Why Destiny 2 Will Release In 2017
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Why Destiny 2 Will Release In 2017

The existence of Destiny 2 is probably the worst kept secret in gaming. We all know it’s coming, we just lack a proper name and a solid release day. I suppose an actual announcement of it would be a necessary formality as well, but they could honestly skip that at this point and no one would bat an eye. With the unanimous assessment that the game is in fact on the way, the real speculation lies in when the game is actually coming out. If we take a close look at all the evidence that exists for the game to date, we can confidently say that the game will release in September 2017. What follows is our list of reasons for why.

There’s Already an Enormous Team Working on It

In 2015 Bungie announced that Transformers: War for Cybertron developer High Moon Studios was working with Bungie on the Destiny franchise. Last December, Bungie then announced that New York developer Vicarious Visions who worked on Skylanders and other games was also joining forces to work on the franchise. This brings the total amount of studios working on the Destiny franchise to at least 3 and it’s been going on for 2 years. Something so massive with that many moving parts is expensive to maintain and certainly has a clear timeframe that isn’t years long.

bungie

The heads of development are the same that led The Taken King expansion which all but saved the game from dying an early death with it’s litany of changes to the core formula. Bungie itself is a massive operation of 700+ employees so when Activision said in Q2 2016 earnings and investor call that the majority of Bungie is focused on Destiny 2, that means hundreds of people. This was already almost a year ago. I’m not sure the extent of the game’s ambitions but hundreds of people working full time for over a year can build quite a lot of anything so it’s safe to say there is a substantial amount of content already completed. Unless they’re working on creating life, at which point we could forgive an extension of another year or so. Otherwise, I think it’s safe to say these committed resources have something deliverable for 2017.

A Sequel Is a Palette Cleanser an Expansion Can’t Provide

Functionally the sequel has an opportunity to alleviate some of the launch criticisms that plagued the first game at launch and were never fully addressed through subsequent expansions and revisions. The futility of trying is proof enough that the next focus will be on an entirely new experience and not an expansion. The Taken King was their attempt to fix what they could. It will take a brand new game to fix everything. Rumors and reports have mentioned that the game is being developed for PC and we can safely expect the game to take advantage of the PS4 Pro and Xbox Scorpio. Striking while the iron is hot for these new consoles and reaching out to the beleaguered PC community sooner than later makes sense. With upstarts and clones like The Division popping up and missing the mark for the time being, it’s logical to expect Bungie to release a perfection to the formula before the market provides a better alternative.

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So what does that new formula look like? Activision and Bungie themselves through various sound bytes and snippets have said the game will be a significant departure and it’s not even a guarantee that player characters will carry over. The desire is to make it a proper sequel even if leaves old planets, characters and activities behind. It’s entirely possible the formula of story, strikes and raids will be completely retooled in favor of something more analogous to an open world MMO. It’s possible we’ll even see completely new races and classes which are such huge components of Destiny.

destiny rise of iron 1

Furthermore from our fruitful earnings calls (capitalism sure has a way of spoiling surprises doesn’t it?) play-in destinations are a focus. Planets are being designed to feel more alive, with thriving populations, towns and outposts and organic quests. The goal is to move the locations away from a hit and run spot that you land on to perform a mission or bounty and leave, and move towards an engaging, always on experience. Additionally a reworking of the weapons and armor systems is likely although perhaps not as dramatically as the overworld.

They also are aiming to improve the method of content delivery to alleviate drought periods for players. The demand for new content outpaced their ability to create new content which resulted in a restructuring of how they will support the sequel post launch. Presently fans wait for an expansion, and between these content offerings they bide their time and wait for seasonal events like the Festival of the Lost or The Dawning to cost them through.

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These are all things a new expansion this year simply can’t provide but the staleness of going on 4 years of gameplay is exactly what the fan base is hoping to change. That vision for what Destiny 2 will look like couple with fan desires makes 2017 the ideal time to deliver it.

Activision Said It

Activision stated in their final investment call of 2016 that it was slated for 2017. “We’re on track and excited about what we think is going to be an awesome sequel for Destiny in 2017. No announcements today on timing just yet, but what I will say is that the sequel is designed to both excite both our highly engaged current players, but also to broaden the appeal even further, bringing in new fans and bringing back old fans as well. That’s our primary focus right now.”

There’s really not much more to it than that. They said it in a call designed to alleviate the concerns of investors. It’s incredibly dangerous to make promising overtures on something that’s not deliverable to a potential investor, so usually these kinds of statements are backed by reasonable expectation. It’s one thing to offhandedly tell a media outlet you’re planning on doing something and an entirely different thing to say to your cash infusers. Yes, some companies do that, and none of them grow to the size of an Activision. If there’s one thing that my study of Ferengi culture in Star Trek has taught me is you hedge against risk if you’re trying to make profit.

ferengi

Their Business Model Dictates It

Destiny’s serialized model means there is a huge content gap coming this year with September marking Year 4 of Destiny. Rise of Iron was a small expansion, and we’re not likely to get anything on par or more substantial. Initially the plan for the franchise was to make Destiny a yearly release that swapped between a full game and large expansion. Obviously these plans have changed. So far we’ve seen Game, Expansion, Sorta-Expansion, when it was supposed to be Game, Expansion, Game. New reports said that the sequel was supposed to be released by September of 2016, but was delayed to 2017 to reboot the project and make room for the Rise of Iron expansion. Regardless of the adjustment away from alternating annualized releases, the truth is this year, there is nothing lined up as far as a major expansion so not getting a proper game release would effectively make a year of nothing new. That is 100% not happening.

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September really seems to be the sweet spot month for the franchise given it’s past content delivery history. Destiny released September 2014, The Taken King expansion came in September 2015, and Rise of Iron came in September of 2016. It’s entirely possible we’ll see an announcement during E3 or perhaps even sooner if Activision and Bungie want to get a jump on promotion. With a game this big that stands to move units in the tens of millions, it’s going to need a long enough marketing campaign to help it hit those targets. They’ll also want to get the jump on other mega releases that we tend to see in September/October so announcing soon will allow them to carve out the launch day all to themselves.

Closing Thoughts

When you lay it out like this, it becomes more and more obvious that September 2017 is when we will see the proper sequel. Between a massive workforce expansion, fan demands on mechanics, firsthand statements and their development history it’s a matter of connecting the dots for a fall release. All of a sudden it really doesn’t feel like Destiny 2 is far away after all. In game development, 8 months is a blink of the eye away. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to be an interesting 8 months and we’re looking forward to watching this all unfold! We’ll save the told-you-so for September.


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4 responses to “Why Destiny 2 Will Release In 2017”


  1. I like that they’re keeping very hush hush about the game so far, i’d no intentions of getting the original game, it was only when 1 or 2 people from here were going on about it that i tried it out. going into it blind was a good experience, almost reminded me of going in blind to my imported demons souls copy all those years ago.

    Open world, per planet yeah that would be interesting, loading did annoying at times go to tower, loading screen, pick up quest, go to orbit, go to mission\planet, loading screen, fin quest, go to orbit, back to tower, loading screen, finish quest or get told next phase of quest, back to orbit, rinse repeat. Some sort of guardian or friendly waystation\NPC presence on the invidual planets would even do.

    I really hope there is no significant carry over from destiny 1 for your account\character, fresh start, a lot of the fun in destiny was getting weapon x, i remember roaring down the headset and deafening 2 random guardians when i finally got gjallahorn in a nightfall.

    Whenever it comes out, it would want to be to be this year, ROI was decent but nowhere near as big as TTK was, people have gotten tired of it a lot quicker and they’d want to bring something out in between. Looking at my friends list and who’s playing what the past month, it’s been the quietest i’ve seen destiny in its 2 years. They need to bring it out while its fresh in people’s minds. Something like making VOG or crota’s end raid significant again will add some newness to it and would bring back a lot of the original players, do that a month or 2 before D2 launch.

  2. Hey Capa long time no chat. Was hoping to hear your take on this. I definitely think if it goes more open world than it is right now, it will be a big improvement. Right now all the loading between locations and activities seems to keep players from lingering unless they’re in the Tower dealing with vendors.

  3. It’s going to be a very different game, one thing i will say about bungie is they listen(altho i think they listen too much at times) and change the game, the original gameplay has changed a lot from when it first launched. looking forward to see what they do with this.

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