Destiny 2, the currently unannounced 2017 sequel to Destiny, is coming to PC, according to several sources. The first game was exclusive to consoles, much to the dismay of Destiny fans with beefy computers. We also hear that Bungie aims to make Destiny 2 feel like an entirely new game rather than a Taken King-style expansion — even if that means leaving old characters behind.
The PC rumour first popped up on NeoGAF yesterday. A GAF poster named benny_a wrote that a friend at Activision had told him that Destiny’s much-anticipated sequel will indeed be on PC. The publisher informed employees about the news during an internal presentation today, according to benny_a. He added another interesting tidbit: That the Activision-owned studio Vicarious Visions is also helping out on Destiny 2. Although that isn’t public knowledge, I had heard the same thing a few weeks ago, which adds credence to benny_a’s report.
Earlier this year, I’d also heard from a person familiar with Bungie’s plans that Destiny 2, which is currently slated for a late 2017 release, will be on PC. This isn’t a shocker. Releasing Destiny’s sequel on PC will give Bungie access to a giant new potential audience, one that wasn’t around for the first game. Ditching last-gen consoles, which Bungie has already done for the recently released Rise of Iron expansion, ensures that they no longer have to worry about antiquated memory restrictions.
Over the past few months, I’ve also heard that Bungie’s leadership wants Destiny 2 to feel like a proper sequel, even if that means leaving old planets, characters and activities behind. In conversations with me, people connected to Bungie have made comparisons to Blizzard’s Diablo 2, which iterated on the first game in some incredible ways but didn’t carry over characters or content from Diablo. I don’t know exactly how much will change in Destiny 2, but all signs point to the developers starting from scratch. “D2 is a completely different game,” said one person familiar with development. “The Taken King was a reboot for Destiny 1 to fix small things. This is the overhaul to fix big things.”
One of the terms we’ll be hearing often with Destiny 2, according to sources, is “play-in destinations” — a new activity model that will revamp how Destiny’s world functions. The plan, from what I’ve heard, is for Destiny 2’s planets to feel more populated with towns, outposts and quests that are more interesting than the patrol missions you can get in Destiny.
Assuming Destiny 2 won’t let players carry over their old characters, Bungie will likely offer something to players who have poured hundreds of hours into the first game. (Last I heard, Bungie has not yet finalised these decisions.)
In April, according to several sources, Bungie had a staff reorganisation. During this process, The Taken King director Luke Smith and executive producer Mark Noseworthy became, respectively, director and executive producer of Destiny 2. They rebooted the story that had been written up to that point. A number of veteran Bungie staffers also left the studio around that time. Some went to big companies; others moved into indie development.
The bulk of Bungie’s 750+ employees are working on Destiny 2, and Activision has also recruited other studios including High Moon, Vicarious Visions and others to help with development on the game, according to sources.
Reps for Bungie have not yet returned a request for comment.
Comments
11 responses to “Sources: Destiny 2 Coming To PC, Aims To Feel Like A Totally New Game”
Just keep that gunplay Bungie.
As long as the gunplay and movement remain the same, i have an attachment to my main but i dont mind restarting
I’ll admit I’d be bummed to leave my titan behind. The giant metal doofus has been an interesting character considering he’s a damn mute 90% of the time. Running around killing gods and being a bubble buddy. But … if it’s a whole new game, it’s a whole new game.
Destiny is at its best until you get to the raids and then something that should be fun and community grooming turns into a heavy grindfest that quickly turns randos against each other.
If they can give other activities for late game rather than grinding out raids on alts, then the game could actually not feel like a chore.
Loved my bubble bro and sith lord, but the grind to hard mode raids is just wayyyy too much.
^ this
Honestly quite happy to leave behind my old character – means I can jump from xbox one to PS4 with no issue for the sequel.
As great as the gunplay is, if they release Destiny 2 on PC with even the amount of content Destiny has in it now, it will bomb on PC soon after release. No doubt it will sell well initially though.
So they realised that, when it comes to persistent multiplayer games, PC is where the money is, huh?
Also where all the cheaters and toxic users are too, I can understand their hesitation in releasing on PC before they knew what Destiny truly was.
I’m feeling like there’s too good a chance this will not be a full blown PC release, but a Microsoft “Play Anywhere” thing, meaning the dreaded UWP on Windows 10 only. If it’s a full blown PC release I’ll likely jump all over it (skipped D1 since it was one of those “the more I hear about it the less interested I am” games) but if it’s UWP, it’s a guarantee no.
seems unlikely, considering they constantly talked about how you would keep your character in all future versions