It has been just over a week since it was announced that Bungie would be splitting away from Activision and handling Destiny independently. Right now, there are still more questions than answers surrounding what this means for the future. Clearly though, Bungie is in good spirits about the whole thing, with Destiny director, Luke Smith, touching on the game's “bright future”.
Bungie's weekly update went live today, the bulk of it goes over balancing changes, but it starts off with a message from Destiny franchise director, Luke Smith. The post begins by thanking Activision for their help on Destiny up to this point, and High Moon Studios/Vicarious Visions for helping out on Forsaken and the PC version of Destiny 2.
What can we expect from Bungie in the short term? Well for the time being, Bungie will be carrying out the plans it has in place for the Annual Pass that debuted with Forsaken last year. Lessons learned from the Black Armory update will carry over into future content. One key thing that Bungie will be improving on is power level requirements, which were too high for the first Black Armory forge, which made it difficult for some players to jump into.
For future content, Bungie wants to “find the line between new content that many players can play, and aspiration content for players to progress toward”. This will involve improvements like ‘catch-up' mechanics to help returning players get up to speed and ready for new challenges.
Wrapping things up, Smith touches on long-term plans for Destiny: “We created the universe and we hold its future entirely in our hands. The vast majority of the team is hard at work envisioning future experiences, enemies, and ways to play the Guardian you've been building since 2014. We're going to keep doing that. We're thinking about what it means to be truly independent, what it means to self-publish, and crucially, what Destiny's future can now look like for our players.”
“When I look ahead and think about Destiny and where it could go, I see a bright future, with roots in a memorable past. Not everything has been lost in the dark corners of time.”
KitGuru Says: Destiny has had plenty of ups and downs as a franchise. Now that Bungie is free to tackle the game on its own, perhaps there will be a better outlook for future DLC and eventually, Destiny 3.