In October, we reported that Destiny would be ditching the DLC plan for year two, replacing big downloadable content packs with cosmetic microtransactions and free missions. Two months later, Bungie’s finally confirmed it.
Speaking with Eurogamer at the PlayStation Experience last weekend, Bungie designer Derek Carroll said that free events like the Sparrow Racing League (which will be released today) will replace DLC packs for year two of Destiny, which started in September with the launch of The Taken King. Bungie’s plan is to surprise people with these events rather than map them all out as they did with The Dark Below and House of Wolves last year.
Derek Carroll: “With Taken King we are moving to a more event-based model – things like Festival of the Lost and Sparrow racing, which is our winter event, and then smaller events such as Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris every weekend.
Rather than doing these giant, monolithic DLC packs, this way everybody who’s an owner of Taken King can enjoy these things.”
Carroll also hinted that, as we reported in October, this content will be free, supplemented by cosmetic microtransactions:
[Eurogamer:] Will there be anything you need to buy to access?
Derek Carroll: “We’ve had Festival of the Lost and now Sparrow racing. [Both events are open to all players, with only cosmetic items purchasable via real-world money.] If you wanted to extrapolate from there, you could.”
Although Carroll wouldn’t go into details on why Bungie made this switch, you can find the answer in our report on the story behind Destiny‘s development. In short, thanks to technology deficiencies among other issues, it’d be near-impossible for Bungie’s developers to create enough new content both for DLC packs and the next expansion to Destiny, which is code-named “Destiny 2” and will be out next fall.
News that there might not be significant new zones or new raids until fall of 2016 might come as a bummer to some, but sources close to the game’s development have told me that last year’s DLC schedule was unsustainable. In the long run, this could make for a better game.
Comments
24 responses to “Bungie Confirms That They’re Not Doing Big Destiny DLC For Taken King”
Yeah, fair enough… After all, that DLC was all densely-packed with content.
I think it’s more an issue with how they built/programmed the Destiny platform. All the patches and bug fixes in Vanilla Destiny seemed really painful (i.e. a tweak here would break 6 things somewhere else). Extrapolating from that I can only imagine what a nightmare adding any kind of new content to that platform could’ve been.
What they should do is release a new Destiny game with a much friendlier on-going support based platform.
Per my comment below, looking at a quote from the article, I don’t rate the chances of that happening.
Oh I’m certain the chances of that happening are nil; I have a feeling the contract Bungie have with Activision have them anchored to 3 games on this one platform or under a particular budget constraint. And until they meet that I doubt they’re going to be able to do anything worthwhile aside from patching the eventual haemorrhage of their player base.
Sounds pretty similar to the publishing deal that Bungie had with Microsoft. Nice work breaking those shackles.
Real bungie died when those shackles were broken though. Nobody would make the same deal Activision did with the bungie of today.
As a day 1 Destiny player I can understand the pressure but as I fire the game up for the first time in 3 weeks to check out this racing bizzo (won’t have longevity) and have a look at the new Mida (the best weapon) I’m pessimistic about how many people will hang around in the new year…
Yeah have to agree, as a pretty rabid Destiny player (is there another kind…?) I can’t see this drip feed of events tiding me over for a full year.
The racing league looks like great fun and i’ll no doubt jump in to whatever else comes online but without new story or PvE content (in particular a new raid and strikes) I just can’t see it being sustainable.
On the plus side I might actually be able to play other games again! So… many…. other… games…
Yeah it really isn’t sustainable. Wow is a good case study in this. Numbers drop insanely when there is a year long wait between major content patches and they never regain them.
What bothers me most about the this article is this paragraph:
‘Destiny 2’ is now a code-name for a mere expansion? No full-blown sequel which provides a notable jump in quality and/or engine? They’re not tossing away the base game with all of its development-delay limitations that they’ve used as a shitty excuse for not being able to create content? They’re still going to continue supporting last-gen platforms whose ancient and crumbling tech’s limitations are directly responsible for numerous, much-lamented UI and design flaws?
I was pinning the hopes of any future enthusiasm for Bungie’s competence on how they address their complete failure to create a compelling narrative or character growth and interactions, any kind of simulation of raised stakes or loss, or anything else that goes into creating an actual story, let alone space opera, instead of the monologue-filled ‘ghost’s guided tour of the solar system’ horse-shit we got… but hell if this isn’t a nail in that coffin.
I think that was just a bad choice of a word from the author, I read it as ‘expansion in the Destiny franchise’ rather than ‘an expansion pack for Destiny (2014)’. I am hoping that they will be willing to shake more up in a new installment.
I am being optimistic about the switch the event model over the expansion pack model to be trying to give them more time to sort out their shit tool and development cycle.
I hope you’re right.
All that said, my hoping hasn’t gotten me much as far as Destiny has been concerned.
Yeah, same. Apart from a few dozen hours of entertainment from the very solid shooting mechanics and gorgeous art.
That’s always the caveat for me: As a value proposition Destiny was still an outstanding use of time and money. *
(* Provided you knew when to cut your losses and not grind into bored resentment)
It’s just that the sheer potential for game-changing awesomeness was always on the tip of its tongue and never realized, and the ‘pretty good’ reality’s failure to match up to ‘so-close-yet-so-far’ potential was a devastating blow to hope.
To say nothing of resenting the last few dozen hours that were spent desperately hoping that there was something I was simply missing, grinding to try and ‘find the fun again’, not really enjoying myself, which was simply a huge waste of time.
Yeah…
As I have always said they nailed all the hard stuff, tight gameplay brilliant world design and music.
But fell down on anything to do with progression. Making it feel rewarding and fair. As well as providing engaging end game content. Rather than the chorelike schedule of the weekly resets that is currently there. Where I feel compelled to play and get nothing in return.
Again still being optimistic … cautiously optimistic that this content delivery model change is them trying to actually address the issue. Give themselves more time to tackle some of these flaws and get out of the constantly trying to deliver new content cycle which is getting in the way of fixing anything.
I agree. Destiny has gameplay in the fps genre above everything else. It’s just the other parts of the game that need work. It needs to feel epic and have good progression to keep people playing, not a lucky pokies loot system.
What bothers me most is the title.
Implying there was ever “Big DLC”
At the very least I’m expecting current gen only. Having Destiny on PS3 and 360 held the game back considerable (ignoring other issues that held the game back). I’d expect guardians to be transferable but they’ll probably do with gear what they did with TTK, make the old stuff redundant.
Destiny 2 needs to be SUBSTANTIAL in scope though. I’m not buying anymore into this franchise if there’s a handful of maps with generic missions that quickly get boring after you’ve played through them for the hundredth time trying to get a decent RNG drop. I’ve always said that the mechanics are great, really top notch shooting, there’s just little game to go along with them and what game there is is usually imbalanced in some way.
So basically nothing worthwhile will be coming for ages? Glad I got out when I did.
All I can get from this article is “how to kill your game in two years” I’ve been playing destiny since the beginning. Tbh I’m over it with the release of fallout 4 and other games I just have 0 motivation to go back fun game yes continuing to play I am not
I bought the taken king and played it pretty hardcore for about a month. Doing almost everything there was to do as a solo player. Destiny really needs to just trust its gameplay. And stop trying to be halo
Eh, now that I’ve overcome my “Fear Of Missing Out” and broken the habit of logging into Destiny every day, I’m thinking I might just play it for the story for now. Do I want to check out Sparrow Racing? Yes, but not enough to neglect all my other games. So, I guess I’m one of the few that would rather just buy DLC.
Fair enough too, we’ve paid more then enough already.
Will give the sparrows a go, but honestly can’t see it bringing me back long term again. Great game, but think its done its dash now
Honestly, I’m alright with drip fed free content. There’s heaps of content already when you compare it to other FPS games. New PvP maps at least every 6 months would be welcome.
Actually, you know what would really be welcome? Dedicated fucking servers! In fact, I’d go with any bump up with servers and connectivity.