begins gathering Light and behaving in unfamiliar ways. Every Guardian in the system is ordered back to the Last City. There they watch the Traveler repair its broken shell in a burst of Light.

  On Europa in Beyond Light, Guardians accept a power from the Darkness to beat a new Fallen House that has learned the same trick. Zavala and other Vanguard members worry about using it, yet they admit it works against humanity's enemies. The Vanguard even forges alliances with the Cabal and one Fallen House, since all of them face common threats. Then comes a reveal. Savathûn has been impersonating Osiris, the former Warlock Vanguard. Mara Sov holds her in a crystal under a deal to return the real Osiris if Mara exorcises Savathûn's worm. After Guardians rescue Techeuns lost in the Ascendant Realm, the worm is exorcised. Savathûn escapes and leaves a comatose Osiris behind, as the bargain required.

  The Witch Queen turns on the Hive god Savathûn, who has somehow gained the Light and passed it to her soldiers, the Lucent Brood. Guardians fight through her Throne World to take the Light back. Then comes a shock. The Traveler itself resurrected Savathûn after she died, and it granted her brood the Light. The Vanguard cannot understand why the Traveler would help humanity's enemy. A Lucent Ghost named Fynch allies with the Guardians against her.

  Objects from Savathûn's past reveal that her homeworld, Fundament, was visited by the Traveler. Before it could gift her people a Golden Age, an entity called the Witness tricked Sathona, her name before she became Hive, into fearing a cataclysm caused by the Traveler. Sathona and her siblings struck a bargain with the Worm Gods to prevent it. That created the Hive and turned them against the Traveler. The Guardians kill Savathûn, but her ghost Immaru escapes.

  Lightfall, released in February 2023, brings back Emperor Calus, now a Disciple of the Witness. The story moves to Neptune, where the Guardians ally with the Neomuni, who live in the colony of Neomuna and descend from a lost Golden Age expedition. Together they fend off Calus's invasion of the city. Before his defeat, Calus helps the Witness gain an object called the Veil. It lets the Witness pierce the Traveler's shell and enter it, to the shock of the Vanguard.

  A resurrected Savathûn then tells the Vanguard she has crafted a wish with Riven that lets one person enter the Traveler. Crow offers to go. His connection with Mara Sov would let the Vanguard follow once he establishes a point of safety inside.

  The Final Shape was first expected in February 2024. Quality concerns raised in October 2023 pushed it to June 2024. To fill the gap, Bungie released a free update called Into the Light in April 2024, which added new activities and weapons. The expansion takes place in the Pale Heart, a space within the Traveler opened by the Witness. It also brings back Cayde-6, with Nathan Fillion again in the role. Bungie describes it as the culmination of ten years of the Light and Darkness Saga.

  A long-term story called the Fate Saga followed, beginning with the Year of Prophecy expansions. The Edge of Fate launched in July 2025 and sends Guardians to the planet Kepler and the Oort Cloud of the Sol system, a tale that involves the Nine. Renegades followed in December 2025. It is themed around Star Wars, which the source calls a significant influence on Destiny's design, and it includes crossover elements from that franchise.

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• 4. Guardians and Gear

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  Warlock, Hunter and Titan are the three classes a player can choose, the same trio as in the original game. Each class has its own upgrades, perks and special abilities, plus three subclasses for tuning a play style. A player then picks a species. The options are Human, Awoken, who are bluish-gray-skinned descendants of Humans, and Exo, which are humanoid machines. The choice is cosmetic and does not change gameplay. Players can create two more characters to cover every class.

  The Hunter's new Arc-based Arcstrider replaced the original game's Bladedancer. Its Arc Staff super centers on an electrified staff and a lot of rapid mobility. Warlocks gained the Solar-based Dawnblade, replacing the Sunsinger, with a super called Daybreak that throws blades of Solar Light at enemies from mid-air. Titans gained the Void-based Sentinel, replacing the Defender. Its Sentinel Shield super summons a shield that blocks fire and can be used offensively, much like Captain America's shield.

  The Forsaken expansion gave every subclass a new super. Thundercrash lets a Titan launch into the air and slam into the ground. Burning Maul hands Sunbreakers a large hammer that unleashes flaming tornadoes. Spectral Blades lets a Nightstalker see through walls and attack with Void daggers. Well of Radiance creates a healing and empowering aura for Dawnblades to place on the battlefield.

  Beyond Light then added a fourth subclass for each class, called Stasis. It draws on the Darkness, while Solar, Arc and Void are powers granted by the Light of the Traveler. Stasis generally slows or freezes enemies. Unlike the older subclasses, it is modular. Its super is fixed, but grenade, melee and protection abilities can be swapped, and extra effects called Aspects can be added to them. Lightfall introduced Strand, another Darkness power, which lashes at enemies with web-like strands and gives a grappling-hook style of movement.

  Weapons and armor were reorganized from the first game. Weapons now sit in Kinetic, Energy and Power slots instead of Primary, Special and Heavy. Kinetic holds weapons without an element, and Energy holds those with an Arc, Solar or Void damage type. Power takes heavy weapons and the stronger specials, including shotguns, sniper rifles and the new grenade launcher. Forsaken later overhauled this, moving most shotguns, single-shot grenade launchers and most sniper rifles into the Kinetic and Energy slots. Armor stats became Resilience, Recovery and Mobility, replacing Strength, Intellect and Discipline.

  Progress is measured in a Power level. At launch it rose through an experience system. Since around Shadowkeep it has been the average Power level of each piece of gear a character carries. Most regular play lifts a Guardian to a soft cap. Reaching the hard cap requires pinnacle gear from harder challenges such as Nightfall strikes, dungeons and raids.

  Shadowkeep brought Armor 2.0, in which armor carries randomized attributes in six areas, plus an assigned element and an energy level. The total score influences how fast class abilities, supers, grenades and melee attacks recharge. That expansion also brought Champions, powerful enemies that must first be weakened by a weapon carrying the matching mod. In the last season of Shadowkeep, Bungie added sunsetting, a maximum infusion Power level that was generally four seasons beyond a piece of gear's introduction. It has since been revised. The Witch Queen then added glaives, a weapon type that mixes melee and ranged attacks, and weapon crafting. Players learn patterns, build weapons from materials, and level them so they can recraft them with stronger perks.

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• 5. Worlds and Raids

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  The European Dead Zone, which the original game had shown only as PvP maps, becomes a place to explore. Saturn's moon Titan, Jupiter's moon Io and the centaur planet Nessus join it. The Curse of Osiris expansion adds Mercury, and Warmind adds Mars. Forsaken opens the Tangled Shore and the Dreaming City, the mysterious sanctuary of the Awoken that serves as an end-game area after its campaign. Shadowkeep brings back the Moon from the first game, revamped. Because the campaign wrecks most of the Tower, the Farm serves as a social space until a lower, undamaged part of the Tower takes over afterward.

  A map shows where non-player characters, Adventures, Heroic Adventures, Region Chests and Lost Sectors can be found. Adventures send players on treasure-hunt style journeys. Some end in a Lost Sector, a hidden area that leads to a boss and a reward. Lost Sectors can also be entered on their own. Heroic Adventures, which start with Curse of Osiris, are harder versions that rotate each week.

  One of the new areas was described as twice the size of any area in the first game. Players no longer need to return to orbit to travel, and can jump straight to another location. Towns and friendly characters hand out side-quests, whereas the original had such characters only in social spaces. Flashpoints are a weekly milestone set on one of eight locations, and the location rotates every week.

  Three factions, Dead Orbit, Future War Cult and New Monarchy, compete in the Faction Rally, a periodic event lasting one week. Players earn faction points by playing various activities. The winning faction's reward costs 1,000 Glimmer, the in-game currency. The losing factions' rewards can still be bought, but at 50,000 Glimmer.

  Group play comes in several sizes. Strikes are three-player missions, dungeons are small group challenges, and raids are built for six players. A matchmaking system called Guided Games lets players search for clans that need extra people for raids. Once the main story is done, end-game activities open up. They include Nightfall strikes with modifiers, a Daily Heroic Story playlist, and the Leviathan and Last Wish raids. The raid lairs Eater of Worlds and Spire of Stars follow, along with the horde activities Escalation Protocol on Mars and Blind Well in the Dreaming City. A harder Prestige mode exists for the Leviathan raid and its lairs, while Bungie said it had no plans for one for Last Wish.

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• 6. The Crucible

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  Lord Shaxx returns as the Handler of the Crucible, the arena for player-versus-player combat. The original game offered six-versus-six and three-versus-three matches, plus a limited-time two-versus-two mode. At launch, every Destiny 2 mode was four-versus-four, because Bungie moved toward smaller teams for competitive play and better map design. Quickplay modes later grew back to six-versus-six. Weapon power and defense are balanced between players, and the heads-up display now shows whether an enemy has a charged super or is carrying power ammo.

  Playlists on offer include rumble, a six-player free-for-all, survival, a freelance survival where players cannot choose their teammates, classic mix, and private matches. Trials of the Nine replaced the first game's Trials of Osiris. It begins on Fridays and ends at the weekly reset on Tuesdays, and it rotates between two new modes, Countdown and Survival. Only one map is used during its four days, and the map changes weekly.

  Trials earns players access to the Spire, a social space in unknown space. An NPC called the Emissary of the Nine trades Trials tokens for gear. Three, five and seven wins on the scorecard unlock higher tiers with greater rewards. Going flawless with seven wins opens an exclusive area, and three losses reset the card. Entry requires finishing the campaign, completing Lord Shaxx's Call to Arms milestone, and holding a Power level of at least 260.

  Iron Banner, a week-long event with daily milestones, also returned, with Lord Saladin as its NPC. Players need to have completed the campaign and reached level 20. At first it did not disable gear balancing, and Bungie stated, "Your fighting abilities, not your power levels, will decide the outcome". That changed after Forsaken, when balancing was disabled as in the first game.

  In the game's second year came Gambit, a PvP mode with PvE elements. Two teams of four defeat AI enemies from the Cabal, Fallen, Hive, Vex or, new with Forsaken, the Scorn. They collect motes, up to 15 at a time, and bank them. Banking five motes spawns a Taken Vex Goblin as a small blocker on the other side, ten spawns a Taken Fallen Captain, and fifteen spawns a Taken Hive Ogre. An invasion portal lets a player cross over to hunt mote carriers on the other team. At 75 banked motes a boss appears, and whoever beats it first wins the round, with three rounds played. Season of the Drifter added Gambit Prime, which raised the requirement to 100 motes. Season of the Hunt later merged the two into a single activity built on a Gambit Prime variant.

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• 7. Building the Sequel

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  Two months after the original Destiny came out, Activision chief executive Eric Hirshberg said in November 2014: "Work has also begun on future expansion packs as well as on our next full game release". Documents about the original release schedule show that Bungie and Activision intended disc-based sequels every other year until 2019, with large downloadable expansions in between. The sequel was originally planned for September 2016. On the 11th of February 2016, Bungie confirmed it would arrive in 2017. That same month, Christopher Schlerf, lead writer of Halo 4 who had also worked on Mass Effect: Andromeda, joined the studio. In December 2016, Bungie announced that Vicarious Visions would join the team.

  On the 23rd of March 2017, Lega Network leaked a promotional poster that revealed the name Destiny 2, a release date of the 8th of September 2017 and a public beta. On the 27th of March, Bungie tweeted an image of the Last City in smoke and flames, with a large 2 over the Traveler. A teaser narrated by Cayde-6 followed, showing the Cabal attacking the Tower. A full reveal trailer on the 30th of March showed the three Vanguards rallying Guardians, with Ghaul leading the Cabal. The Windows version was confirmed the same day.

  Lance Reddick, Nathan Fillion and Gina Torres returned as the Vanguards, and Nolan North again voiced Ghost. Other returning performers included Bill Nighy, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Peter Stormare, Lennie James, Claudia Black and James Remar. New voices included Frank Langella, Joy Osmanski and H. Jon Benjamin. After Reddick died in March 2023, Keith David took over the role of Zavala from August 2023.

  Hirshberg pitched the sequel as built around a cinematic story and a memorable cast. He also promised changes that would welcome casual players without costing core fans anything. At the 2017 Electronic Entertainment Expo, a new cinematic trailer narrated by Ghaul showed how much the story had become a focus, and the release date was moved up.

  Bungie had said characters and progression would carry over into future releases. That proved only half true. For the sequel, only a character's physical appearance carried over, and only if the player had reached level 20 and completed the Black Garden quest in the original. Bungie explained: "We believe this is the best path forward. It allows us to introduce the major advancements and improvements that all of us expect from a sequel, ensuring it will be the best game we can create, unencumbered by the past." Veterans received emblems recognizing their original accomplishments.

  Project lead Mark Noseworthy told IGN that no Nintendo Switch version was planned. He said: "I think it's pretty unrealistic given we're an online-only game, right?" The Windows version supports native 4K, uncapped frame rate, full mouse and keyboard support, adjustable field of view and 21:9 monitors. The console versions are locked at 30fps. The Xbox One X arrived in November 2017, and on the 5th of December 2017 Bungie added 4K support for it, plus HDR for both it and the PlayStation 4 Pro.

  Lead engineer Matt Segur explained a change in how the game runs. Every activity is hosted on one of Bungie's servers, so players would never again suffer a host migration during a raid attempt or a Trials match. In the original, player consoles handled hosting and only script and mission logic ran in the data center.

  Grimoire cards, which held the first game's lore and could be read only on Bungie's website and app, did not return. Bungie moved to in-game storytelling, a weakness players had criticized in the original. Ghost scans artifacts around the maps to give backstory, and exotic gear and some legendary gear carry a lore tab.

  The score came from Michael Salvatori, Skye Lewin, C. Paul Johnson, Rotem Moav and Peter Schlosser. Michael Sechrist also composed for the game without credit and became a more prominent composer in later expansions. The composers said they wanted to "capture the somber spirit of a civilization confronting immense tragedy". Fans left thousands of supportive comments under the soundtrack on YouTube. In October 2023, Salvatori and Sechrist were laid off in company-wide cutbacks, and Lewin left in January 2024. Fans voiced disappointment on X and Reddit.

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• 8. Free to Play and the Vault

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  On the 6th of September 2017, Destiny 2 launched worldwide on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Windows version followed on the 24th of October through Blizzard's Battle.net, the first game from outside Blizzard Entertainment to be sold there. Editions ranged from a base game to a Collector's Edition with a SteelBook case, a themed backpack and a Frontier Kit with a solar panel USB charger, paracord and solar blanket. Pre-orders earned early access to the exotic trace rifle Coldheart, and GameStop pre-orders received a Cayde-6 collectible figure. Critics gave generally favorable reviews. They praised the improved story, gameplay, visuals, exploration and public events, but were divided on the recategorized weapons, the Leviathan raid and the new modes. The game won awards at The Game Awards 2017 and the Game Critics Awards.

  Under an exclusivity agreement with Sony Interactive Entertainment, the PlayStation 4 version had timed-exclusive material until late 2018, and that exclusivity ended with Shadowkeep in October 2019. In January 2019, Bungie and Activision amicably ended their publishing agreement, leaving Bungie as publisher of the PC version. The PC game moved from Battle.net to Steam with Shadowkeep, and it reached the Epic Games Store in August 2022.

  On the 1st of October 2019, the game became free to play under the New Light title. The base game, the Leviathan raid, many PvP modes and the first two expansions, Curse of Osiris and Warmind, became free. Forsaken and Shadowkeep still had to be bought separately. Bungie added cross-save so players could move characters between platforms, though paid expansions had to be rebought on the other platform. The following month, the game reached Google's Stadia streaming service. A seasonal battle pass offered a free tier and a paid tier, and the paid passes were renamed reward passes in 2025.

  In June 2020, Bungie announced a Destiny Content Vault. Beginning with Beyond Light on the 10th of November 2020, it would retire less-played material, including everything from the original game, because the game had become too large to manage. The client had grown to roughly 115 GB. Some areas returned over time, such as the Moon in Shadowkeep and the Leviathan in Season of the Haunted. Bungie called reworking vaulted material an alternative to a Destiny 3, which would force everyone to start over. By August 2022, improved back-end technology meant expansions would no longer be vaulted, though seasonal material would still go at the end of each year.

  The vaulting removed the Red War campaign, along with Curse of Osiris and Warmind, and the game explains this as the Darkness pulling planets out of normal space. A new-player experience in the Cosmodrome replaced it. Ghost finds and resurrects the Guardian among the ruins of Old Russia. The Guardian meets Shaw Han, a Hunter searching for his fireteam members Cas and Maeve, who both turn out to be dead, killed by a Hive Wizard named Navôta. Han is after a Golden Age relic called a superconductor, and he leaves alone with the only access key. The Guardian and Ghost piece together a new key, drive Navôta off and rescue him. Zavala later has them hunt Navôta down, and studying the superconductor lets the Vanguard create the exotic submachine gun Riskrunner.

  The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions arrived on the 8th of December 2020, with native 4K at 60fps on the Series X and 1080p on the Series S. Owners of the older consoles could upgrade within the same family for free, and cross-play across all platforms was promised from Season 15. In March 2021, Bungie set up a Destiny Universe division to expand the franchise beyond games. Luke Smith became its executive creative director, Mark Noseworthy became vice president, and Justin Truman became general manager of Destiny 2.

  Renegades, the tenth and last expansion, was meant to be followed by more. Year Eight had begun a Fate saga, and Bungie planned two expansions for Year Nine. A financial loss at parent company Sony changed that. Bungie refocused on its other titles and cancelled those two expansions. Only months earlier, in spring 2025, after announcing a release date for the Marathon reboot, Bungie had said it would support Destiny 2 indefinitely. Its farewell is a bundle called Destiny 2: The Collection, which gathers every available expansion and content pack and goes on sale on the 9th of June 2026.

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