We are just days away from the beginning of 2025, the first year completely outside Destiny 2’s decade-long Light and Darkness saga. And I would argue this is the year whether we find out whether Destiny 2 can survive. Possibly even if Bungie can survive long term, but that’s a separate conversation, and heavily reliant on Marathon, which is too much of a question mark at this point.
2025 will bring the final “Episode” of the year, one focused on the Hive and the return of the Dreadnaught. Then we launch into the new “Frontiers” era of Destiny 2 with a summer Apollo expansion and a winter Behemoth expansion, with quarterly, seemingly story-free “Major Updates.” No more seasons, no more Episodes. Apollo and Behemoth seem likely to be somewhere in between a traditional expansion and an Episode in terms of size.
The challenges are as follows:
- Destiny 2 currently has its lowest (Steam) playercount in the history of the game on that platform, and console numbers are no doubt trending similarly. This is despite an episode adding some genuinely good activities, but these yawning gaps in between “Acts” create almost unprecedented levels of downtime. The same structure will exist next Episode, and it remains to be seen whether there will be enough changes to draw more players, or if these declines will continue.
- The Frontiers era has promised to take us out of the current solar system and into new places. But a test there is going to be what percentage of players actually show up for these new, smaller expansions. The Final Shape posted close to series highs, but given that we have ended up at series lows at the end of this year, it will take some heavy lifting to get players to return for Frontiers/Apollo. So what’s it going to be, 70% of players return? 50%? 30% And what about as the year goes on without actual seasons or Episodes in the interim?
- Bungie is now down to just 850 or so employees split between Destiny and Marathon, half what it was a few years ago between layoffs and quiet departures. And, as Marathon aims for a 2025 release (probably 2026, if we’re being honest) more resources will shift over there, as that game being a hit is really the main key to Bungie’s survival. But whether it’s a hit or miss, future Destiny content will be reduced in scale.
- There are promising signs like Destiny 2 still ranking in Steam’s “Platinum” tier of earners in 2024, albeit that was again, the year of The Final Shape which put up huge numbers. And despite what it earns, Bungie’s “burn rate” of cash spend has always been enormous, which resulted in significant issues post-Lightfall and there have been cuts and cuts since then. It has not been healthy for a while now.
I am legitimately wondering that if 2025 content does not perform the way it needs to, that Bungie may in fact consider putting Destiny on ice for the foreseeable future and devote everything to Marathon or other projects while keeping D2 in maintenance mode. Well, not everything, as I would hope the idea would to be to attempt to bring Destiny roaring back to life with a sequel say, five years from now, which I (and the playerbase) have said many times feels like the only way to fix things and stop these endless declines. But that would require work to essentially begin…now. It is hard to see Destiny 2 doing nothing but cranking out Frontiers-level content for the next five years without any sort of move toward an eventual sequel. The game is going to feel ancient the longer this goes, and we are speeding toward an entirely new console generation.
It’s possible Frontiers is a hit, and if content spend is reduced and player spend stays the same or even improves, that could mean a more profitable, slimmer Destiny really is the way forward. But I am seeing more red flags than green ones as we hit 2025 here, as much as I’d like that not to be the case.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
