In Destiny 2, I and some other random players stood in the Skywatch area of the old Russian Cosmodrome, waiting for enemies to appear. A Hive Grave ship appeared in the sky above me and dropped exactly two enemies, which I blasted away with my machine gun. The other players rushed over and swooped in like hawks, but I managed to kill two guys before they could, so they jumped back onto the rooftops and boulders to wait for the next batch of bad guys before trying again. Long, boring seconds passed before more enemies appeared and we all repeated the scramble.
I’m shooting these specific fish in this specific barrel because that’s a requirement to unlock the Legendary title, which is the social token of achievement in the game that appears under your name. Another player getting killed means I didn’t get killed, so we’re all competing against each other to spend the least amount of time here. Developer Bungie added the title to the game to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the original Destiny, and what I’m working on is an homage to the game’s early jokes. We had to kill a group of enemies in the Sky Guard and loot “sigils” or weapon/armor drops from them.
You see, when Destiny launched in 2014, it was extremely difficult to level up and meet the requirements for its end-game content (Glass Dome Assault). After a certain level, your power is determined by the attributes on your equipment, so you’re always pursuing higher-level weapons and armor. Gear is stingily equipped; you can get it by playing strike missions, but it only drops randomly at unpredictable intervals and starts, and when killing aliens. But these equipment are never guaranteed better Than what you already have.
Players then discover the Loot Cave, a place in the Cosmodrome Skydeck where enemies spawn almost endlessly if you kill them fast enough. So we all stood on a rock in the sky guard, which was the right distance from the cave to avoid interfering with the spawn rate, and then shot at the crowd. Engrams drop randomly, but there are so many enemies that it changes the drop rate from annoyingly rare to stupidly abundant. It’s still incredibly boring, but it’s at least more efficient than playing the same few hits over and over and getting nowhere.
Back to today’s Skywatch, I stood on a rock waiting for the enemies to appear, more or less of them, for about half an hour. It was at that time one Blot drops. I grabbed it, hoping I’d finished my mundane callback to the worst-case scenario in Destiny, and checked my progress: 7%. I need 13 more seals.
YesI think. It feels like destiny.
If you told me this Skywatch was targeting direct trolls from the loot caves in the Destiny community, I would have believed you. Considering I had to spend several hours to do this, I can see this as a brilliant prank, if there seems to be a punchline somewhere in it. But on the occasion of the studio’s 30th anniversary, Bungie has made the joke in a funnier, smarter way with Greedy Grasp dungeons.
It’s more likely, however, that the Engram drop rate is just a silly oversight that turns something interesting into a disappointment – and since Bungie says it’ll be adjusting enemy density in Skywatch, it appears that’s the case . Still, something fun ended up being a disappointment, which is consistent with the rest of Destiny’s tenth anniversary.
In fact, there is little to mark the tenth anniversary of Destiny. On September 9th, the actual anniversary of Destiny’s release, Bungie added five secret chests that you can find in the Traveler’s Pale Heart location, all of which are barely hidden and available for you Offers a set of armor inspired by the appearance of the original game. There’s also the aforementioned title that you unlock by completing a few objectives that recall the original game in some slightly nostalgic ways, but most just involve wearing armor and doing a few activities – Skywatch objectives are By far the most daunting, and sooner or later, this problem will be solved. Titles are most fun when they’re difficult to obtain or require you to do novel things to obtain them, but the legendary title is so easy to obtain (albeit with a few hours of boredom) that it’s doubtful anyone will bother using it.
Winning the title does come with some sort of celebratory reward – like the 30th anniversary, it’s a larger in-game event that gives the studio lots to play and earn, and you have the chance to pre-order a limited edition of Destiny’s Nerf gun is, admittedly, pretty cool (although one artist on Twitter/X accused Bungie of stealing the design for a physical version of the in-game weapon they created almost nine years ago). Disclosure: I bought the Nerf Gjallarhorn last time this happened and have no regrets.
But there’s nothing to buy in the in-game Eververse store; there’s no in-game event to commemorate the moment; and overall, there’s little reason to care.
This feels very strange. Indeed, it’s the anniversary destiny instead of Destiny 2the game we’re playing right now, but in the most important way the difference is really just in the numbers on the box – overall the game as a whole is really Destiny.
What’s more, we’ve just seen the culmination of the Saga of Light and Darkness, a story that kicked off on September 9, 2014, and may be the best part of the Destiny content Bungie has produced. With The Final Shape, Destiny 2 feels like it’s finally achieved what Bungie always wanted Destiny to be – combining fun shooter fundamentals with a strange and fascinating world that’s easy to get lost in. Filled with interesting characters and an emotional story to tell.
This should be Bungie’s victory lap. Instead, people appeared to be walking out of the stadium and toward their cars.
Back when Bungie first announced the game, it cited a 10-year journey for players, which seemed a bit ridiculous at the time. But we have taken that final step, and the journey has been incredible in many ways. Even if you’re not a fan or gamer, you’ll admit that in terms of longevity, popularity, growth, and influence, Destiny falls into a category occupied by a handful. It invented and reinvented itself again and again, evolving toward its original vision over the course of a decade and repeatedly dodging accusations of a “game of death.” Its success has had a huge impact on the larger gaming industry (often for the worse, as happens when businesses chase trends), and continues to demonstrate how exciting the concept of “live gaming” can be.
Indeed, there aren’t many examples of a decade-long legacy like Destiny’s. Of course, there are other MMOs in this club, as well as multiplayer games like Team Fortress 2 or Counter-Strike 2. name. While the semantics of Destiny’s 10th Anniversary Edition including a tech sequel is odd, it’s still a rare achievement.
Yet despite the decade-long journey that the studio and community have been on together, there’s been little to remember. I’m standing in Skyguard, shooting two enemies a minute, trying to unlock a game that I will never use because it feels like it was thrown together at the last second and doesn’t show the amount of time I’ve spent with this game . Disclosure: I will not be buying a Nerf gun this time.
It seems easy to speculate on why Destiny’s tenth anniversary feels sloppy. Bungie laid off about 220 employees in July, less than two months before The Final Shape was released. This round of layoffs includes a group of key talent, from longtime executives to the writing staff who have helped Destiny 2 develop into more than just another live game. Less than a year ago in November, Bungie also laid off about 100 employees.
Really, what’s there to celebrate? Player numbers dropped off a bit after Final Form, more than the usual decline after the climax of an expansion, and Final Form reportedly did not sell as well as its previous expansion, Lightfall. After acquiring Bungie in 2022 for $3.6 billion, Sony appears to be preparing to make further changes or cuts to the studio. Less than two years ago, the Destiny franchise seemed to have a bright future, although Bungie gave a loose look at Destiny 2 more than a year into the future in a series of blog posts last Monday. But it gets darker.
A lackluster, barely acknowledged anniversary is what happens when you fire most of the team during the heyday of a game series.
Every time I talk about the original Destiny, I feel privileged to admit out loud that I don’t like it that much, and discuss how much that stance has changed over time. As Bungie makes progress in Destiny and Destiny 2, eliminating the worst, most grinding instincts, reducing time-wasting busywork and leaning into the unique, fun strangeness it creates, I like it more and more.
Yes, Destiny still often contains many of the problems of always-on service games, defined by the need to keep players on a treadmill of endless upward mobility so they’ll spend some money on microtransactions, but it also contains the best of idea. It can use its vast world and deep lore to tell compelling stories. It often has a sense of immersion and fantasy that no other game can match. It gives us creative challenges in gameplay and teamwork that I haven’t seen in any other game. Destiny is a funny thing at first, but it become Something noteworthy and often praiseworthy in the gaming medium.
Destiny 2 is also getting two episodes of content and plans to launch an expansion pack before 2025, so while more layoffs are having a huge chilling effect on the Destiny community and Bungie itself, it’s now said that Destiny isn’t It’s still too early to tell. But ten years on, I’m standing in the sky guard, waiting for enemies to appear, wondering if Destiny’s future will be much different than its past.
