Destiny 2 has been one of the most influential and enduring online shooters of the last decade, and the news that active development is officially ending has prompted some intense reactions from fans.

Bungie threw caution to the wind last month with Destiny 2's final update, Monument of Triumph, which made the game more active than it had been in years as current and lapsed players returned for the big send-off. Numbers from SteamDB showed Destiny 2's concurrent Steam player count had climbed to more than 165,000 at the time, which was the highest number for the game since summer 2024, which saw the game approach its all-time peak of 316,750.

Now we have some data from Circana senior director Mat Piscatella demonstrating the success of Destiny 2's last hurrah from a different angle. Instead of looking at raw player figures, Piscatella showed Steam's ranking of games with the most active monthly US-based users from June 2026. The data shows that Destiny jumped all the way from the 32nd position to 5th place, an absolutely staggering leap for a game knocking on death's door.

Circana Player Engagement Tracker US MAU charts for June 2026:- Meccha Chameleon debuted on top of the Steam US monthly active user chart- Destiny 2 jumped to 5th from 32nd in May on Steam- Where Winds Meet launched in top 10 on Xbox with Game Pass release

— @matpiscatella.bsky.social (@matpiscatella.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-07-17T00:02:35.627Z

Unfortunately, these impressive player numbers are far too little and too late to do anything more than satisfy the morbidly curious. PlayStation laid off most of the Destiny 2 team as Bungie shifts its focus over to Marathon, even if the shiny new extraction shooter hasn't yet established itself as having anywhere near the impact of Destiny. Even developers from other studios, like Warframe lead Rebecca Ford, have said Destiny 2's death is "horrible news" for everyone because if it can happen to Bungie, it can happen to anyone.

"I am utterly livid": Destiny 2 lore master says secret scene reveals "the potential that was ahead" before the game abruptly ended

Maintaining a live-service game is a tough line of work. You've got to keep the updates coming, constantly roll out hotfixes, and you're constantly relying on your community to make the release viable. Warframe's been going steady for 13 years now, an impressive feat, and Rebecca Ford, the game's creative director, takes nothing for granted.

"You can be as wise as those that came before you, you can learn from those who have not continued on, and the truth is always somewhere in the middle of it," she explains to GamesRadar+ during an interview at TennoCon 2026. "Just try and make a good game before they kick you out."

That's a slightly dispiriting outlook, but it's pragmatic, since we just saw the sudden finish of Destiny 2. Bungie's sci-fi FPS came to a slightly unceremonious end in June, with a sudden final update after it was reported Sony took a considerable loss on acquiring the studio, leading to a large amount of layoffs.

Warframe developer Digital Extremes knows full well the environment it's in. "It shows that even if you care so much, the business side of this industry always gets the last remark," Ford says of what happened to Bungie. "Those are the types of stories and experiences that, when you're in a position where you have your own game, your own IP, and you work as hard as you do on it… That's not the first time it's happened, and it'll happen again, where the business aspect of the video game economy makes the decision for you."

She mentions that "the idea that we aren't in charge of our own goodbye is something I wake up thinking about every single day," demonstrating the kind of pressure she and her colleagues work under. Right now, Warframe seems to be going strong. TennoCon gets bigger each and every year, and being both free and well-balanced as a game makes Warframe appealing and easy to settle into.

There have been layoffs in the studio before, though, and Ford notes that despite this, the internal structure contains many longtime employees – including herself, as she's risen from community management to her current role – giving them a distinct perspective.

"Anyone here in a leadership position didn't come into the company in that position, which I think gives us a little bit of a unique way of working as a team," she explains. "None of us signed up for this, but we do it because it must be done, and we trust each other, which is one of the most fundamental parts of our operations, and every day, every week, we can improve how we work as a business with an office, or how we work remote as a studio."

Warframe lead Rebecca Ford says Destiny 2's death is "horrible news" for everyone: "Not the first time it's happened, and it'll happen again"

Warframe leadership isn't about to celebrate the impending death of Destiny 2, even if they are on course to outlive one of their game's strongest competitors in the sci-fi live-service space.

Developer Bungie announced in May that it's ending active development on Destiny 2 after more than a decade as it turns its attention toward its new extraction shooter Marathon. Destiny 2 will remain playable for the foreseeable future, but its briefly resurgent Monument of Triumph update from June will be its last major content drop as static events and retouched modes sustain the game's live operations.

Warframe, meanwhile, which released a year before Destiny (the original) in 2013, is showing no signs of slowing down with major story and content updates continuing at a regular cadence. Still, creative director Rebecca Ford refuses to dance on a grave, not just because she's above something like that, but because she knows that if a game as enduring and influential as Destiny 2 can fall in favor of short-term business needs, anything can.

"It's horrible news, because it shows that even if you care so much, the business side of this industry always gets the last remark," Ford tells GamesRadar+ during a conversation at TennoCon 2026.

"Those are the types of stories and experiences that, when you're in a position where you have your own game, your own IP, and you work as hard as you do on it... That's not the first time it's happened, and it'll happen again, where the business aspect of the video game economy makes the decision for you, and it is existentially threatening at every level, because the idea that we aren't in charge of our own goodbye is something I wake up thinking about every single day."

Unless you're a strictly independent, private studio which doesn't answer to shareholders, this is the sort of thing every game developer worries about to some degree in 2026 as consolidation, mass layoffs, studio closures, and game cancelations define one of the most turbulent periods in games industry history. Everything happening at Xbox this week spells nothing but bad news for devs and the projects which now may or may not ever come to light.

Case in point: The Elder Scrolls 6 will be hurt and potentially delayed by Xbox layoffs, Bethesda devs expect: "This has had a crushing effect on morale"

One Destiny 2 player, an apparent game developer, has made their own raid to throw one last tomato at former Bungie CEO Pete Parsons, who departed the struggling company amid controversy over the small fortune he'd seemingly recently spent on exotic cars.

Satire Twitter account Pete Carsons, whose operator is currently unclear, proudly revealed "The Vault of Cars" this week – a fully playable, in-browser Destiny raid which parodies the Vault of Glass and features Parsons, reborn as a Taniks-like machine hybrid with a South Park-style bucket mouth, as the final boss.

Spite absolutely drips off of this joke raid. A simulated orbit popup asks, "Do you have what it takes to face Pete Carsons in the Vault of Cars and stop him from purchasing all of the remaining cars in The Last City?"

A Twitter post adds: "Note: This experience is not affiliated with or endorsed by Bungie. It is satire only." You know, in case you weren't sure.

Once you log in to "The Final Car," you're thrown into a conversation with "Pete Carsons, Destroyer of Guardians" in a blurry Vault of Glass. Like every freaking Destiny boss, "Pete Carsons" throws up an invincible shield and starts chucking MacGuffins at you – in this case, a procession of cars with labels like "team reduction, crunch enforcer, layoff candidate, micro management, bad taste," and more.

This is a multilayered fight and a fairly impressive lo-fi recreation of the Vault of Glass final boss, Atheon. If you survive the cars – obviously, by throwing tomatoes at them – you'll be whisked to another realm beset by blinking oracles. If you fail the mechanics, you'll see a wipe screen which confirms that the Guardian in this scenario is named "The Entire Playerbase."

Clearing the raid seems to pull up a "We Want Destiny 3" page, which links to the petition calling for a sequel. The parody's creator, "a random developer," writes, "Building video games is hard. It is very hard.

"This industry is neither forgiving nor secure, and yet – we build these worlds because we know millions of people will be invited to experienced the combined efforts of tens of millions of hours it takes to build those worlds."

This sentiment hits hard as the games industry bloodbath continues amidst, most recently, thousands of layoffs and multiple studio divestments at Xbox.

Skewering "very bad and sometimes obvious decisions" made at the expense of game devs, the creator of Pete Carsons continues: "For me, Destiny was special, and although I never got to work on it, a lot of my friends did, friends who can no longer continue to build their world. This is the devastating reality of those bad decisions. The conditions that presented themselves to make Destiny a reality might not be conditions we see for a very, very long time again, if ever."

This parody comes as Bungie reels from massive layoffs, struggles to even hotfix Destiny 2 now that it's in permanent maintenance mode, and watches Marathon lose players. In May, as players prayed for a Destiny 3, a former Destiny 2 writer said, "It turns out the real Destiny killer was Pete Parsons."

Destiny 2 community manager calls out "leaders who made multiple years of poor decisions" as former Bungie VP shares post blaming industry implosion on the market.

No new content is coming to Destiny 2 following its final major update and heavy layoffs at developer Bungie, but the game is keeping the lights on with irregular hotfixes. The studio has admitted it can't guarantee fixes to all reported problems going forward, but one member of the team says some solutions may be workable.

Bungie released the patch notes for a small Destiny 2 update earlier today. It's actually not all that miserably tiny; we've seen smaller updates during livelier periods of the game. But it is basically just a bunch of fixed issues, and that's all we'll see going forward.

Every time Bungie releases a patch like this nowadays, players wonder if this is the last Destiny 2 patch, and blog post, ever. Has the game died its true death? One Twitter user put the question to the Destiny 2 Team account earlier today, and Bungie principal comms manager dmg04 responded.

"There may be moments where we break glass for highest priority issues (game crashes)," he explains. "There will indeed still be downtimes for general server maintenance/upkeep. If we have the opportunity, a small fix could sneak in here or there."

You might think that no new updates means no new crashes, but I've learned not to doubt the power of spaghetti code.

Previously, the Destiny 2 Team account told players that an incoming patch would come "when possible" and contained a "handful of fixes" from "impacted team members." It's a sad story up and down: issues being fixed by people who are no longer at the studio, as that studio tries to keep its head above water at a dire time for the industry altogether.

Id Software veteran of over 20 years absolutely rips and tears into Microsoft after devastating layoffs: "XBOX decided half the team was no longer needed."

As with most things in life, it's hard to pin down an exact singular reason for the downfall of Destiny 2, which had previously been one of the most enduring online first-person shooters in the genre, but Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney has seemingly floated what he thinks was a major issue: Bungie and Sony not embracing generative AI enough.

For a player and journalist's perspective, I'll defer to GamesRadar+'s Austin Wood, who cites "unpopular systemic changes, wobbling epilogue narratives, and a severe content drought" as some of Destiny 2's biggest pain points in recent months, and of course Bungie seems to have put all of its eggs into one basket with Marathon, diverting resources that would've otherwise gone into making new Destiny 2 content. But behind closed doors there were other factors at play, according to an anonymous source familiar with the situation speaking to Forbes.

According to the insider, Destiny 2 failed simply because it was "only very rarely profitable during its entire lifespan" due to the "enormous scale of content that had to be produced nonstop, lest fans revolt against its scarcity," and because "when Destiny was profitable, those extra funds were often immediately misused by leadership at the time, funneled into way too many simultaneous incubation projects or ideas like spending tens of millions on a new, unneeded 208,000 square foot headquarters."

Reacting to this report, Sweeney seemingly suggests a solution postmortem to that first outlined problem. "If only some sort of newfangled technology could come along and make it possible to overcome bullet point #1 and enable games like Destiny to thrive!"

The famously outspoken Sweeney has long been, if not a full-blown proponent of AI in games, someone urging developers and publishers to embrace the tech as an inevitability "in nearly all future production." Sweeney has long criticized Valve's policy of displaying AI disclosures for games as "really irresponsible of Valve," arguing these disclosures make it "much, much, much harder for a game developer to have a chance of success."

With regards to Destiny 2, however, I don't want to infer too much from what is, after all, Just A Tweet, but Sweeney could be proposing generative AI as a means to accelerate game development, or, much more dubiously, as a tool to actually create content. That distinction is at the heart of the current debate around whether generative AI has any place in game development, and if so, what that role is.

As Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney blasts Valve over Steam AI disclosures, dev makes those disclosures even more noticeable and hides AI-aided games in search results

On the heels of heavy Bungie layoffs, longtime Destiny 2 community manager Dylan "dmg04" Gafner reiterated the responsibility of game studio leadership in a slightly heated discussion of how the industry got to its current state.

This began with a Game Developer opinion piece examining the many pain points in games at the moment, shared by former Square Enix executive Jacob Navok on Twitter. Navok disagreed with much of the piece and instead centered "the market" as a driving factor, from the job market to user appetite, and dismissed dreams of the Western games industry ever returning to previous growth periods.

Former Bungie studio vice president Mark Noseworthy shared, and nodded along with, Navok's take, which brings us up to speed.

"Feels somewhat disingenuous to place blame purely on the market without asking for accountability from leaders who made multiple years of poor decisions too, but nuance is hard to find on Twitter," Gafner replies.

Gafner's take is neutral and targetless, and quite tame compared to ongoing criticism of Bungie's leadership. Since Destiny 2's abrupt end and the studio's ensuing layoffs, former employees have joined players skewering Bungie's approach to just about everything that isn't a skybox or a raid.

Flip-flopping messaging, fruitless investments, baffling and repeated missteps – for all of Destiny 2 and Marathon's greatness, there's no shortage of Bungie mistakes to interrogate, and Gafner's had to play human shield for a lot of those mistakes over the years despite being responsible for exactly none of them.

Noseworthy said he's "going to assume this is not a veiled personal attack," and Gafner later clarified it is not. Rather, Gafner suggests, the topic touched a nerve.

"Been reading so many posts from former colleagues and others throughout the industry that the subject got to me," he says in a reply. "I know you did all you could for the studio and Destiny for years." And to his credit, Noseworthy's era – he was laid off from Bungie in 2024 after being promoted to VP from general manager and, before that, project lead – is pretty fondly remembered.

Former Destiny 2 boss won't say "Destiny 1 remaster" out loud, but suggests it might not be a good idea: "Studios can only afford so many bets."

To call the state of the games industry "turbulent" is a drastic understatement in July 2026, with layoffs, studio closures, and game cancelations showing no signs of slowing down, but even in that dire context, Destiny 2 and Marathon developer Bungie is having a rough go of it lately.

After seemingly putting all of its eggs into Marathon's basket, Bungie's new sci-fi FPS – although critically well-received – hasn't reached the commercial success needed to supplant the enduring popularity of Destiny 2, which ended active development last month. Meanwhile, massive layoffs at Bungie have impacted "most" of the Destiny team as well as a portion of the Marathon crew, with the studio admitting the MMO "fell short of expectations these past several years."

That said, Destiny 2 is still playable and presumably will be for the foreseeable future – and in fact experienced a post-mortem surge in players last month – which of course means players continue to report issues with performance and bugs. Although the feedback isn't falling on deaf ears, the skeleton crew at Bungie working on Destiny is scrambling to push out updates at a comparable cadence to before the mass layoffs.

Shortly after news of Bungie's downsizing broke last week, the developer took to Twitter to announce the delay of Destiny 2's new patch, originally scheduled to go live this week. "We will provide more information when we can," the studio said. The Destiny community reacted with skepticism on Reddit, with the top comment reading: "I have a rather unfortunate suspicion that this will be one of those 'delays' that last forever."

However, in a response from the official Destiny 2 Team Reddit account, Bungie assures the patch will eventually be released and asks for grace as some members of the dev team who were working on it have since been laid off.

"Not a forever delay. We will get this out when possible. Handful of fixes in this delayed patch were from impacted team members.

"When this ships, please show love to the team, past and present," the studio implores fans.

In a separate Reddit thread reporting issues with PC performance, the Destiny account responds by requesting "videos or examples" of specific problems, adding, "While we can't promise a fix, we'll see what we can do."

Cyberpunk 2 lead says "some days I feel our industry is imploding" as Destiny 2 studio Bungie is hit with mass layoffs: "Teams and game projects are getting slaughtered"

Everyone who has played Destiny will tell you a story about it. They'll probably have a few, actually, but ask them to pick their most memorable and it will likely be the tale of how they got their first Gjallarhorn, the all-conquering rocket launcher that made mincemeat of just about everything during Destiny's first year. We doubt many can beat the story of the member of our raid team who got theirs by stopping on the approach to a loot chest deep in the Vault Of Glass, and firing their entire supply of rockets at it. Stepping up to open it, out popped Gjallarhorn. For weeks afterwards, the other five raiders would unleash rocket after rocket at the luckily impervious chest in the hope of seeing it spit out Destiny's most prized reward.

Such were the lengths we went to, in those early days, to tip the odds in our favour. Destiny launched in September 2014, and within days it had become starkly apparent that this was not the game we had dreamed of, or the one Bungie had promised it would be. Its story, if you could call it that, was over in a flash. Our character hit the level cap of 20 within days, and it seemed there was nothing left to do. A pop-up window that appeared after we hit level 20 hinted at a new purpose – the pursuit of Light, the true measure of a Destiny Guardian's power – but the only way to raise it was to play, again and again, levels and missions that we felt we had already picked clean.

In the absence of anything new to do, Bungie gave us punishing difficulty and a miserly random loot system. The weekly Nightfall Strike, for instance – a ramped-up version of an existing mission with tougher enemies and a selection of cruel gameplay modifiers – offered up one of the best loot tables in the game, with a reasonable chance of dropping legendary and exotic gear upon completion. Yet enemies would frequently appear at a level or two higher than you could ever reach, and if all three team members died, they'd be kicked to orbit, and would have to start over from scratch.

Faced with those odds, it's little surprise that players did what they could to cheat the system. One Nightfall boss could be killed by hiding beneath a raised platform, shooting through a small gap that enemy ordnance couldn't fit through, using Ice Breaker, a sniper rifle whose ammo replenished automatically over time. It worked, but playing Destiny this way was slow, boring, and not in the spirit of the game, so Bungie patched it. It did likewise for the infamous loot cave, a small opening in a rockface in Old Russia's Skywatch zone from which enemies constantly spawned, and into which players would empty clip after clip, standing stock still until their supplies ran dry.

Destiny was the first game in Bungie's 10-year deal with Activision, but the game would likely have died, and the contract been ripped up, within weeks of launch were it not for the Vault Of Glass. VOG, to use the Destiny community's affectionate shorthand for the game's first raid, launched a week after the base game – just long enough for the committed player to reach the recommended level 26. Even now, four expansions and three more raids later, VOG is held up as the best Destiny – and co-op console gaming in general – has to offer.

Vault of Glass

It was clear from the start that this was different to everything else in Destiny, whose missions until now had been linear excursions between objective markers, with variously sized gunfights building to a battle against a bullet-sponge boss. Yet VOG opened by asking a six-strong team to split up and hold three capture points from incessantly spawning enemies. Inside there were boss fights, yes, but they were no mere shootouts. Each had a set of exacting mechanics to learn, to devise a solution to, and to conquer.

In between there was light relief – a frequently hilarious platforming puzzle with disappearing scenery, which even now is all too easy to mess up – and a marvellously fraught stealth maze whose patrolling Gorgon enemies would instakill anyone they laid eyes on. VOG was difficult, yes: the first team in the world to clear it took over 10 hours. But it was the most rewarding activity Destiny had to offer, both figuratively – the sense of satisfaction after you and five friends finally clear a difficult section is part of what makes Destiny so special – and literally, as some of the best loot in the game flooded into your inventory after each boss was vanquished.

And what loot it was. The armour on offer was, at the time, the only route to the true level cap of 30. And the guns were, aside from the more widely available Gjallarhorn, the best available. There's never been a hand cannon like Fatebringer: it had the Firefly perk, which caused enemies killed by headshots to explode, dealing heavy damage to those around it, and Outlaw, which greatly increased reload speed after a precision kill. It was more than a gun: it was a game in itself, training you to pick your shots, and rewarding you for doing so by killing four other enemies in the vicinity, then refilling your clip in a split second. It's simply one of those guns – Doom 2's super shotgun, Titanfall's smart pistol, and so on – that will be talked about for years.

Yet for all that VOG was a masterclass in design, and the gear that dropped from it a delight, it also exposed two of Destiny's greatest problems. The first is that a handful of guns were overpowered, to the extent that anything else was considered a waste. When the hard-mode version of Crota's End, the second Destiny raid, launched, it was widely accepted that the final boss fight was as good as impossible without a full team of Gjallarhorn owners. Matchmaking websites, created to help players assemble raid teams – there was no such facility in the game itself – hosted listings with strict team requirements, almost all of which insisted on applicants being max-level and with Gjallarhorn in their inventory.

The second problem was, inevitably, RNG. Since VOG was, for a spell, the gatekeeper to the level cap, you were reliant on the game granting you a full set of raid armour. Many were left looking for just one piece (for most, weirdly, it was a pair of boots). The hunt spawned a meme, 'Forever 29' – one drop short of the maximum level of 30. A wounded Bungie has been working to make amends ever since.

Indeed, the studio has worked tirelessly on these two distinct problems, struggling to balance a set of weapons that must fulfil two very different needs – in PVE, being overpowered is fun, but in PVP, it's ruinous – while reducing Destiny's reliance on a random-number generator. It's been largely successful: in its final form, Destiny is the fairest it's ever been. Guns are finely balanced. Loot still drops randomly, but the most powerful gear is available through fixed, clearly explained (though typically long-winded) means. Everyone can reach the level cap by simply playing what is now a very generous, accommodating game. There's little to complain about in Destiny today. But it's missing something, too.

Randomness is a powerful thing. And for the first 12 months Destiny was defined by RNG – powered by it, propped up by it, the reason we loved it and hated it and kept on playing it anyway, going into work the next day bleary-eyed, disappointed and itching to get back to it. The weeks or months of waiting for your raid boots, or Gjallarhorn, made the eventual payoff all the sweeter.

Better Together

The pain may have stopped, but we didn't. Once you'd got all the gear you really needed you carried on anyway, playing and replaying the same old missions. Routes and enemy patterns had long been committed to memory, your god-tier weapons making mincemeat of them all. Luke Smith – the Bungie staffer who designed VOG, Destiny's first and best raid, directed The Taken King, its best expansion, and went on to lead development of Destiny 2 – once described Destiny as "the bar I can go to in my pyjamas", and it remains the most succinct explanation of the game's appeal.

A few sphincter-clenching raid sections aside, it's the most laid-back game about shooting alien monsters you could possibly imagine. The advantage to having so little content was that, if you played it enough times, you could do it without thinking about it. It's a highly social game, with a largely friendly community – the kind that forms when players come together to see off some of the toughest challenges in video games, then spend a couple of hours popping Cabal heads, farming upgrade materials and talking about their days to wind down.

None of this would have happened had Destiny not been one of the best FPS games around. Not even the magic of VOG would've saved Destiny had there not, beneath the miserly loot system, the wet fart of a story and the content drought, been a rock-solid FPS. We expected great gunplay from the maker of Halo, but Destiny's true mechanical magic lies in the way it borrows from the best MMOs – with its cooldowns and super moves, its deeply customisable subclasses – and uses them to create something that subverts, and elevates, our expectations of the FPS.

That foundation carried the game through three years of peaks and troughs. And as we finally close the book on Destiny, the lingering impression is not one of a shooter, or even an RPG – but a game that somehow managed to be the best when it was, by any objective standard, its absolute worst.

This article was first published in 2017, in issue 308 of Edge Magazine. If you're interested in receiving more stories just like this one, subscribe to Edge Magazine.

And so it goes: Bungie is currently undergoing a large round of layoffs. Though expected after the final Destiny 2 update, it's still a gut punch that leaves many talented developers without work. Numerous people affected by the decision and previously associated with Bungie have commented on the situation on social media, as fans rally around the legendary studio.

"Despite everything it has been an honor to work on Destiny 2," Blaise Markley, now former activity designer at Bungie, says on Twitter. "Please know with deep sincerity that we wanted more than anything to make you smile. See you starside, Guardians."

Lyndon Willoughby was a senior artist at the company, and he calls the position "a dream" on Twitter. Mikey "TehMidge" Perfected, an activity, events and social QA at Bungie, tweets that "it was an honor" to work on his favorite game over an extended period.

According to Artem Sorokin, a now former senior VFX artist, "essentially the entire Destiny VFX team, leads and all," have been let go. As the news travels of the job losses at Bungie, there are calls for Sony to impact more of the leadership positions, a stance echoed by other former employees.

"Disastrous leadership continues to be rewarded, protected, and paid out with their golden toilets," Liana Ruppert, an ex-community manager at Bungie who was laid off from the company in 2023, posts on Twitter. "I hope they get everything they truly deserve, and that's guilt, shame, and hopefully some actual fucking reflection."

The layoffs run through the whole structure of Bungie. Studio head Justin Truman is also stepping down, according to reports. The belief was that once development on Destiny 2 wrapped, Sony intended to make substantial changes across the entire team. These job losses follow a disappointing reception to Marathon back in March, Bungie's first non-Destiny related game in over a decade.

At the moment, the future of the studio seems uncertain. Marathon "remains an important part of our portfolio," according to Sony in a statement made on the cuts, but only time will tell how true that winds up being.

Destiny 2 fans shouldn't "blame yourselves" as Bungie closes the door on its 9-year-old MMO, says community lead: "This is just the way it goes sometimes."

Bungie studio head Justin Truman is reportedly leaving the company after nearly 17 total years across positions, including Destiny 2 design director and general manager.

Bloomberg News reporter Jason Schreier shares in a Bluesky post that "people familiar with the situation" say Truman is stepping down as studio lead after, according to his LinkedIn, 11 months. Truman took the position over from controversial ex-lead Pete Parsons, who a former Bungie writer Robert Brookes credited earlier this year with being "the real Destiny killer."

GamesRadar+ has reached out to Bungie for comment on Truman's current role at the company, but we did not receive an immediate response. At the moment, the studio has only made generalizations clear, in that it's undergoing huge layoffs. "Destiny 2 fell short of expectations," according to Bungie's statement posted on Bluesky, and "we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size."

Bungie claims it has "future projects still in early incubation," but Destiny 2 received its final live-service content update earlier this month, and since then, former devs been happy to share that their laboring on the MMO and other Bungie properties was "the most toxic, dysfunctional experience of my professional life," as Destiny 2 narrative lead Michael Zenke put it.

Destiny struggled throughout the 10 years Pete Parsons served as Bungie CEO, and though he'd once hoped "to transform the Destiny business" by 2025 – ultimately, the year he left Bungie – the former executive also lost fans' confidence after he apparently spent $2.3 million on old school cars around the same time Bungie laid off 220 people.

Sony initially purchased Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022, while studio execs built Hollywood signs in their hearts and dreamed of making a Destiny 2 TV show. But dreams can either come true or dissolve into embarrassment, and, well – there aren't currently any production studios with plans to make a Destiny 2 TV show.

Ex-writer Brookes quipped in a Bluesky post this spring about Bungie leadership ahead of Destiny 2's last update, "Don't worry they're suffering in their *checks note on hand* multi-million dollar payouts."

As I wait on an official response regarding Justin Truman's job status, I'm choosing to find the silver lining anyway: at least someone can afford the $599 Xbox Series S 1TB.

Destiny 2 fans shouldn't "blame yourselves" as Bungie closes the door on its 9-year-old MMO, says community lead: "This is just the way it goes sometimes."

Two weeks after releasing the final update for Destiny 2, Marathon developer Bungie has announced that it will be going through layoffs.

In a post on Bluesky, the Bungie account publishes a statement saying, "With great sadness, we are announcing a reduction in force as we reorganize Bungie." It adds, "As the leaders of Bungie, past and present, we recognize Destiny 2 fell short of expectations these past several years. Following our final content update to Destiny 2, and with our future projects still in early incubation, we unfortunately could not continue operating at our previous size."

Destiny 2 had its final update just over two weeks ago after a few years of struggles and a dwindling playerbase, compounded with the difficult development and underwhelming release of Marathon earlier this year. Earlier this year Sony announced it had an impairment loss of $765 million on the studio over the last financial year. And while the final update brought in Destiny 2's highest player count in years, it is sadly too late for the game.

The statement continues, "We know this decision has a profound impact on the people affected, their families, friends, and teammates. While these changes are necessary to best position the studio now and for the future, that does not lessen the difficulty of this moment or the impact it has on those affected. Later, we will share more about that future with you all but today is not that day. Today, we wish to extend our gratitude and compassion to every member of the Bungie team who has been impacted and to those who remain."

PlayStation CEO Herman Hulst sent an internal email to staff which was published on the Sony website, saying: "We have made the decision to reduce Bungie's workforce, affecting a significant number of employees, including most of the Destiny team and some Marathon team members. There are also reductions across SIE teams that support Bungie's operations. Those impacted at Bungie and within SIE are being informed today." The exact number of affected employees was not confirmed.

Hulst's memo continues, "Over the past several months, together with Bungie leadership, we reviewed the studio's long-term direction, development priorities, resource needs, and role within our broader portfolio strategy. We explored multiple alternatives before concluding that a reduction was necessary to align the studio's resources with its current priorities and long-term goals."

As for Marathon, Hulst says it "remains an important part of our portfolio, and we will continue to support the team as they build on the strong foundation established in Season 1 and 2, and as they work on incubation efforts for future projects. While it's too early to discuss, we are encouraged by the creativity and opportunities that lie ahead."

This comes a day after the game's community lead said Destiny 2 fans shouldn't "blame yourselves," and a week after comments emerged from former Destiny 2 devs who claimed working at Bungie was a "toxic, dysfunctional experience."

Unfortunately, the studio's troubled few years have ended up at this point, and Bungie ends its statement by addressing fans over their "gratitude and compassion": "We hope you will do the same."

Now that Destiny 2 is receiving its final update as Bungie ends the sci-fi MMO's nine-year reign, some fans can't help but wonder whether they could've somehow supported the game more and "save" it – but one Bungie lead says no.

It's not the fault of players that Destiny 2 is coming to its end, after all. Dylan "dmg04" Gafner, the principal communications manager at Bungie, confirms as much while responding to a content creator worried they could've done "more" to contribute to the game's success.

"'Could I do more?' You all have done more for this game and our studio than could ever be imagined, and no words can accurately depict how lucky we are to have shared these worlds with you," says Gafner.

The community lead continues, reassuring fans that the MMO reaching the end of its line has nothing to do with them or their supposed lack of support. "Don't blame yourselves or think you could have / should have done more," he writes. "This is just the way it goes sometimes. No matter the future, we will always have these memories. Thank you. For everything."

It's a bittersweet, heartfelt reply – and others seem to agree.

"It's gonna be a weird world without Destiny," one comment reads. Another adds, "Destiny will always have a very special place in my heart. Thank you for all the memories I made in the many years I have played this game for. I hope to see you back with [a] new project soon."

I'll stop there because I'll tear up otherwise, but it's evident that the community feels two things: sad about Destiny 2's end and grateful the MMO was around as long as it was. The game will remain playable for now, at least, but it won't be getting any further major updates.

There's no telling what the future holds, though. Bungie is still working on Marathon, its recent extraction shooter – and it appears to be going well enough, even if its popularity hasn't been immense.

It's disappointing to know Destiny 3 likely isn't happening any time soon, but I suppose anything is possible.

Destiny 2 devs repeatedly pitched a dating sim, Bungie veterans say, "but leadership was very Hard No that nobody wanted romance or silliness."

With news of Destiny 2 receiving its final update and coming to an end still circulating on the web, some folks are looking to what could've been – including a, erm, dating sim…?

Yes, you read that right – and you honestly probably aren't all that surprised if you've been in the community for a while yourself. Folks have made jokes (or are they?) about a Destiny dating sim before, as they do in every online game's community, but now, Bungie veterans are actually responding to them.

Following one fan's thread requesting "the dating sim we deserve," former community lead Liana Ruppert replies that the developers have indeed considered it.

"Fun fact, the team actually made one, but leadership was very Hard No that nobody wanted romance or silliness," she writes. "Very Dream Daddy inspired lmao. It was fun getting to be a small part of it." Dream Daddy inspired, you say? If only this came to fruition.

Ruppert isn't alone in revealing what could've been, either. Veteran senior narrative designer Robert Brookes, who now works at CD Projekt Red, chimes in, too.

"To be fair, the dating sim that was made was a part of the 'Carnival' event Bungie used to do, where devs had a week to make fun prototypes," Brookes clarifies. "So, it was never a full-fledged project. That said, we did pitch that as a full-fledged project every year."

I mean, I'm still interested – and besides, it does still sound like there was quite a bit of substance to it, even if it wasn't a "full" game, so to speak.

As Brookes goes on to say, "Myself and two other narrative team members (who both CAME from romance game design) had an entire pitch deck for one, complete with costs and real hard metrics on returns. Never got anywhere."

That's… sad, to say the least. In other words, it could've gone somewhere, but it didn't. It's not too difficult to pick out why that's the case, though – even Brookes himself admits as much.

"There's a *very* specific audience for romance content, and a substantial part of that does not play FPS games," put simply. But it could've bridged that gap. "You grow a brand by finding new ways to introduce people to your world, and this would've done that (and also deeply interested some already-existing players)."

I can certainly see it. Comments prove so, too, with somebody exclaiming, "I would've paid real money for this."

Others don't feel like a dating sim would fit well within the world of Destiny and Destiny 2 – but if you ask me, it's worth a shot. Are you listening, Bungie?

Destiny 2's end is "earth-shattering," Warframe dev says, despite the competition between the 2 shooters: "To live in a reality where they're gone isn't a positive one."

Despite its status as a Destiny competitor, the devs behind Warframe are lamenting the news of Destiny 2's final update.

While speculation over Bungie's performance has been rampant for years, the seemingly out-of-nowhere announcement that development on Destiny 2 would be coming to an end was a massive shocker when it dropped a month ago. While the game had definitely seen better days, many expected it to remain a priority at Bungie, especially when Marathon isn't exactly lighting the world on fire in a way I'm sure Sony hoped it would. However, given Sony announced earlier that same month that it had reported a $765 million impairment loss on the studio in the last financial year, drastic moves felt inevitable.

Speaking to Eurogamer, Warframe community director and live ops lead Megan Everett talks about the end of Destiny 2, saying, "Truthfully, it's heartbreaking. It's earth-shattering. I never thought I'd ever see the day where I'd read an article from Bungie about Destiny 2 essentially shutting down."

Despite Warframe being somewhat of a competitor to Destiny, Everett stresses: "I'm speaking personally, but I know people would echo it as well. No one is celebrating the fact that this has happened to Destiny, and its players and that story."

She adds, "I know that people have obviously compared us in terms of being 'direct competitors' and stuff like that. But I think a game is healthy when you have competitors, and [Destiny's developers] have done such an amazing job at trying to grow that story regardless of whatever situation they were in." Furthermore, Everett says, "To live in a reality where they're gone isn't a positive one."

Everett also acknowledges the outpouring of support Destiny 2 received following the announcement of its end of development, saying, "I think what's unfortunate and sad is they announced this was happening, and suddenly people are showing all this support for them. They've been getting a lot of negativity for all this time, and it's like, where was all this love!" She adds, "People need to put the hate away and show the love, because they could have really used that. I know it was there, but it wasn't as vocal as maybe some of the negativity."

Former Destiny 2 devs say working at Bungie was a "toxic, dysfunctional experience," describe leaders who "forgot that people play games for fun."

Bungie knows that Destiny 2 players have worked their magic once more to deal a lot of damage in ways they shouldn't, but is happy to let it ride for one week before fixing it.

Having played Destiny and its sequel for many, many years, there are a few things you get used to. One is players breaking things to make farming a gun or armor piece easier, and the other is breaking things to make beating an enemy easier – which sometimes leads to getting a gun or an armor piece, coincidentally.

That in mind, it feels somewhat fated that Destiny 2's final update has led to players breaking stuff. This time around, a bug has been discovered that allows players to stack multiples of the same seasonal Artifact perks to achieve near-infinite damage.

Something like this was always going to happen in an update as large as Destiny 2's final one, but Bungie is stepping in regardless – someone has to think of the many monsters in the space MMO that have been turned into mere punching bags.

Like a teacher dealing with class in the last week of the term, Bungie says to enjoy it while it lasts because things will go back to normal soon.

"So, we've been seeing some interesting videos where Guardians are doing near infinite damage to bosses thanks in part to unintended Artifact perk stacking," the developer writes on Twitter. "Quite hilarious to watch, to be honest!

"While we're planning a fix (next week likely), we think this is a bit fun. Go ahead. Get out there, beat up on Atheon. Destroy some bosses. Do your thing."

Bungie goes on to note that Artifacts are being disabled in Crucible and Gambit to protect other players from, well, other players. But otherwise, developers are amused by the situation.

"All in all, it's Monument of Triumph," the post ends. "Do some crazy stuff. Send us your videos. Have some fun. Be Brave."

Funnily enough, speaking of Destiny 2 players doing what they do best, they have also managed to find a way to push bosses off a cliff, which means they're ending their time with the game exactly as they started it. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Destiny 2 and Bungie as a whole were "very close" to closing before Sony buyout, according to ex-community lead: "It was an emergency acquisition."

As part of its final update, Destiny 2 rolled out an updated version of the Pantheon raid challenge, which drops players into a gauntlet of souped-up boss fights. Like poetry in motion, players quickly set about cheesing the new Pantheon with a time-honored tradition: hurling raid bosses into the void.

As trusted Destiny 2 grinder Esoterickk shows, the Pantheon version of the Last Wish raid boss Morgeth can easily be ejected from the world like a cassette tape. Hilariously enough, this is probably one of the simplest and most consistent exploits in Destiny history.

All you need is the updated Ward of Dawn Titan Super and one of the newly released heavy crossbows. Summon the Ward of Dawn orb, embed a few crossbow bolts into it, then pick it up and melee attack Morgeth to send him soaring like a fly ball. I guess something about this setup just confounds the physics of the game engine.

"It sends them flying, and the encounter will complete. Can be farmed on 5 feats for loot and spoils," Esoterickk explains.

On Twitter, longtime Destiny 2 community manager dmg04 says, "It wouldn't be a Destiny release if you couldn’t bump a boss off a ledge."

From the moment Bungie introduced Destiny players to raids with the Vault of Glass, those players have had but one goal: optimize the encounters out of the encounters. Like a fictional rogue AI deducing that humans are the problem, Guardians looked at all the mechanics thoughtfully prepared by Bungie and thought, "What if we ignored all of those?"

So began a long history of cheese strategies, many of which have reduced some of the most powerful beings in the universe to wet blankets, punching bags, or more pertinently, ping pong balls. For the noble cause of effortless loot, I have trimmed the nails of dream dragons, smuggled six extra Guardians into lobbies, terrified bosses with vortex grenades, and even tricked the game into forgetting my very existence like it's a Skyrim guard who just received his second arrow to the head this afternoon. And until Bungie patches this one out, which it probably will because this kind of destroys the raid loot economy, I support any and all Morgeth space exploration.

Inspired by Dark Souls, former Destiny lead fought to add super tough enemies to the start of the game.

The Destiny 2 Strange Leftovers left behind by Xur are all found at locations the enigmatic vendor of the Nine used to appear at. Obviously, if you've not played Destiny 2 in a very long time or are a relatively new player, you might not have any idea where to start looking across the EDZ, Nessus, and the Tower. To help you get this easy Monument of Triumph challenge done quickly, I've detailed the three locations you need to visit in Destiny 2 to find these Strange Leftovers.

Destiny 2 EDZ Strange Leftovers

Xur's Strange Leftovers in the EDZ are at the top of a cliff at the north end of the Winding Cove area. Head to the most northern point of the Winding Cove and you should spot a crashed Skiff at the top of a cliff. Use the climbable ledges to the right of the Skiff to ascend the cliff, then grab the leftovers at the top.

Destiny 2 Tower Strange Leftovers

To find the Strange Leftovers in the Tower, head down to the Hangar, then go left and pass all old faction equipment until you reach the stairwell near the Tower's edge. Climb up the first set of stairs and you'll find the Strange Leftovers by a desk.

While you're in the Tower, make sure you head to the Bazaar on the other side and grab Hawthorne's Deepsight quest for the Destiny 2 For the Bird Triumph, then go and find Archie's location in Destiny 2 and give him a pat for the Can You Pet the Dog? Triumph.

Destiny 2 Nessus Strange Leftovers

The Nessus Strange Leftovers are found up the giant tree in the Watcher's Grave area – conveniently, this is the same area where you can summon the Destiny 2 Assimilated Demolishers. From the Watcher's Grave landing zone, head straight forward towards the large tree, climb up it, then walk along the branch that points roughly back towards the landing zone. You'll find the Strange Leftovers tucked in a small nook.

Despite the Pieces of the Whole Triumph that you need these leftovers for also mentioning returning them to Xur, you don't actually need to do that, and collecting all three meals is enough to complete the challenge. Once you've done that, you can collect your reward of 15 Legendary Marks from your Journal for completing Pieces of the Whole.

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Destiny 2 Assimilated Demolishers are Vex bosses that must be summoned on Nessus, and you must defeat all of them in the time limit to complete the Forcible Disconnect Triumph. It's a very simple challenge that will give you a good number of Legendary Marks upon completion, and all you need to know is how to actually get these bosses to appear. So, here's where you need to go to find and activate the Assimilated Demolishers.

Destiny 2 Assimilated Demolishers location

The trio of Assimilated Demolishers can be summoned by activating a Vex beacon in the Watcher's Grave area of Nessus. Travel to Watcher's Grave and go up the path to the Cabal land tank. On your right, you'll spot a white Vex conflux just beyond some Cabal machinery. Approach the conflux, then follow the button prompt to activate the Assimilated Demolisher Beacon.

This will immediately summon the three Destiny 2 Assimilated Demolisher bosses nearby and you'll have five minutes to defeat all three. There's nothing special about these Vex bosses other than that they have a lot of health. Killing all three in that time solo is very difficult but is much more achievable with even just one other person helping, so bring friends if you can! Otherwise, the only other advice I have is to fight the Wyvern first as it's the most aggressive and deadly of the bunch, then the Minotaur, then the Hydra.

If you do fail to kill the bosses in the time limit, you'll have to wait for the conflux beacon to recharge before you can activate it and try again. While you wait, make sure you collect the Destiny 2 Strange Leftovers from Xur's old spot on the big tree nearby.

Once all three Assimilated Demolishers have been defeated, you'll complete the Forcible Disconnect Triumph if you haven't already… and that's it. As far as I can tell, there are no loot chests or drops from this patrol encounter, but you will at least get 20 Legendary Marks when you cross off Forcible Disconnect from your Triumph list. You can also complete the Destiny 2 For the Bird Triumph and find out where Archie is in Destiny 2 for even more Marks that you can spend at the Monument of Triumph Tenet statues.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.

Destiny world design lead Niles Sankey recalls that one of the game's early challenges was inspired by Dark Souls.

Maybe not as much in the modern era where we all know what a Souls game is, but the first Dark Souls was a magical moment. After the introduction boss area, you arrive in the Firelink Shrine, and I'd wager a lot of us didn't realize we had to go into the aqueduct behind us first thing, and instead ventured straight into the graveyard in front of us. In said graveyard, you'll inevitably have gotten rocked by a group of skeletons and pondered if the game was really this hard. But this was an important lesson in where not to go in this vast world.

Sankey recalls working on Destiny's Cosmodrome area and hiding mysterious areas behind high level enemies. After a fan mentioned the "skull health bar knights" (the Hollowed Knight enemy from the Destiny beta), Sankey reveals: "I specifically placed the 'skull health bar knights' in Cosmodrome for this reason. It was inspired from my experiences playing Dark Souls."

However, Sankey also says that he had to fight a lot to make sure these enemies stayed in the game. "There were situations where other devs would say 'These knights are too high level, this must be a bug. Delete them.' and I would say 'Nooo!!! Please leave them please, it's by design.'" But over ten years later, Sankey is "happy to know players still have fond memories of these guys."

He also teases a "really tragic but also funny development story about these Knights," but says it'll be saved for "another time."

Personally, I do have an appreciation for games that will let you get your ass kicked as a learning experience, but I am also ashamed to admit that those Dark Souls skeletons I mentioned earlier got around an hour or so of battering me before I realized what the game was trying to tell me.

Destiny 2 and Bungie as a whole were "very close" to closing before Sony buyout, according to ex-community lead: "It was an emergency acquisition."

Major updates for Destiny 2 are now officially over, but the game and Bungie in its entirety were allegedly close to shutting down for good years earlier. According to a former community lead who used to work at the storied Destiny developer, Sony's $3.6 billion buyout was the corporate equivalent of deploying a parachute seconds before hitting the ground.

"Bungie was below the red line before the Sony acquisition," ex-community manager, Liana Ruppert, claims on social media. "If it wasn't acquired right then, the studio was very close to shutting its doors at the very least on Destiny. It was an emergency acquisition."

The Destiny and Marathon maker had split from its ex-publishing partner Activision a few years before its eventual 2022 acquisition, and I imagine self-publishing an MMO that grand and expansive wasn't a cheap undertaking. However, Bungie being in such scorching hot water at the time is somewhat surprising.

Destiny 2: Beyond Light, the expansion that preceded Sony's acquisition, was seemingly a huge boon for the game, and pre-orders for its next expansion, The Witch Queen, hit record highs. Player counts were also more or less consistent at the time, as well – or, at least, they were in comparison to how the game's been performing recently – according to SteamDB.

"Big shakeups are happening in the tech and gaming space – I'm not going to say what I think is going to happen because it really doesn't matter what I think to be honest, but I still see the community from the CM lens and the Marathon community is eating good," Ruppert adds. "Just remember how everything caught you by surprise, it's a humble reminder that the public really does have no idea what's going on (this applies to all studios).

"As somebody that knows exactly how that struggle can be the best thing you can do is support the studio in a way that feels good for you and learn tools to help you catch yourself when you feel like you're getting a little in the heavy side of thinking about things that you can't see or control so you don't kill the player passion inside of you. We have a lot of players that the passion died and they kept only going because it was feasible to do so, but passionless discourse is just noise."

Sony gave the iconic hit maker independence for a while post-acquisition, seemingly in the hopes that Bungie could help the publisher push out more live-service success stories. The company seemed a bit cooler on Bungie a couple of years after, and has more recently reported a $765 million impairment loss on the studio in the last financial year following its Marathon launch.

Bungie is now apparently in the process of pitching a new game with no Destiny 3 in sight and layoffs planned, according to a Bloomberg report. Here's hoping the affected staff can land on their feet – especially since Destiny 2's final update has been a home run.

"I am utterly livid": Destiny 2 lore master says secret scene reveals "the potential that was ahead" before the game abruptly ended.

Destiny 2's sendoff update, the Monument of Triumph, includes a hidden scene that seems to tee up what would have been the next big narrative saga had Bungie not ended development on the game. Resident lore scholar My Name is Byf, a near-household name who's spent years collating and explaining the main stories and deeper lore of Destiny, argues this plot thread indicates just how compelling Destiny 2 could have been if the game had been allowed to continue.

Destiny 2 spoilers ahead. But also, the game is dead, so does it really count?

In a moment shared online by Destiny Bulletin, our Guardian approaches Edge of Fate keystone character Lodi, now the speaker of the nebulous Nine, and finds a very different being puppeting him. This is credibly believed to be our first proper interaction with the Winnower, the granddaddy cosmic threat of Destiny 2's Darkness, which is the primal force opposite to the Light gifted by the Traveler. I'm simplifying a little but, I kind of have to.

The unknown voice insists that the Nine need us, the Guardians, "because I exist," and threatens a conflict to come. "Don't worry. When it's over, I won't abandon you," the voice concludes.

Some players have also been reading into the voice's final lines with hopes of future Destiny releases in their hearts – whether we are just getting glimpses of now-dead ideas once thought up by Bungie, or if this could be the seed of an experience that may one day exist outside of Destiny 2, if that's how it has to be.

"Take a breather," it says. "Take your libations. Let that vigor seep back into your bones. Get hungry." Given the tone of the Monument of Triumph, and the many mixed emotions in the air amid this bittersweet finale, it's perhaps dangerously easy to favorably read this as a bit of a fourth wall break: enjoy your rest after defeating the Witness, but know that the Winnower is still out there. However, Bungie has made it abundantly clear that Destiny 2 is done.

Byf, who's spent more time poring over Destiny lore than almost anyone, says, "I have seen the cutscene in question. No spoilers in this thread. I am utterly livid.

"The devs who worked so hard on Destiny for years, who knew where things were going and the potential that was ahead," he continues. "They all deserved so much better."

The type and shape of the content in the Monument of Triumph makes it clear that a lot of this stuff was not originally planned as a sendoff for the game, to say nothing of the Nine plotline kindled in the last big expansion and now abruptly severed. We can only speculate as to when Bungie shifted from "get this stuff ready" to "get this stuff into the game before we turn the lights off," but it does feel like we've gotten a preview of what at least the next year or two might have covered.

Byf adds: "I love that the story has been told at all, but there were clearly greater plans. Magnificent, majestic plans. But all that potential has been squandered. The devs all deserved better than this. They deserved to tell this story."

Echoing hundreds of thousands of players calling for Destiny 3 online, he concludes, "Greenlight D3 already."

BioShock 2 team nearly made "Destiny before Destiny existed" with one canceled 2K game, ex-dev says: "I wanted to make that game so badly".

Complete the Destiny 2 Oblation: Bloodline mission and you'll get Cull's Shadow, an Exotic Fusion Rifle and Weapon of Sorrow. However, it's not a quest that's simply given to you. The steps you have to take to unlock the first Oblation mission can be more time-consuming than the mission itself as you need to investigate Hive objects all over the Moon first. Only after that can you begin the mission, which is thankfully quite straightforward and means unlocking Cull's Shadow isn't that difficult - it just takes a while. To help you get through the whole thing as smoothly as possible, here's a full guide on how to unlock and complete Oblation: Bloodline in Destiny 2 to get Cull's Shadow.

How to unlock Destiny 2 Oblation

Before getting started with unlocking the Oblation mission in Destiny 2, you must have one of the four Weapons of Sorrow equipped – those are Thorn, Osteo Striga, Touch of Malice, and Necrochasm, with Thorn being the easiest to obtain as any player can get it from the Monument to Lost Light provided they have enough Glimmer and one Exotic Cipher.

So, with one of the above weapons in hand, here's what you need to do to unlock Oblation: Bloodline, the first in a series of Oblation missions:

1. Play through the Scarlet Keep Strike on the Moon as normal until you reach the Hashladun boss fight at the end. Draw your Weapon of Sorrow and shoot the three green Hive symbols around the arena to lower the main gate.
2. Defeat Hashladun, then go through the gate and into the room on the right where you'll find a Hive crystal. Follow the button prompt to investigate it, which will reveal several locations on the Moon map you need to search.

3. Head to each marked location and use the Soulfire Network Frequency indicator to home in on a dead Syndicate trooper that you need to examine. This will then give you a vague clue to a different location, with a trail of dead Syndicate troopers roughly guiding you. Here's where to look for each location:

• Archer's Line: The trooper is in the crater in the middle of this area. Afterwards, head to the Shrine of Oryx via the Hive doorway on the east side of the area. You'll reach the Hall of Wisdom first, at which point you need to take the first left to find the tunnel to the Shrine of Oryx.
• Anchor of Light: Find the dead trooper on top of a small building that's part of the colony structure in the north of the area. Next, go down to the Temple of Crota using the path in the east.
• Hellmouth: Go to the main Hellmouth entrance to find the dead trooper, then descend to the Chamber of Night. To get there, follow the downward path and then bear right once you reach the Circle of Bones. Pass through the door to reach the World's Grave, then carry on down the dark tunnel to reach the Chamber of Night.
• Sorrow's Harbor: The dead trooper is on a raised area on the northern edge of the location and west of the bridge into the Scarlet Keep. After examining, you'll be directed to the K1 Revelations Lost Sector.

4. Upon reaching the ends of these four trails, you'll find a small force of Cabal soldiers (or the Lost Sector boss in the case of K1 Revelations) guarding a doorway locked by Hive symbol seals. Draw your Weapon of Sorrow and green Hive symbols will appear in the surrounding area, as in the Scarlet Keep Strike.
5. Following the door seal symbols from top to bottom, shoot the corresponding green symbols with your Weapon of Sorrow to unseal the door and reveal another Hive crystal to investigate.

6. Head back to Sorrow's Harbor and make your way inside the tunnel that runs under the bridge into the Scarlet Keep, which can be accessed below the east side of the bridge. In this tunnel you'll find a door from which you can begin the Oblation: Bloodline Exotic Mission, although you should now be able to launch it from the Moon map.

Now that you've got the Oblation Exotic Mission unlocked in Destiny 2, you can complete it to get Cull's Shadow.

How to get Cull's Shadow in Destiny 2

The Oblation: Bloodline mission in Destiny 2 isn't particularly long or difficult, which makes getting Cull's Shadow quite easy. Here's a walkthrough of everything you need to do:

1. Head downward through the Necropolis, then find the Cabal control panel and follow the 'Override Safety Protocols' button prompt to get started.
2. Destroy the Cooling Tower Control Fuses and Cooling Pillars: Start by shooting the three glowing fuses in the large pipes near the control panel, then destroy the four heat vents on the nearby Cooling Pillar.

3. Use the nearby cannon to get fired over to the next area, override another control panel, then repeat step 2 to destroy the remaining two Cooling Pillars.
4. Head inside the nearby control room with the Totality Xenoexcavator miniboss and overload the mining laser using the console.
5. Brave the Tunnels: For the first part carved out by the mining laser, you just need to head up. Use the tunnels to reach elevated areas that you can use to jump to other ledges, until you eventually go through a tunnel that leads to the Soulfire Crux area.
6. Use the bridges, towers, and hanging coffin-like objects to traverse this chasm area until you reach an enclosed bridge going across with barred windows. Hop over to the other side of it to find an open window, then go left and down the stairs. There's a hole in the broken steps you can fit through, which leads down to the next area.
7. Extinguish the Soulfire Barrier: Kill the three Pyre Matron Wizards then punch the Soulfire Vessel to death, giving you a timed effect called Soulfire Charge. Jump into any one of the three large bowls nearby to remove the effect and partly extinguish the barrier.

8. Repeat this twice using the Soulfire Vessels in the left and right rooms to fully extinguish the Soulfire Barrier, letting you move to the final boss arena.
9. Defeat Tau'rig, the Corrupted: Shoot Valus Tau'rig until he transforms into Tau'rig, the Corrupted, then wait for him to go towards one of three large bowls. As in the previous step, find the Soulfire Vessel (it will be either in the left or right room or by the entrance to this arena), kill the nearby Wizards, punch the Vessel, then dunk the Soulfire Charge into the bowl that Tau'rig is next to. His shield will go down, letting you damage him.

10. When his shield returns, he'll go to one of the other soulfire bowls, letting you repeat the process to break his shield again and kill him.

With Tau'rig defeated, Cull's Shadow is yours. It's an Exotic kinetic-damage Fusion Rifle that can be used to melee enemies and deal additional damage thanks to exploding crystals and viral corruption, like Thorn and Osteo Striga.

Now that you've completed Oblation: Bloodline, you'll also have access to the next Exotic Mission in the chain, Oblation: Soulfed, which takes you deeper into the Moon. When you select Oblation from the Moon map, select the 'customize' option and make sure you choose Soulfed from there. And that's not all as there's more after Soulfed too, letting you unlock all the Exotic Catalysts for Cull's Shadow.

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The Destiny 2 Strange Signal part of the Distortions quest isn't the most straightforward, tasking you with searching a vague area for some distorted foes. It's all part of the Distortions system added with the Monument of Triumph update where destinations can be affected by said distortions for a limited time, during which you loot Strange Matter. Gather enough of the stuff and it'll transform into a Strange Signal that can lead you to some admittedly quite good loot. To help you complete the Distortions quest and understand how Strange Signals work in Destiny 2, I've explained every quest step below.

Destiny 2 Distortions quest walkthrough

Once you've grabbed the Destiny 2 Distortions quest from Ikora in the Tower, here's what you need to do to get and use the Strange Signal and complete the mission:

1. Speak to Lodi at the far end of the Tower Bazaar. If you're wondering where Archie is in Destiny 2, he's right next to Lodi!
2. Head to the destination that is currently affected by distortions. Look for the red icon on the Destinations menu and hove your cursor over the destination to see how much longer the distortions will last on that location as you may need to move mid-quest.
3. Complete a Destiny 2 Public Event on the distortions-affected destination. This will then activate a Distortion Breach event.
4. Complete the Distortion Breach by destroying the red Distorted Corruption growths then defeating waves of distorted enemies before time runs out. Loot the chest at the end to move onto the next quest step.
5. Collect 50 Strange Matter. This red crystalline resource can drop when defeating distortion-corrupted enemies, harvesting destination materials, and opening destination chests. Once you've got 50, they will combine into a Strange Signal.
6. Check the map of the Distorted Destination for a circular search area icon called 'Strange Signal' and head over there. Make sure you check the entire map as this area may not be visible at first. For example, my Strange Signal led to The Breach area in the very south of the Cosmodrome.

7. Defeat the Shield of the Distorted boss at the Strange Signal location, then loot the nearby chest. I got an Ascendant Alloy and a Tier-5 Legendary weapon from it, so hopefully you get something equally good too.

And that's the end of the Distortions quest in Destiny 2, so now you know how distortions work and what you can do with Strange Matter and the Strange Signals they form into to get good loot!

Speaking of good loot, make sure you also unlock and complete the Destiny 2 Oblation exotic mission to get Cull's Shadow, a new Exotic Fusion Rifle for the Monument of Triumph update. There are plenty of other challenges to complete for this update, including the Destiny 2 For The Bird Triumph, which requires you to complete a Raid-related quest from Hawthorne.

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Warframe is commemorating Destiny 2 with an upcoming in-game reward made in honor of the MMO as Bungie releases its final big update.

Destiny 2 waved goodbye with its final update that dropped earlier this week. Although it'll remain playable, Monument of Triumph marks the long-running game's supposedly last piece of new content, and with no current plans for Destiny 3 at the studio, the update could potentially be the entire series' last hurrah for years to come.

But Warframe's not letting Destiny 2 sail into the Undying Lands without throwing it some figurative flowers. In response to one fan asking for a commemorative player title, Warframe director Rebb Ford tweeted that the team would "figure something out as fast as we can" a few days ago.

Alas, a few days later, Ford has made good on her promise: "On June 17, players can play an Alert on Telesto to Make Their Own Fate in Warframe. More details to follow," she writes alongside a screenshot of a new Honoria, Make Your Own Fate.

Fans also celebrate the fact that the new alert would take place on Telesto, which is also a pivotal location in Destiny lore and is the Saturn moon the game's iconic fusion rifle is named after, making this an extra sweet tribute to Bungie's MMO FPS.

"Shout out to Warframe folks sending kind words and love to Guardians," Destiny's principal communications manager, Dylan 'dmg04' Gafner, also writes. "Love seeing communities sharing stories and love for their games."

This isn't the first time Warframe devs have honored Destiny 2 – the looter shooter developers themselves previously noted how Bungie's shooter had an outsized impact on their work. "There is no Warframe without the legacy of Bungie games," Ford wrote in response to the game's final update. "Destiny was and is a force of nature, loved and held in the hands of so many people who, for a moment, were part of the biggest thing in gaming."

While Destiny 2's sudden end is sad, at least the game is going out on top. Players turned up to say goodbye in numbers not seen since Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion, and the shooter even managed to top Steam's top-sellers chart for a while.

For now, Bungie's working on seasonal updates for Marathon and is reportedly pitching new projects. Layoffs are also planned, it's claimed.

Destiny 2 finally has the all-in-one collection Bungie should've released years ago, and it's just $25 right now.

Alongside Destiny 2's final update, Bungie has released an all-in-one bundle collecting every last piece of premium content for the MMO, and with a hefty discount, it's among the best ways you can spend $25 right now.

Destiny 2: The Collection is now available on all platforms (on Steam here, for easy browsing). Even at $70, it offers reasonable savings and a ton of fantastic experiences. At $25, it's a steal – nearly a decade of fun for less than what I've paid for individual expansions. It's still confusing, with activities like dungeons and raids piecemealed out, but at least you can buy everything in one go. Here's what you get:

• Forsaken pack (20 Exotic weapons, some Exotic armor, Shattered Throne dungeon, Last Wish raid)
• Shadowkeep pack (15 Exotic weapons, Scarlet Keep Nightfall Strike, Pit of Heresy dungeon, Garden of Salvation raid – Shadowkeep campaign not included as it's open to all players)
• Beyond Light pack (over 15 Exotics, two Nightfalls, Deep Stone Crypt raid - campaign not included as it's likewise available to everyone)
• Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack (Gjallarhorn Exotic rocket launcher, suite of cosmetics, Grasp of Avarice dungeon)
• The Witch Queen expansion
• Lightfall expansion
• The Final Shape expansion
• The Edge of Fate expansion
• Star Wars-themed Renegades mini-expansion
• Dungeon Key pack (lets you play the other dungeons in the game)

This collection does come with caveats for new players, many of them at the root of the game's death. Also, that's the big one: development of Destiny 2 has ended, so the game is frozen in time.

Additionally, Destiny 2's original campaigns, up to and including the beloved Forsaken expansion, are no longer in the game. This obviously makes it more difficult to get into the story, all but requiring some help from YouTube summaries.

Bungie deleted this paid content outright, or replaced it with those trimmed-down "packs" that basically just preserve some gear and activities, and shuffled it into the Destiny Content Vault, a technical half-measure so damning that it's a wonder the game survived it.

The DCV's release was a decision that frustrated everyone, including Bungie: hack off parts of the game, or run into enormous technical problems that seemingly could've killed the whole thing – and, arguably, did in the long run. Over the years, I spoke to several Destiny developers who expressed hopes that they'd find ways around the DCV through tech and engine upgrades made under the hood, but those never materialized and the game has been forever left with huge holes. I realize that every game and engine is unique, but it remains baffling to see Destiny 2 unable to stay content-complete in a world where the likes of Warframe and World of Warcraft exist.

The thin silver lining is that Destiny 2's Light and Darkness saga, which is basically just the story of the game now, was only truly codified in the Beyond Light expansion onward, so those are the key bits.

You may have deduced that I have my misgivings with how Destiny 2 was handled despite being a thousands-of-hours fan. Let's just rip the band-aid off: Destiny 2 may have the single worst new-player experience in the history of MMOs, and it's never going to get better now that the game is dead.

A big part of that is just how expensive and confusing it has been to buy the game, with high and unintuitive costs putting a big wall in front of would-be Kinderguardians. I was able to jump into Final Fantasy 14 without issue because all I had to do was press the "buy everything" button. Destiny 2 has never really had that – until now, of course.

"Better late than never" doesn't even begin to cover it, but Destiny 2 is too good to rot in perpetuity. Most of the campaigns and end-game activities are so fun that everyone with a passing interest in the history and future of shooters should give them a go, and frankly it still has the best gunplay ever crafted. Not bad for $25.

Destiny 2 shoots to the top of Steam's top sellers as fans of the MMO jump in for the final update, hoping Sony and Bungie might change course.

The Destiny 2 For The Bird Triumph for the Monument of Triumph update is quite annoying as it requires a lot of work for not a whole lot in return. The work being completing a Deepsight quest you need from Hawthorne that tasks you with completing the entirety of the Vault of Glass. The rewards aren't especially spectacular at first, but compelting this Triumph will unlock the ability to purchase the previously time-limited Chatterwhite shader that was also tied to the Vault of Glass in Destiny 1. Below I've explained everything you need to know to complete For The Bird in Destiny 2.

Destiny 2 For The Bird Triumph walkthrough

The 'For The Bird' Triumph in Destiny 2 requires you to complete a weekly Deepsight quest from Hawthorne. Start by speaking to her in the Tower Bazaar, then collect the 'Fated Deepsight' quest that requires you to complete all encounters in the Vault of Glass Raid. You may need to go to the next page of her vendor inventory to see this quest! While you're in the area, make sure you speak to Ikora and pick up the Destiny 2 Distortions quest too.

Hawthorne also has Deepsight weekly quests for other Raids, but since Vault of Glass is free for all players it's the most convenient one to complete (Last Wish and Garden of Salvation won't be available to you unless you have both the Forsaken Pack and Shadowkeep Pack respectively), and it's arguably the easiest of the bunch too.

After that, it's just a matter of completing all five encounters in Vault of Glass, as the quest says: Activate the confluxes to get inside the Vault; solve the Oracle sequence puzzle; defeat the Templar; reach the Glass Throne and defeat the Gatekeepers; then defeat Atheon to complete the Raid.

This will automatically complete the Fated Deepsight quest and remove it from your quest log, with your reward being a free Deepsight weapon (one with a red border around its icon) that you can use to gain progress for its weapon crafting pattern. Completing the quest also means you can claim the For The Bird Triumph to get 15 Legendary Marks and unlock the Chatterwhite shader (the one you could get from Vault of Glass back in Destiny 1) for purchase at the Tenet of Death in the Tower Courtyard.

Unfortunately, Chatterwhite costs 25 Legendary Marks, so you'll need an extra 10, which you can get easily by finding the Destiny 2 Archie location and giving him a pat for the 'Can You Pet the Dog?' Triumph. While you're in the Tower, head to the hangar and collect the Destiny 2 Strange Leftovers in Xur's old spot for a different Triumph and more Marks.

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If you're wondering where Archie is in Destiny 2, he's moved to a more comfortable location in west of the Tower for the Monument of Triumph update, so he won't be where you expect if you haven't played in a while – if you've not played Destiny 2 in several years, you might not even know who this cheerful robot dog is! The 'Can You Pet the Dog?' Triumph is a nice and easy one to complete for easy Legendary Marks, so here's where you need to look to find and pet Archie in Destiny 2.

Destiny 2 Archie location

Archie is found at the far end of the Tower Bazaar next to Lodi. From the Tower Courtyard, head right and follow the path down towards the Bazaar, then keep running straight until you go through a tall archway and reach a balcony area covered with red rugs and sheets. Atop the lounge decking in this area is where you'll find Archie and Lodi.

Approach Archie and follow the 'Activate Good Boy Protocol' button prompt to complete the 'Can You Pet the Dog?' Triumph. Make sure you claim the reward of 10 Legendary Marks by opening the Journey menu, then checking the Monument of Triumph page – it's found within the 'Tower' section of the 'Stories' tab.

10 Legendary Marks can't buy you much at the four Tenet statues in the Tower Courtyard, but cross off some of the other Triumphs from the list and you'll quickly be able to afford exclusive armor ornaments, weapons, and shaders. If you're after the Chatterwhite shader, you'll need to complete the Destiny 2 For The Bird Triumph first, which involves speaking to Hawthorne who is conveniently close to Archie. Head to the other side of the Tower and you can also find one of Xur's Destiny 2 Strange Leftovers for a different Triumph.

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Players are making sure Destiny 2 goes out with a bang. As the final update rolls out on the shooter, it's had a sudden surge through the ranks of Steam, with fans hoping to send Sony a message about the first-person shooter's popularity.

Monument of Triumph, the last major patch for Destiny 2, is now out, capping off almost nine years of work for Bungie on the cosmic FPS. Intended as a swansong, it's drawn in lapsed members of the community as well the diehards, pushing the game through the charts of Valve's marketplace.

At time of writing, Destiny 2 is the number one top seller on Steam, usurping the almighty Counter-Strike 2. Not only that, it has two other spots in the top five as well, as the expansions Renegades and The Edge of Fate are in places third and fifth, respectively.

Even with heavy discounts on everything Destiny-related, those are some decent numbers, to say the least. The concurrent player count has shot up as well, at 167,867 on Steam, which is over half of the MMO's all-time record. And, as fans were quick to point out, that's more than double Marathon's peak concurrent player count on Steam since launch.

So many are trying to get in for one more go, there are reports of server problems. Again, these numbers are just for PC, too; include PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S players and you've another stratosphere entirely. This kind of excitement does tend to be a double-edged sword for the infrastructure, as servers are stretched to capacity, and beyond.

There are sides of the fandom who're hoping this will all reverberate from Bungie up to Sony, and convince the corporation to invest more in the studio and Destiny as a whole. "The big thing is Sony is seeing that Destiny can still make money, something Marathon has failed to do," writes one player on Reddit.

"This whole situation is extra baffling today seeing these numbers," another commenter says. "Absolute buffoons for ceasing Destiny support," a third Redditor comments.

I wouldn't hold my breath on any of this bringing us closer to Destiny 3. But for now, it's clear the people who love Destiny 2 aren't going down quietly.

Destiny 2 bug that destroys bosses in "a few well-placed shots" disabled by Bungie ahead of the MMO's last update: "We want to ensure your experiences aren't trivialized."

Destiny 2 is really ending, huh. Bungie's recently announced Monument of Triumph update, a caution-to-the-wind blowout marking the end of active development on one of the most influential games of the past decade, is out today, June 9. Destiny 2 players have answered the call, turning out in numbers not seen since the beloved Final Shape expansion.

SteamDB shows that Destiny 2's concurrent Steam player count has jumped to 165,856 at the time of writing (up 9,000 from when I started writing this article) following characteristic queue issues. This makes the Monument of Triumph the most active Destiny 2 update since summer 2024, which nearly matched the all-time player peak of 316,750.

Bear in mind, Destiny 2 was in such dire shape that, for nearly all of 2026, it's averaged well under 20,000 concurrent players on Steam. On May 4, it was sitting at roughly 12,851. The big sendoff – packed with balance changes, updated loot, new abilities, reprised activities, and a festive farewell – has clearly resonated.

This is, of course, bittersweet. To get Destiny 2 players to actually come back, all Bungie had to do was kill the game. That's a little harsh, but it's just plain true. The Monument of Triumph is packed with excellent changes and outright corrections that many players wanted well over a year ago, but it's demonstrably too late.

The Destiny 2 servers will stay on for the foreseeable future – heck, even Destiny 1 is still playable – but there are no more updates coming barring minor technical hotfixes. The aspirational element, the excitement and anticipation of summiting the next mountain, is gone. This is it.

In the background, Marathon, now Bungie's only active game, is once again in a slow decline following the start of Season 2, which peaked at under half of the game's launch boom (itself already smaller than the crowd that the free beta drew). Some fun new content, improved progression, and a free-to-play week have boosted the game, but increasingly it feels like Marathon just doesn't have the legs of an evergreen hit. It remains unmatched as a game for sickos, though.

Meanwhile, mourning Destiny 2 players are desperately asking Bungie and owner Sony to greenlight development of Destiny 3, which, to be completely and utterly clear, is not in the works. Bungie has not announced any new projects. All it has said is that it's begun incubating potential ideas. A related Destiny 3 petition has over 373,000 signees, which is a solid turnout for this kind of movement, but given Bungie's position, we may as well ask the stars in the sky.

Destiny 2 bug that destroys bosses in "a few well-placed shots" disabled by Bungie ahead of the MMO's last update: "We want to ensure your experiences aren't trivialized."

Just because Destiny 2 is ending its updates doesn't mean Bungie is going to let game-breaking exploits slide. A powerful combo that lets players decimate any bosses in the cosmic FPS is being dismantled as the dev team prepares for the game's final bow.

Members of the community have realized that using Howl of the Storm, a Titan Aspect, in conjunction with a Hunter's Golden Gun can take apart more or less every big encounter available in the shooter. "A few well-placed shots" is all it takes, according to Bungie, and the studio's putting an end to it.

"With Monument of Triumph launching" today, Bungie is "disabling Howl of the Storm," the studio says on Twitter. "Even if we're not shipping a new raid, MoT invites you to visit a large slate of endgame content, the new Pantheon lineup, and even Gambit!"

As the swan song for Destiny 2, Monument of Triumph is a huge moment for the game and its fanbase. Even without a raid, it sounds like there's going to be plenty to explore – the patch notes alone will take half a day to go through – and the fun would be deflated if you can turn most of the enemies into Swiss cheese.

"We generally want to avoid disabling abilities or weapons," Bungie says, and "especially for days" like this, "but we want to ensure your experiences aren't trivialized by the bug.

"We'll get this fixed up as soon as possible," the company continues. "If anything comes up during testing or validation leading to a delay, or we're able to move the fix up to an earlier release date, we'll let you know."

Monument of Triumph goes live today, June 9. If you want a final hurrah with Destiny 2, now is the time, and then you can join the chorus hoping for Destiny 3.

Destiny 2 lead says the final update won't just fade out: "Yes, there's story, yes, we get to say goodbye."

Destiny 2's final update, the Monument of Triumph, will send the game off in style with new narrative content.

Narrative director Alison Lührs shared a new trailer for Monument of Triumph on Bluesky earlier today. "The Traveler has returned, the Earth may yet begin to heal, and we take one moment to look where we are, where we’ve been, and what could be," she says.

But I'm most interested in her assurances regarding the shape of the sendoff: "Yes, there's story, yes, we get to say goodbye."

It's become increasingly clear that a lot of the content in Monument of Triumph was not originally planned as part of the last update for Destiny 2, which will end active development as Bungie moves on to new projects. Rather, at some point a decision was made that the game cannot continue, so a whole lot of cool stuff had to be packed into one final blowout or cut.

A concern among the player base, then, is that a hasty end to Destiny 2 would leave a lot of story threads unresolved. And that is inevitable to some degree; the Nine storyline that was just getting off the ground post-Edge of Fate will be cut quite short, for example, and I can think of a Hive god or two still waiting in the wings. But Lührs suggests there's a real goodbye coming, and I don't think I'm ready.

That new trailer is as bittersweet as they come – at once a triumphant celebration and a gutting memorial, not to mention a stylish showcase of the new abilities coming in the update.

"Thank you, Guardian," begins Warlock Vanguard Ikora, whose voice actor Mara Junot said it was "heartbreaking" to see Destiny 2 ending like this. "Because of you, what was unraveling is suddenly stabilizing. Earth may yet heal, and that's something worth celebrating. May this time be a moment of reflection, remembering what came before. Reassessing our present, and readying ourselves for the future. The Traveler has nestled above the Last City once again."

Destiny 2's final update has 71 pages of patch notes as Bungie says "our teams have worked tirelessly" to address bugs and are "still hunting down stragglers."

If you know you're making your last patch for a game, you might as well make it a big one. Bungie's teased a little bit of what's coming in Destiny 2's last major update, and honestly, I've read shorter novellas.

The official Destiny 2 Twitter gives us a peek behind the cosmic curtain. "71 pages of patch notes. 17k words - and we're still hunting down stragglers," reads the tweet.

"This is a big patch," the team adds. "Our teams have worked tirelessly to hit the highest priority/impacting bugs before launch, but there may be a few rough edges."

There are big patches, and then there are ones that'd take you a solid weekend to read through fully. For comparison, these notes are now longer than Stephen King's short stories The Monkey, 1408, and Children of the Corn. They're over twice as long as the average American comic book.

They're just shy of the famously long and in-depth manual for the original StarCraft. But when it's the last hurrah for a hugely popular and era-defining game, it's only right.

"We hope you find Monument of Triumph to be packed to the brim with fun. If you encounter any issues on launch day or beyond, never hesitate to send us the info," finishes the post.

That launch day is right around the corner, on June 9. There's been a lot of commiserating following the announcement of Destiny 2 being sunsetted. Including from voice actors, who've gotten behind growing calls for Destiny 3.

Current reports point toward dark days at Bungie once this horizon passes, with layoffs expected as the studio enters a new era under Sony's ownership. The company released Marathon a couple of months ago, but according to analysts, the response so far hasn't been the strongest.

We'll see what arrives in the coming weeks and months. At least we know Monument of Triumph will give us plenty to pore over in the meantime.

Valve veteran worries for Bungie's future following Destiny 2's final update: "I don't think Sony cares anymore"

Realistically, nobody should ever read a YouTube stream chat. That's especially true during shows like today's PlayStation State of Play live showcase, as these events are notorious for cultivating nonsense and memes in the chat. But I have to admit, right from the pre-show – give me that sweet, Sony-stamped, electronic music – today's State of Play chat did carry a pretty loud and consistent message: "We want Destiny 3." Not even Wolverine's extraordinarily hairy shoulders could distract Guardians in the chat.

This State of Play arrived one week ahead of June 9, which will see the final update for Destiny 2. Bungie abruptly announced the end of the game, and of active development, in May following well over a year of decline after the game's Final Shape expansion. Players have been in mourning ever since. But as they tumble down the stages of grief, fans have also clung to hopes that Bungie can turn it around, and they've aimed their fire hoses at Sony.

Simmering in the background of this State of Play chat – a river of chants like "Destiny 3," "#WeWantDestiny3," and so on – is a petition on change.org begging "Sony to develop Destiny 3." Bungie is the developer, of course, but Sony owns the company now, and talk of Sony reducing Bungie's freedom amid financial hardship has redirected discussion toward the house of PlayStation.

At the time of writing, the Destiny 3 petition has 338,556 signatures – a commendable turnout for a new, rag-tag push.

"The desire for new adventures, fresh storylines, and innovative gameplay features is palpable among players everywhere," it reads. "Destiny 3 would not only meet these demands but also expand the horizons of what is possible within this universe."

Destiny 2 community lead whips the MMO's community into a frenzy with a series of posts that could mean anything from a sequel to nothing at all: "Do not go gentle into that good night."

Destiny 2 fans are convinced that Bungie's community lead is trying to encourage them not to give up on the game, the idea of Destiny 3, or perhaps both as a series of cryptic posts fuel hopium about… something.

After almost nine years with Destiny 2, it's understandable that fans aren't taking the news of the game's final update well. That update arrives next week, and although the game will remain playable after then, it's been reported that Destiny 3 isn't in development, making for an understandably pessimistic community.

In the face of adversity, however, others are choosing to believe. Believe in what, exactly, is up to interpretation, but something good. As highlighted across Reddit and ResetEra, Bungie's principal communications manager Dylan "dmg04" Gafner has been turning heads on Twitter over the last day, first taking to the platform to write: "Guardians make their own fate."

This already had enough folks in his replies asking, "IS THIS A SIGN," but things were then taken to the next level by his following posts.

"Do not go gentle into that good night," dmg04 says, quoting the famous Dylan Thomas poem, before adding: "Wife walked down the aisle to Interstellar music. Top 3 movies of all time in this household."

There are a few ways that fans are interpreting all this – the first is that dmg04 is quietly encouraging the fanbase to keep fighting back against Destiny 2's impending death. One Reddit user suggests: "Dmg's posts are a battle cry. They hear us. Keep going. [...] A reference to one of the most famous poems ever about fighting death. It's from Dylan Thomas published in 1951. The poem follows: 'Rage rage against the dying of the light.'

"It's not cryptic and it's not cope. This is a message to the Destiny community that this movement is not falling on deaf ears. Save the Light. They are hearing us. [...] This is a clear signal from the people actually making and representing Destiny who love it as much as us. They want us to know that the movement over the past week is leading somewhere."

The alternative interpretation is a little more… creative. Though dmg04's explanation of him sharing the poem, which features in Interstellar, could well shut down any idea that he's hinting at anything to do with Destiny, others have been drawn to his apparently bold decision to include the number 3 in his tweet.

"Top 3 movies? That three seems very specific. Why not just, 'One of my favourite movies,' you're too smart for that to not be specific!" one fan responds. "This screams, 'how can I hint D3 without hinting D3.' Hahaha I don't even care if this is copium or hopium. Please let there be D3."

"WHY 3 HUH? WHY 3???? THE NUMBER DYLAN WHAT DOES IT MEANNNN," another questions. "WAIT a minute .... Interstellar ? Top 3 ? You posted those posts 3 hours after you tweet that guardians make their own fate .... Destiny 3 will happen and we will leave Sol !!!!!!!" speculates another.

Obviously, the million-dollar question is, will any of this end up meaning anything at all? Perhaps not, but at least it's giving everyone something to rally around in the meantime. Notably, he also shared someone else's post urging fans to log onto Destiny 2 on June 9, the day of its final update, which makes me wonder if he could be quietly encouraging the idea folks had about overwhelming the game's servers one last time.

As for the Destiny 3 theory, as one ResetEra user writes, it feels like it's up there with Stranger Things Conformity Gate as a theory that'd be really cool if it came true, but it's so off the wall that it's highly unlikely. Is that going to stop any believers from going all in on this idea, though? Of course not.

Valve veteran worries for Bungie's future following Destiny 2's final update: "I don't think Sony cares anymore."

Valve veteran Chet Faliszek doesn't know where Bungie and corporate owner Sony can go from here as the developer's once-evergreen live-service game Destiny 2 prepares to walk into the sunset.

The storied studio earlier this month announced that Destiny 2's final update will drop on June 9, at which point it'll remain playable and the company will begin incubating other projects, it said. Reports then claimed Destiny 3 isn't in active development and layoffs were also expected for the devs who don't get moved onto Marathon.

In a new video reacting to the news, Portal and Left 4 Dead writer Chet Faliszek said he's "just super bummed out because closing Destiny 2 on June 9 means they don't need a whole bunch of people to keep Destiny 2 going and they're not doing a Destiny 3." He then laments, "Marathon was the big bet and that did not hit. Sony bought Bungie for their multiplayer games… I don't think Sony cares anymore, right?"

Faliszek also explains why there's no easy path forward for Bungie. On paper, Destiny 3 might be the company's safest bet, but Faliszek explains big publishers want to invest in live-service games that can live forever and Bungie's last stab at that wasn't exactly immortal. So Sony might be hesitant to drop hundreds of million of dollars on the threequel.

"Counter-Strike's been going on since 1997," he says. "These games, once they find an audience, can live forever, and that's what these publishers are chasing."

Toying with the idea of the studio spinning off to make multiple smaller projects, Faliszek also concludes that "it doesn't work, it doesn't scale inside of these companies that are this big because it's got a couple problems." The first is that it's really tough, and sometimes really expensive, to get anyone to care about something original. He points to how Valve apparently spent $35 million on TV ads for Left 4 Dead 2, a sequel to a beloved game, in the lead up to its launch, so an original, smaller project won't be any cheaper to market.

Elsewhere, a former Destiny lead suggested that a remaster of the first game wasn't a safe bet either, leaving Bungie stuck between a rock and an endless abyss of risky possibilities.

Destiny 2's final update sounds so good that it just makes the game's death hurt even more

How deeply shall we read into recent comments from former Destiny 2 lead and Bungie vice president Mark Noseworthy regarding "a certain remaster" which absolutely shall not be named? I probably should've asked this before I got up to my collarbone in Destiny 1 musings, but, well, here we go.

Twitter user Mikie, clearly a Destiny fan mourning the end of the game, asked Noseworthy whether he thinks "a certain remaster could be helpful in the same way during these trying times." This was in response to Noseworthy's remarks on The Witcher 3 getting a surprise DLC ahead of The Witcher 4, but it's not too hard to read between the lines here. We sure ain't talking about Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, for which Noseworthy was project lead back in the 2000s, or Halo Reach, which he also worked on but which is already part of the Master Chief Collection.

"I'm not going to comment on 'a certain remaster' but I'll share some general thoughts that I think apply when execs and teams consider the merits of remasters from a business perspective," Noseworthy says in response.

The body of his post is a screenshot of notes which he's dubbed "Generic Video Game Remake Calculus." Again, you will notice that Noseworthy does not call out Destiny by name, but the target of this discussion seems about as well hidden as a horse behind a telephone pole.

Noseworthy examines three "core questions," starting with how costly remakes and remasters actually are. He reckons, "Remakes are often more expensive than you might imagine. Especially if the content and tech needs major updates."

This is a big reason that a Destiny 1 re-release has always sounded impractical to me. Bungie is already wrestling with a complex engine and a live service game. Digging up a generations-old project and fitting it for modern tech and player expectations, just to gussy up a deeply flawed game, simply ain't worth the squeeze in my mind. We're getting into remake versus remaster a bit, but I think some dogs should just stay sleeping. WoW Classic and Old School RuneScape are great, I agree, but I think that's because old WoW and RuneScape 2 are great and distinct in a way that Destiny 1 just is not. But I digress.

Noseworthy also looks at the "opportunity cost" of this kind of project. "If remastered, does that effort take away resources from a different project?" he wonders. In this purely hypothetical situation, those different projects would be Marathon and Bungie's incubation projects, which the studio will have to balance after sunsetting its longtime breadwinner as it looks to get something else off the ground.

"Opportunity costs are high if you are people or cash constrained," Noseworthy adds. "Studios can only afford so many bets at once. Outsourcing is not a silver bullet either (even less so for complex projects)." We obviously don't have exact numbers outside of Sony's $765 million write-down on Bungie, but even the most generous napkin math suggests the studio is, indeed, cash-strapped after Marathon's apparent underperformance and Destiny 2's decline. Which is to say nothing of its manpower after multiple layoff waves and reported plans for additional cuts.

Finally, Noseworthy interrogates whether there's even "a big enough market to justify those expenses and make a suitable return". Do people actually want that dreamed-up remaster? Would they stick to it long-term? Would they pay for it? Or are they, perhaps, flailing their way through the stages of grief and treating anything they collide with as a life preserver?

"Intelligent people can disagree here," Noseworthy concludes. "Case by case basis. Obviously lots of good examples exist like [the] Resident Evil series. But opportunity cost could be a big loser depending on situation."

"We want Destiny 3": Fans respond to Sony sunsetting Destiny 2 with a sequel petition that quickly gets 220k signatures in 4 days, and the MMO's actors are on board.

Bungie has released new details on Destiny 2's final update, Monument of Triumph, ahead of its June 9 launch, and boy, I would have been excited about these changes before the end of the game was announced.

Per a fresh blog post, on June 9, Destiny 2's Director, the entire view of the universe, will be reinstated as the "center of your gameplay" following the disastrous rollout of the Portal activity hub, which has been partially sunset.

"It's your guide to the Destiny universe and the place to plan your adventures," Bungie seems to have realized. "It creates that feeling of wonder we all love. You see the Sol system before you, ready to be explored."

As Destiny 2 is frozen in time, with no more updates coming, the Director has also been updated for the last time. The Lawless Frontier and Kepler areas have been added, giving us our final view of Sol.

The many destinations on the Director have been updated as well. "Pre-Edge of Fate" areas have gotten "loot with new perks, tiered weapons for non-craftable pools, and set bonuses that reflect their themes and stories," mostly earned through public events. Some of that loot will come with the new perk Eyes Up, a nod to one of Destiny's most iconic lines, which reads: "This weapon gains reload speed, range, and increased damage against combatants for a short time when combat begins. Final blows extend and enhance this bonus."

Destinations will also receive a new event of sorts called Distortions. This will appear on a new destination every hour, empowering enemies and unlocking a new event. "You'll also discover some familiar challenges in new places and some strange signals leading to hidden rewards," Bungie says.

The Portal will technically still be here, but "Portal, the tab, is gone." Bungie says "we've heard your feedback on the Portal loud and clear," so it's been reduced to a quick-access menu for playlists and activities. Reward and modifier scoring has been simplified, Gambit has been added as a category to go with its reward overhaul, and dungeons and raids will have quick-start nodes as well. "Dungeon Ops will be retired, and this space will simply be a space to quickly find and play full raid and dungeon content," Bungie clarifies.

"The overarching theme is less math, more playing Destiny," Bungie says of the revised Portal.

Loot is a focus throughout the update, with "exclusive weapon reward pools and an armor collection with a unique set bonus" coming to Crucible and competitive playlists, Trials of Osiris, Iron Banner, Gambit, and the now-permanent Sparrow Racing League.

Onslaught, perhaps the best grind mode Destiny 2 ever received, has also been punched up: expect a new difficulty curve, more defense resources, and no revive tokens. The Contest of Elders has gotten similar changes along with The Coil, one of the best seasonal modes in Destiny 2's history, to essentially make them more rewarding and easier to get into.

This is, of course, a whole bunch of good, highly requested stuff. The Director! Universal tiered loot! Less Portal cruft! Gambit, I guess, sure, why not, bring it in! But it's hard to get too excited about the update knowing this is the end. A selfish part of me almost wishes the Monument of Triumph was weaker just so uninstalling Destiny 2 would be less painful. This game has always been about aspirational content, and now there's nothing left to aspire to. The final update perfectly encapsulates the game's history of extreme ups and downs: simultaneously, we are so back and it is so over.

Destiny 2 community manager thanks "everyone who has reached out" as Bungie ends the game after 9 years: "Your stories mean the world to all of us."

The Destiny 2 team is confident that the servers won't crash as players flock to mourn the game's final update on June 9.

Bungie confirmed last week that Destiny 2's active development is officially coming to a close after nine years, and that the game's final update will be released on June 9. That update is the Monument of Triumph, which will introduce one final batch of content before the game enters a static event rotation for those who want to keep playing.

Naturally, Destiny fans aren't too happy, with a petition for Destiny 3 already amassing over 280,000 signatures. However, reports have emerged that Destiny 3 isn't in active development, that Bungie has no greenlit projects, and that the studio is facing layoffs. On top of that, fans are planning to flood the game with a massive player rally on the day of its final update to show Sony that its shooter still has a loyal community.

Over on Twitter, the Destiny 2 team responded to an account saying they look forward to the final update and explained: "Many of us on the team will be on the Tower on June 9 to visit Monument of Triumph with you." And while Destiny 2's major updates have tended to cause the servers to crash in the past, the team adds, "While we're confident the servers won't crash, we've seen some posts floating around. Our Operations Center is prepared for the challenge."

Some, however, have taken this as a challenge, with one user responding, "So you are telling us to make your servers cry for mercy because so many people want on the game? Noted." While another says, "We MUST crash the servers. One last time. I better be stuck on the title screen for like an hour." Although some are hoping it happens "not out of spite, but because that has happened with every DLC. One last time."

Warframe leads join fans mourning Destiny 2: "There is no Warframe without the legacy of Bungie games."

Destiny 2's "death" is arguably the biggest gaming news of the month. With Sony spending lots of money and resources on chasing (and failing to capture) the live-service dragon this generation, we all thought Bungie would be safe – yet the enduring MMO shooter is on its way out.

If a former behemoth like Destiny 2 won't get any more support, what are the chances of new live-service shooters being afforded the space and time to soar? Pretty low, I'd say, and I'd wager the next generation of consoles will be defined by a return to basics from both Sony and Microsoft. Regardless, Bungie's $3.6 billion price tag – Sony's flashiest acquisition in years – should give everyone pause before deeming it "dead" or "doomed" in the near future.

I'm no oracle, but having lived through bigger live-service debacles and being close to Destiny 2 and Marathon's communities, I've collected some thoughts below.

Destiny isn't going the way of the dodo

Destiny 2 may be "dying", but it's not going away. As hard as Bungie's leadership – blamed time and again by former employees for the studio's struggles – has tried to make things difficult for both the developers and players, it's abundantly clear people who actually played Destiny 2 and its predecessor are fond of the universe and the lives they've lived there.

Warframe might be cool as hell, but there's nothing out there like Destiny 2's approach to kooky but enchanting space opera. Whether you engage with its endgame content or not, the game has survived through its ups and downs – always related to the structure of its seasonal model and the awful onboarding – thanks to its unique universe, mostly relaxed vibes in spite of all the ongoing drama, and awesome-feeling gunplay. When you sit down and actually play Destiny 2, you're instantly reminded why Bungie is one of the best studios in the business and why closing the door on more space romps with Zavala, Ikora, and other Guardians is such a tragedy.

At the end of the day, Destiny 2 is hard to replace, which is why I'm not expecting its Light to vanish as soon as Bungie is done updating the game on June 9. Even the much derided Destiny 1 has retained a community over the years, so it's hard to see Guardians and curious new players moving on anytime soon. In fact, it might be the perfect time to jump in and experience a "finished" version of a game that had a longer journey in mind (vaulted content sadly excluded).

Marathon deserves to grow

With Destiny 2 out of the way, all eyes are turning to Marathon, which is now seen as the only thing separating Bungie from oblivion. There are big things on the horizon... provided the developers can reach it.

As many veterans have pointed out already, killing Marathon would be self-sabotage for everyone involved. That scenario is far less likely now, unless Bungie as a whole is shut down. Instead, layoffs are (unfortunately) expected to happen once Destiny 2's final big content update is done. Beyond that, Sony is reportedly doubling down on Marathon as the game tries to entice PvE-first players with new modes and a heavier focus on "live" narratives as seen in Destiny 2.

Considering the rumored production budget for Marathon was over $200 million and the game reportedly sold over 2.2 million copies during its debut month, it could be some time before Sony sees a return on its investment. Microtransactions spending is unclear, and such a game isn't easy to run, develop, and maintain over time, so expect aggressive marketing and discounts in the coming months in an attempt to attract and retain new players, especially those who were initially scared of the game's ruthless PvPvE extraction shooter pitch.

Needless to say, blaming Marathon for Destiny 2's struggles and leadership failures won't help anyone, and if you care about Bungie's future, my first recommendation would be to give the extraction shooter a try, especially now that Arc Raiders will be slowing down and adopting a more traditional approach to updates and that Marathon Season 2 is approaching. Tau Ceti IV is a scary place, but we Runners don't bite... as long as we're in the same party. Join the bloodshed fun!

Destiny 3 or not, Bungie needs a new project fast

Regardless of Marathon performing better or worse in the long run, Bungie not having another project going is a worrying sign. Destiny 3 isn't a thing at the time of writing even if a full refresh is exactly what fans have been wanting for quite some time, but other projects could take form in the near future. After all, the studio was promising "a new beginning" with its farewell to Destiny 2...

Money talks, of course, and we're expecting PlayStation's live-service push to dwindle even further now that even Bungie is downsizing its operations, but having all its talent focus exclusively on Marathon is a losing bet. While I believe in the extraction shooter if given enough time and resources to blossom, online games eventually die out. All things considered, Destiny 2 had a solid run of more than eight years which paid off the initial investment. We don't need forever games out of every online release.

As fans demand a third Destiny, I'm of the opinion it might be time for Bungie to return to its Xbox era and work on a traditional premium package with a strong campaign and Halo-like multiplayer modes, something that's cheaper and faster to produce. New IP or old (what about a Bungie-developed Killzone?), now feels like the time to play things a bit safe for everyone's sake. I'll be there day one – no matter what.

As someone who was all-in on Destiny from day one, I'm gutted to see where we are now

The end is nigh for Destiny 2. Bungie recently announced that, after nine years, the cosmic FPS MMO will receive its last update in June of this year. Waves and waves of tributes have poured out since, across the game's vast community, prompting thanks from someone who very actively followed those players.

On Twitter, Dylan 'dmg04' Gafner, the principal communications manager for Destiny at Bungie and a rock for the game's community, expressed his gratitude for all the ways fans have shared their love for the series, and the heartache over its end. "Thank you to everyone who has reached out. Thank you to everyone who’s been sharing what Destiny means to them," he says.

He adds that he's "passing these along to the team as they roll in. Photos, videos, art pieces, everything." I'm sure all of the developers who worked on either or both of the Destiny entries and are still at the studio will be more than happy to see the impact their work has had on so many around the world.

Among the thanks is a clear desire for Destiny 3. There's quite a lot of sequel chatter overall, including a petition for a third installment that has hundreds of thousands of signatures. Multiple voice actors are behind the campaign, perhaps hoping to put a little pressure on Bungie's owner Sony to greenlight another game.

Right now, I don't fancy anyone's odds of that, unfortunately. As it spins up ideas for future games, Bungie's now solely working on Marathon, an extraction that launched earlier this year, and it's been reported that considerable layoffs are expected after Destiny 2 gets its final update.

That update is Monument of Triumph, and it really does feel like the end of the road for the galactic shooter, some 12 years after Destiny itself first launched. Quite a journey; at least we still have the stars.

Warframe leads join fans mourning Destiny 2: "There is no Warframe without the legacy of Bungie games"

Warframe creative director Rebb Ford and design director Pablo Alonso joined Destiny 2 fans mourning the game following the end of development announced last week by Bungie.

Though Warframe actually predates Destiny, the two games have long been compared as giants of the loosely defined, live-service, looter-shooter space, and they have shared many players. Ford and Alonso, like many others at developer Digital Extremes, were clearly big fans of Destiny and are sad to see it go.

Rebb relates her history with Bungie's work, going back to playing Halo 3 at 16. "There is no Warframe without the legacy of Bungie games," she says.

"Destiny was and is a force of nature, loved and held in the hands of so many people who, for a moment, were part of the biggest thing in gaming," she adds. "Then comes the words, summarized crudely: 'The End.'"

Destiny 2 will remain playable going forward, and Bungie and studio owner Sony have not openly killed off the IP, but the game will not get any additional updates and the franchise has no known new entries in the works. Bungie's only other release is Marathon, which is quite shy of a smash-hit, so the studio's waters are choppy.

Ford adds: "What a tempest! I am 16 again - I am 35. I am making Warframe, I am saying goodbye to the only lasting pillar I had to look up to. I am responsible for my own destiny. This is misery for so many people - and people are the only reason for the good and the bad of this."

Alonso likewise focuses on how losing a game like this can feel as a player. In an indirect tip of his hat, he says, "When Heroes of the Storm ended development I was very sad, I loved that game. People kept saying 'play league or dota' most were trying to be helpful but they were just annoying. I was sad the game I liked was ending and didn’t need people telling me how their moba was better."

This is the quandary Destiny 2 players will face in the months and years ahead: there is no other game like Destiny. Many tried to make one and none succeeded, and many more were told not to even try because it would be impossible. There are games with guns and loot and space drama, but none of them look or feel or sound quite like this.

For me, the greatest losses lie in Destiny's unresolved narrative threads, and in knowing that we'll never get any more of those raids or dungeons. Destiny 2's pinnacle PvE encounters were peerless – an ingenious distillation of everything the sandbox could produce spliced with think-on-your-feet puzzles that pushed the entire FPS genre forward and turned fireteams into orchestras conducted by whoever actually learned the mechanics (usually with a Datto video playing in another window).

As someone who was all-in on Destiny from day one, I'm gutted to see where we are now.

It's the end of an era as Bungie is now sunsetting Destiny 2 after seven years. As players prepare for the FPS to finish, there's a growing campaign within the fanbase to get a third installment, and voice actors are now getting involved.

On June 9, the Monument of Triumph update will be the last significant patch released for Destiny 2. This has stirred up all sorts of mixed feelings across the community, including a push for Destiny 3 that's got Brandon O'Neill, the voice of Crow, Brian Villalobos, the performer behind Lodi, and more on the frontlines.

"If you're posting about Destiny, Destiny 2 in any way, how about a little #WeWantDestiny3," O'Neill says at the end of a Cameo message to the broader player-base. "I wouldn't mind the employment. I hope to see you star side. All the best, Guardians."

He confirmed to The Game Post that, although the Cameo was organized by a fan, he'd be "very happy to be involved" in a third Destiny. Villalobos is slightly more lowkey, retweeting a post about how a petition for Destiny 3 was then at 150,000 people, simply adding, "I mean." That petition has now accrued over 220,000 signatures in just four days of being live.

I imagine his feelings are much the same as O'Neill and many of the cast-members, in that they'd happily remain a part of this era-defining series and community. Sadly, these efforts may not yield much fruit for the time-being. According to reports, Bungie's planning a hefty round of layoffs following the launch of Monument of Triumph, and as now, no further continuation of Destiny is planned.

But miraculous turnarounds can and do happen. Whatever comes, Joshua David King, who voiced Oryx, sums up his feelings in a way I think many can understand. "I didn't know much about Destiny, but when I learned about the Hive, and I learned about how story-rich and lore-rich and amazing the world of this was, I fell in love," he says in a video posted on social media.

"Instantly, Oryx became a role that I knew I always knew I would hold very near and dear to my heart," he adds. "So thank you all for accepting me."

As Destiny 2 prepares for one final update, a former Bungie legal chief says the studio is "now becoming what I feared after the Sony acquisition"

As Destiny 2 gears up for the end of its live-service updates and as employees reportedly brace for layoffs, one former Bungie worker involved in its acquisition fears the storied developer is becoming a mere "publishing imprint" under Sony's ownership.

Sony Interactive Entertainment bought the iconic developer behind Destiny, Halo, and Marathon in 2022, but things haven't been smooth sailing since then. The developer laid off around 200 staff members in 2023 and Sony just reported a $765 impairment loss on the studio.

Things took a slightly bleaker turn this week as Bungie announced that "active development" on Destiny 2 will be over once a final update drops on June 9, though the MMO FPS will remain playable after. A Bloomberg report then claimed Destiny 3 isn't in active development and layoffs are expected for the devs who don't get moved on to Marathon.

Now, Bungie's former General Counsel, Don McGowan, who helped run the company's $3.6 billion buyout says everything he was worried about with the sale is coming true. "I'm not happy to see what has become of one of the most famous studios in gaming, and I wish I could have done more to keep it alive," he writes in a recent LinkedIn post. "It's now becoming what I feared after the Sony acquisition: a publishing imprint that may also make a game every now and then, but not a builder of worlds."

"Life goes on, but we can spare ourselves a moment to wish sometimes it didn't. I was never a huge fan of D2. I’m not a great fan of FPS gaming, and I found the lore needlessly complex and never properly explained for new players. But not everything is for everyone. For a lot of people D2 was their life. It helped a lot of people get through COVID lockdowns. And, of course, it changed the games industry in hundreds of ways that echo today and on into the future... on a more LI note, I really hope this doesn't mean a few thousand people lose their jobs…" Hear, hear.

Marathon Steam reviews take a hit as Destiny 2 fans react to news of the MMO ending updates after nearly 9 years: "Destiny died for this"

Bungie has announced that Destiny 2's final live-service update arrives next month, and fans are taking out their frustrations… on poor Marathon.

Obviously, the news isn't good. After the final update, while Destiny 2 will remain playable, it won't be getting any new content or expansions, and that news is only made worse by a report that Destiny 3 apparently isn't in development, nor is Bungie currently planning on it in the immediate sense. With reportedly no other projects greenlit right now, attention is shifting to its latest FPS game, Marathon, which hasn't been a massive success for the studio since its March launch, and the studio's situation sounds shaky.

Sony recently reported "impairment losses" of around $765 million against Bungie's "intangible and other assets" over its last financial year, and it's now been alleged that significant layoffs are planned at Bungie after the final Destiny 2 update. Needless to say, it sounds like the studio needs a win, so some players are being very understanding by… review bombing Marathon on Steam.

Looking at the game's recent negative reviews, you can see a wave of complaints that, well, aren't really complaints about Marathon at all. "Destiny died for this lol," one reads, as another writes: "Slopathon. rip destiny 2 u were the realest."

One review – posted after only 0.3 hours on record (from a copy of the game that's since been refunded) – simply states, "D2 didn't die for this garbage," while another demands: "Make Destiny 3."

Now, the upset at the demise of Destiny 2 is – obviously – understandable. Many people have spent the best part of a decade playing the game, and its abrupt end was never going to go down well. But is taking out those frustrations on Marathon going to achieve anything positive? No.

Some fans are already pointing this out. "Love the D2 players review bombing rn," one Reddit user sarcastically writes. "Great look guys! Blame Marathon for a game reaching its natural end of life, makes complete sense to me!"

Others are calling for others to counterbalance the wave of complaints, asking: "Positive or negative, leave a genuine review please. Not some parasocial comment."

Right now, it appears that those trying to give Marathon a positive boost are winning – while today is still the game's worst day for negative reviews in the last month (with 93 posted so far), it also has way more positive ones, with 179 shared today. Interestingly, the exact same thing is happening on Destiny 2's Steam reviews, too, with the positive reviews coming out on top.

With both games, it helps that the review bomb hasn't become too widespread at the time of writing. Hopefully, it'll just fizzle out, as once again, it's really not going to achieve anything other than add some salt to the wounds of the already struggling devs. Perhaps Marathon Season 2 can turn things around at least a little too.

Former Destiny 2 writer says "it turns out the real Destiny killer" was CEO Pete Parsons as players pray for Destiny 3.

Destiny 2's active development is officially coming to a close, and the news just gets worse as it's reported that Destiny 3 isn't in development, and layoffs are planned at Bungie after the game's final update next month.

That's according to a Bloomberg report, via individuals allegedly familiar with Bungie's plans. It's claimed that – aside from the ongoing support for its latest FPS game Marathon – Bungie doesn't have another new project currently lined up, with no plans to immediately start production on Destiny 3 (which, clearly, isn't already ongoing). It's claimed that Bungie devs are looking to both pitch and start developing new projects (apparently, projects in the Destiny franchise are included in this), but as of now, none have actually been approved, nor is it a certain thing that any will.

What's worse is the alleged layoffs being planned at Bungie as Destiny 2's development comes to an end. While it's reported that the number of layoffs planned isn't known, the number is described as significant.

Things haven't been looking fantastic for Bungie for a while now. Earlier this month, Sony's results for the last financial year (ended at the end of March) revealed that it had taken "impairment losses" of around $765 million against Bungie's "intangible and other assets" over the course of the year. Obviously, that's not good, especially when Sony spent $3.6 billion to acquire it in 2022. At the time, Destiny 2 fans were seriously worried about the future of the game, and it's sad to see that their fears weren't unfounded.

It's fair to say that Bungie's latest game, Marathon, hasn't been an immediate hit, either. While it'd be unfair to call it a Concord or Highguard situation, Bloomberg now reports that it hasn't met sales expectations, but claims that Bungie is looking to invest more into it, so the devs aren't giving up on it. Some Destiny 2 staffers have apparently already recently been shifted over to work on Marathon with Marathon Season 2 just around the corner as well.

For now, we'll just have to see how the situation unfolds, but there's no way to dress it up – it's pretty grim.

Former Destiny 2 writer says "it turns out the real Destiny killer" was CEO Pete Parsons as players pray for Destiny 3.

As fans sift through the ashes following Bungie's announcement that Destiny 2 is ending active development, former Bungie writer Robert Brookes summarizes a sentiment percolating in the game's community: "It turns out the real Destiny killer was Pete Parsons."

Brookes was laid off from Bungie in July 2024 – one of hundreds of employees impacted as the studio made multiple deep cuts. Previously, he wrote at the time, he'd been "delivering seasonal story from Hunt all the way to Deep and sending home the most well-received expansion in our history in Final Shape."

Reacting to today's development shutdown, Brookes minces no words on Parsons. The CEO departed Bungie last year following the aforementioned layoffs and during a fraught time for the company, passing the role of studio head to Justin Truman.

Parsons previously championed plans to turn Bungie into a multi-franchise studio positioned as "one of the world's best entertainment companies," though that plan was pitched at a much rosier time for Bungie.

As Bungie declined over the past few years, current leaders, former leaders, and especially Parsons faced mounting criticism – not just for how the studio's incubation projects and layoffs had been handled (disastrously, mostly), but also for the golden parachutes they rode out of the company following the Sony acquisition. Brookes touches on this in a separate Bluesky post today: "Don't worry they're suffering in their *checks note on hand* multi-million dollar payouts."

Even before his departure, Parsons was skewered for spending millions of dollars on vintage cars while developers were being laid off.

Statements from Parsons drew fire as well. Fans and developers grilled his remarks on the October 2023 layoffs, calling them tone-deaf. In 2021, Parsons apologized for Bungie's work culture following an IGN report alleging toxic and sexist behavior had been tolerated by leadership.

Yet in some ways, Parsons is just a stand-in for Bungie leadership writ large. As one hot Reddit post argues today: "As everyone knows, Bungie has terrible executives (maybe even some are still there) but the devs who do the actual work to make the game deserve a round of applause."

With Destiny 2 on the way out, players are trading memories, grasping at straws, and enjoying some gallows humor. Destiny 3, the unannounced sequel long held up as a necessary, clean-slate solution to all of Destiny 2's problems, is unsurprisingly the talk of the town. Bungie suggested there's more Destiny to come as it dropped the axe on Destiny 2 – "Once we have more news to share on Destiny, you'll be the first to know," it says – but didn't commit to specific projects.

Another game dev, communications director Thomas Puha of Remedy, summarizes the response well. "No. Just no," he says. "I've got 5000 hours in this game, lifelong friends from it, some enemies, and at Bungie so many friends over the years. This hurts, at least the game being quiet this year has enabled me to work day and night on Control Resonant, but...I'm literally in tears that the journey is over. I love this game like no other."

Sony reports $765 million impairment loss on Marathon and Destiny 2 studio Bungie for the last financial year, after paying $3.6 billion for it in 2022.

Active development on Destiny 2 will come to an end with a final update coming June 9, Bungie announced today, officially sunsetting the MMO following a few dire years. There are no more updates coming. This time, for real, Destiny 2 is dead.

"Though active development may be concluding, we will ensure that Destiny 2 remains playable, just as the original Destiny is today," Bungie says. "Many changes in this final update will aim to ensure that Destiny 2 is a welcoming place for players to return to."

In its announcement, Bungie acknowledges that "it has become clear that after The Final Shape, we have reached the time for our shared worlds, and Destiny, to live beyond Destiny 2." This echoes previous sentiments suggesting that The Final Shape was perhaps too good a finale.

The Edge of Fate expansion tried to set up a new story following the conclusion of the Light and Darkness saga that led up to The Final Shape, and it did deliver a pretty compelling campaign, but unpopular systemic changes, wobbling epilogue narratives, and a severe content drought brought Destiny 2 to a crawl in the past year and change. The vibe was that Bungie didn't know what to do with the game anymore, and perhaps it truly didn't.

While Bungie's post hints at more Destiny projects to come – something "beyond" Destiny 2 – it notably has not announced Destiny 3, a sequel that fans, long fearing that the end of days was nigh, hoped might take the sting off the bad news.

Players had also hoped that recent, protracted silence from Bungie would soon give way to an update on the future of the game, and, well, I suppose they got their wish, just not the update they'd hoped for.

Bungie says "we will begin work incubating our next games. To that end, on June 9, 2026, we will release the final live-service content update for Destiny 2 to begin that new journey as a studio."

That bittersweet update is Monument of Triumph, billed as a celebration of all things Destiny. A new endgame Pantheon will pit players against souped-up raid bosses, dungeons and raids will have their loot updated for the new tier system, and destination-exclusive "memory lane" gear will be added to the tiered loot pool as well.

The Monument of Triumph reward pass also comes with a new Exotic hand cannon (one more, for old time's sake), and an "increased" number of cosmetic rewards compared to standard passes, Bungie says.

Tragically, we're getting new subclass abilities that sound very cool, including Aspects for all classes, more grenades, and various buffs to everyone. "Mindspun will interact with Threadling Grenade, Ward of Dawn is getting a complete rework, Trapper's Ambush has new capabilities, and more," Bungie says.

All of this suggests to me that more ambitious plans may have been repackaged as a final update after someone at Bungie – and/or owner Sony, who's written down $765 million on its purchase of the studio – took stock of how much road the game really has left. It sounds like a buff blowout to cap off the sandbox updates, which ain't a bad way to go out.

Going forward, Destiny 2 will be sustained by a static event rotation and refreshed modes built for the big sunsetting. Expect an Iron Banner PvP event every four weeks, new PvP modes including "some old school Bungie PvP vibes" and "a throwback to Destiny 1 balancing," and a new collection of weapons tied to events like Festival of the Lost and The Dawning.

Festivities like the Sparrow Racing League will return as permanent additions, and every single Destiny 2 content pack will be packed into a play-it-all bundle also coming June 9 alongside "permanent markdowns." Bungie says it will share more details in the weeks ahead.

Somewhat surprisingly, and I do mean somewhat, Destiny 2's Eververse cash shop will stay open. You'll still be able to earn Bright Dust to get cosmetics for free, but you'll also be able to spend real money on Silver.

The Portal introduced in Edge of Fate as a new activity and grind hub has also, effectively, been killed. "We have embraced the player feedback about the Director and Portal, and a newly refreshed Director returns to its rightful place as the center of activities in D2," Bungie says, finally making a hotly requested change in the same breath it ends the whole game.

You simply could not write a more Destiny 2 sendoff. Right at the literal end, Bungie says, "We want to remove choice paralysis; players should be able to sign in and find the fun quickly rather than being mired in stacking as many difficulty modifiers as possible to earn desirable rewards."

"Destiny 2 has been our home for many, many years," Bungie concludes. "The unknown can sometimes feel wild, even a bit scary at times, but these opportunities to explore the future are invigorating. As we look ahead, our commitment remains the same: to make games we, and you, are excited to play."

Come June 9, the only known Bungie game in active development will be Marathon, an excellent extraction shooter that has thus far failed to hold onto an audience beyond a devoted core base. Despite enormous post-launch challenges, Bungie's committed to growing the game, promising major changes in Season 2 on June 2, and outlining a year of updates to come, including a PvE mode.

Killing Marathon would be self-sabotage for Sony.

The one-two punch of Sony reporting a further impairment loss from buying Bungie – now totaling $765 million in the last financial year, more than 21% of the $3.6 billion it spent on the studio – and Bungie itself admitting it still has nothing of note to say has sent Destiny 2 players deeper down the stages of grief.

On May 7, less than 24 hours before Sony released the earnings report revealing this staggering impairment loss, Destiny 2 communications manager dmg04 addressed the game's community on Twitter.

"Still have a few lighter TWIDs in the pipe," he says, setting expectations for the developer's weekly blog posts. For months, players have begged for updated details on Destiny 2's upcoming expansions and patches, not to mention a proper state of the game letter, but have seen very little of consequence. Clearly, such information won't be coming for at least several more weeks.

"Community focused, emblems and foundation details," dmg04 says of the coming blog posts. "Know y'all are chomping at the bit for news. Dotting i's, crossing t's. Looking to have game focused articles as soon as they're ready."

This is obviously out of the hands of people like dmg. The timing is just brutal, as the Destiny community could really use a pick-me-up, or even some clarity, in the wake of Sony's report.

Bungie has been on thin ice for a while, and with Sony very publicly quantifying its underperformance, fans of the studio's games fear the chilling depths have finally come. To be clear, the impairment loss means Bungie is now worth $765 million less than it was when Sony bought it, not that $765 million cash was lost through operational costs. But it's still very bad news, as this sort of loss wouldn't be tallied if Bungie's games were doing great.

Destiny 2's Edge of Fate expansion pushed many people away from the game with baffling systemic changes, and between Steam player counts and console analyst reports, it's clear that the MMO – Bungie's longtime breadwinner – is in the worst position it's ever been.

On top of that, Marathon finally got out the door – and ended up being really fun, per our Marathon review – only to start hemorrhaging players within a few weeks, evidently failing to maintain long-term appeal. Marathon is rapidly approaching a fork in the road with its first seasonal transition threatening to either turn off more people by wiping their progress or, just maybe, bring new and lapsed players into the fold with exciting changes.

In the wake of this news, Destiny 2 players are doing what they do best: doomposting.

"There's no way this game keeps getting DLC post 2026," reads a rising post on the main Destiny subreddit, which has also seen a falloff in user activity in the past year. A subreddit moderator sums up the discussion in another thread about the Sony news: "If this is the end, it's been an honor playing with you, ladies and gentlemen."

Even users on the more optimistic Destiny 2 subreddit have their heads in their hands: "It doesn't look good," reads today's top post, sharing The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley's aggregation of the Sony report.

With no word from Bungie and all visible numbers in the red, it's hard to dispute pessimism like this. Bungie has faced dire stakes and managed moonshot turnarounds multiple times before, but not as a Sony asset, and this situation really is something else.

What happens to Bungie going forward isn't entirely clear, but a feared shutdown, at least, does not seem imminent. There are many possibilities. Previous reports indicated the studio would face a total Sony takeover if it didn't hit financial targets. It's already been carved up to some extent, and with no turnaround in sight, it seems likely that Bungie's executive leadership will see some real musical chairs. Sony said just last year that Bungie's "independence is getting lighter," and the studio's only facing greater challenges today.

There are also understandable fears that the world-class artists, gunsmiths, audio wizards, and other developers at Bungie could face more cuts of their own, echoing multiple waves of prior layoffs that hit during hard times. And if you haven't heard, times have only gotten harder for the games industry at large.

Sony's live service ambitions, once meant to draw on Bungie's experience in the genre, have largely flamed out, so how PlayStation Studios could theoretically leverage the studio through partial reallocation is also more uncertain. Sony does seem invested in Marathon, but it's still a minor portion of Bungie's portfolio. Likewise, Sony surely wants the Destiny IP it paid for to survive, but in what shape and under what leadership? One thing seems certain: Bungie as we know it will not be allowed to continue on its current trajectory.

Bungie doesn't see Marathon going anywhere: "We know where we want to take the story over the next few years."

Destiny 2's latest expansion hasn't set the world on fire, as the Star Wars-themed update has had the worst launch numbers of any of Bungie's game expansions.

The SteamDB numbers for the Destiny 2: Renegades launch peaked at 71,278, which is the lowest peak in the game's history of expansions, seasons, and episodes. The previous low was with Episode Heresy, which peaked at 77,399, but compared to the other major expansions, it isn't even close: Lightfall reached 316,750, and Shadowkeep was considered low at 214,100.

Alongside the playercounts, Renegades is currently getting a very mixed reception from Destiny 2 players, with one of the top posts on the Destiny 2 subreddit saying, "I can't fathom how Destiny's DLCs are either pretty great like Rise of Iron, Witch Queen, or Renegades, or absolutely atrocious like Lightfall, Shadowkeep, or Edge of Fate."

The user continues, "Now I know it's the first day, and I haven't even finished the campaign yet, but I am having a blast," while praising the new weapons, which are "super fun and not reskins for once," while saying "some bossfights feel innovative for Destiny Standards."

However, the Steam reviews tell a different story. The expansion currently sits at "Mixed" on Steam, with reviews calling it "$10 season disguised as a $30 Campaign".

While another comments on it being a disappointing year for the game alongside Edge of Fate earlier this year, saying, "It's fine with me if Bungie wants to scale down Destiny, that's alright. What isn't alright is charging full price for obviously way less. 80$ for this year of content, 40$ for Edge of Fate & 40$ for Renegades is not okay. These are not 40$ expansions. At least not to me. They are more like 20$ expansions."

Bungie and Star Wars owner hashed out the tone of new Destiny 2 expansion Renegades together, realized it can't "feel like a side quest": "What’s the bad version of this?"