In the wake of the very successful launch of The Final Shape in Destiny 2, one of the key leaders who helped make that happen has just announced that she’s leaving the company. That would be Expansion Project Lead Catarina Macedo, a frequent guest star in vidocs and a driving force between the quality of The Final Shape.
She says she’s taking some time off before moving somewhere unsaid, but building something totally new, which indicates she’s not heading to work on some existing franchise. We do not know if she is staying within Sony’s umbrella.
It may be too soon to announce a new Expansion Lead but the question is…will there be one? And the larger question that fans have had for a long time, will Destiny 2 continue to get true expansions like it’s had for the last seven years?
Bungie said previously they would talk about the future of Destiny 2 after The Final Shape launched. And they did do that, but they really only covered the next three “episodes,” ending with a tease for something called Destiny: Frontiers, which does not sound like an expansion, but rather perhaps an entire new arc with a theory that Destiny players will leave its current solar system. But will that include expansions?
There is some theorizing that Destiny is going to switch to an Episode-only model for a while, which is more or less the equivalent of stretched out seasons, and there would be no large expansion between them.
However, even with all this uncertainly and the lack of confirmation of new episodes. Even with Catarina’s departure, I’m still not convinced this is what’s going to happen. Why? It’s pretty basic.
Money.
The vast majority of cash that Bungie brings in, now directly funneled to new owner Sony, is from selling its yearly expansion, or a bundle of that expansion with its subsequent seasons for $100 or so. Or past expansions as new or lapsed players try to catch up.
Yes, Destiny 2 has microtransactions, yes, you can buy seasons, but the big drivers of both revenue, and then retain a playerbase that spends money on other stuff, is those expansions. Losing that would be enormous, and would mean less money to spend on content production, which would mean less opportunities for engagement and spending, and so on. While yes, Bungie has Marathon coming as a new game, that is a big, big risk in the current multiplayer landscape where everyone is stuck playing Fortnite and Warzone and Apex for the last few years, not giving many newcomers a shot. Bungie needs Destiny to continue, and an expansionless future seems almost impossible to envision.
I’ve heard other theories that this is about scaling back and working on Destiny 3. Just make episodes for two years and release Destiny 3 in 2026 or something. That timeline is just impossible, continuing to produce live content while also working on a full scale sequel that would be out that soon. I do believe a Destiny sequel will arrive someday, but not until the next console generation, and it can’t be beyond a conceptual phase right now. A game that size would take 4-5 years to make most likely, which is why I don’t think it’s coming until PS6 and Xbox Whatever are out. But we’ll see.
I think Destiny 2 needs expansions, but so much is changing over there, it’s hard to know where things are going. Before Catarina left, game director Joe Blackburn also departed. Meanwhile, more controversial leaders like the seldom-seen Pete Parsons, Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy remain. I think Bungie needs to start being more specific about what’s coming past codenames, as the current Episode format alone may start losing players quickly.
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