On May 21, 2026, I received the hardest-to-swallow news in my lifetime tenure as a gamer: Bungie’s shuttering of Destiny 2. An MMORPG PvPvE looter-sh
On May 21, 2026, I received the hardest-to-swallow news in my lifetime tenure as a gamer: Bungie’s shuttering of Destiny 2. An MMORPG PvPvE looter-shooter space opera blend of science fiction and fantasy, Destiny 2 is the game I’ve played the most in my lifetime, logging a subsequent 1,714.8 hours since Destiny 2‘s summer 2017 open beta. Safe to say, I’ve seen the ups and downs of Destiny 2 in full swing—for better or worse. With Destiny 2 going the way of the dodo via “Monument of Triumph,” the game’s final content update and premature swan song, players, or “guardians,” are returning in droves for one of gaming’s most bittersweet finales, marking the end of a 12-year-long era.
To quote Cinderella (the band, not the fairy tale), you “don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” Logging back into Destiny 2 after a lengthy hiatus, the overwhelming amount of catching up I had to do since my last login was nothing compact of daunting. This was always a problem with Destiny 2—one they had a gigantic amount of trouble circumventing after the game’s live-service-ification. Now that Destiny 2 has, ironically, reached a point of stasis, the game, as IGN’s Jeremy Peel pointed out, is at its most accessible and complete. Though some unfortunate paywalls still stand, the Olympic sprint to catch up with your buds is gone, making Destiny 2 easier to jump back into than ever.
‘Destiny 2’ Had a Rough Start
Hard as it is to remember gripes from the ninth grade, one can’t look back at Destiny 2 with fully rose-colored glasses. Since its day-after-Labor-Day launch (initially on Blizzard’s Battle.net launcher before migrating to Steam two years later) in September 2017, Destiny 2’s quality control fluctuated like a faulty EKG. The power ammo change severely bottlenecked gameplay options for Destiny’s player base—a change from the original Destiny’s versatile customizability—essentially stripping a core aspect of what made its predecessor so much fun. Running a loadout with two “primary” weapons in 2026 is a common in-joke; doing so in 2017 was mandatory. Combined with confined armor and weapon modifications, Destiny 2 was nothing more than a shadow of its former self.
Acting as the one-two punch that nearly drove Destiny 2 into the ground for good, the Curse of Osiris and Warmind expansions cost a far-too-pretty penny for middling results. Emphasis on Eververse—a microtransaction-oriented hellhole that Bungie would further compound with Fortnite-esque season passes—gave Destiny 2 a particularly EA-scented stink stacked on top of a $60 base game. Outside the now-defunct Leviathan raid (more on that later), Destiny 2’s post-game was essentially non-existent. Preset weapon stats completely dismantled the entire looter-shooter aspect of the game, leaving players with far less to do than the game’s predecessor. From September 6, 2017, to September 4, 2018, Destiny 2 was on the verge of collapse, with its player base dropping a reported 75%.
‘Forsaken’ Saved ‘Destiny 2’
After Curse of Osiris and Warmind tanked, asking players to fork over more money was a Herculean task for Bungie. The solution? Make it personal. The tragic murder of fan-favorite character Cayde-6 (first voiced by Nathan Fillion, later voiced by Nolan North) brought a swath of Destiny resignees back for revenge (me included) in Destiny 2: Forsaken. Alongside what many players consider one of the best DLCs in Destiny history, Forsaken breathed fresh life into a game on life support, amending many of the game’s year-one problems. By adding randomized loot perks, a fresh game mode in “Gambit,” and a post-game overhaul featuring the celebrated “Last Wish” raid, Destiny 2 was finally on the right track.
Not everything changed for the better, though. The introduction of the “annual pass,” a pay-to-play expansion pass spanning the next year, was the start of Destiny 2’s shift to live-service à la Fortnite. The subsequent seasons, Black Armory, Joker’s Wild, and Opulence, signaled a promising future for the game, but good things don’t last forever. Shadowkeep—the game’s second major DLC—disappointed players due to its bite-sized campaign and lack of playable content. Alongside Shadowkeep was New Light—Destiny’s transition to a free-to-play game—miffing players who had already paid full price. Underwhelming as Shadowkeep was, the post-game and armor overhauls didn’t make it a complete bust, with the game remaining in a seemingly solid state. That said, the worst was yet to come.
‘Beyond Light’ and the ‘Destiny’ Content Vault
When Destiny 2’s third major expansion, the Europa-set Beyond Light, dropped in 2020, players hoped Bungie had moved things in the right direction. Beyond Light added an entirely fresh element for players to toy with in the ice-themed “Stasis” subclass (both of which became free-to-play in 2024), marking the first fresh subclass option in Destiny history. The caveat, though, was the introduction of the Destiny Content Vault. Nowhere in this article do I intend to point the finger, though the DCV was supremely alienating to Destiny players. Old loot was instantly obsolete, forcing players to redo hours of grinding. Worse still, Bungie erased every campaign before Forsaken (which entered the vault in 2022), increasing players’ net loss to over $100.
Here lies the rub: Bungie made the game’s base campaign, “The Red War,” unplayable. There was no entry point to Destiny 2 anymore, throwing rookies headfirst into the deep end. Thus begins Destiny 2’s overwhelm: there was no guiding hand to steer newbies on course, leaving players to their own devices. Furthermore, the DCV removed five (some of which were my favorite activities in the entire game) of the potentially eight playable raids. In one fell swoop, Destiny 2 alienated its core player base by having veterans start from scratch (alongside emptying their pockets) and turned off newcomers from a game with great potential. Beyond Light may not have been the killing blow, though it definitely left a mark.
The (Light)Fall of ‘Destiny 2’
For the next five years, Destiny 2 would follow a pattern of one great major expansion followed by a mediocre one. Following the mixed response to Beyond Light was The Witch Queen, the long-awaited narrative follow-up to Destiny’s first expansion: The Taken King. A fresh raid, “Vow of the Disciple,” came alongside an update of fan-favorite raid “King’s Fall,” with The Witch Queen’s narrative heights matching that of the gameplay. As with Destiny 2’s fresh M.O., however, The Witch Queen’s introduction meant the vaulting of the beloved Forsaken’s campaign and its respective destination, the Tangled Shore, compounding the “sunsetting” problem introduced in Beyond Light. As much as The Witch Queen added, it didn’t need to come with subtractions.
Aside from the rotational seasonal content, major subtractions ended with Destiny 2: Lightfall, though the monkey’s paw still curled. Despite Lightfall’s addition of a fresh subclass, “Strand,” the Neptune-based destination and god-awful writing cemented it as one of Destiny’s worst DLCs to date. Existing as a stepping stone towards concluding the “Light and Darkness Saga,” Lightfall further acquainted players with Destiny 2’s overarching antagonist, The Witness, although the expansion’s campaign ended with the defeat of “Leviathan” boss Emperor Calus. Players gained nothing from Lightfall apart from a fresh subclass (which one can’t operate without buying Lightfall—for now) and a reminder of the Witness’ approach, with the expansion not doing enough to satisfy players for the next year.
‘The Final Shape’ and the Final ‘Destiny’ Expansions
As per the pattern, Lightfall’s cataclysmic failure signified The Final Shape’s success, with the prophecy proving itself right once again. Concluding the last ten years of Destiny, The Final Shape’s campaign not only gave us a fresh subclass in “Prismatic” but also allowed us one last ride with Cayde-6 in an afterlife-esque expansion. Packed with enough emotional wallop to soften the most ironclad of hearts (the impact was boosted by Keith David taking over the role of Commander Zavala after Lance Reddick‘s passing), The Final Shape ended things sweetly when they could’ve stayed sour. Bungie reversed weapon vaulting and added a plethora of quality-of-life changes, though after Beyond Light, the damage was already done, and players trailed off once again.
Though not entirely due to the conclusion of Destiny’s Light and Darkness Saga, there’s connective tissue between Destiny post-Final Shape and the Marvel Cinematic Universe post-Avengers: Endgame: closure. Fans of both properties had eaten their fill with a worthy sendoff to a universe and characters they loved wholeheartedly, and were far more willing to move on than the studios were. Following The Final Shape, Destiny 2’s “Year of Prophecy” brought zero major expansions to Destiny players, instead offering two medium-sized ones: The Edge of Fate and Renegades. The former was a total nothingburger, whereas the latter was a Hail Mary collaboration with Star Wars. Neither expansion reached the heights of The Final Shape, setting Destiny’s fate in stone.
Monument of Triumph and the End of ‘Destiny’
After Bungie scrapped all future content updates for Destiny 2 (including a future villain voiced by Jeffrey Dean Morgan), June 9, 2026, marked the beginning of the end. Combined with restoring the director tab after its removal in The Edge of Fate, Bungie’s final content update solves many of Destiny’s long-standing issues, though, of course, not all. Even if the game—particularly the Crucible—is still flawed and littered with bugs, it’s somewhat excusable after Bungie’s laying off of over 292 employees. Since Destiny’s death letter, I’ve reconnected with aged friends to experience Destiny’s last hurrah as the fireteam we once were, resurfacing forgotten memories of collective triumph and joy, reminding me of why I love Destiny 2 so much—warts and all.
