Destiny 2 cross save was one of the most exciting features announced at the recent Destiny 2 Shadowkeep event, and all the wording around it suggested players would be able to access their account and its Guardians on multiple platforms whenever they want. However, a recent tweet from Google regarding Destiny 2 Google Stadia cross save suggested it would only be available as a one-time feature. Here's the company's exact wording:
Hi Ed, that's correct. You'll need to purchase Destiny 2 on each gaming platform. Also, please note that it's a one time transfer of your Destiny guardian to Stadia from a different platform.June 11, 2019
It's dangerously easy to read this as: once you transfer your Destiny 2 account to Google Stadia, it's leashed to that platform for good. This clashes with Bungie's messaging around cross save, so people were rightly confused. Fortunately - and this is just speculation on my part, but probably after an angry phone call from Bungie - Google clarified how cross save will work in a new tweet.
Attention all Guardians:Cross Save on Destiny 2 will be fully supported on Stadia and all other platforms. You will choose one account that will share its progression consistently across all other platforms.Thanks @Bungie for making this happen 🙏🏽June 11, 2019
Better still, as part of Bungie's big E3 2019 interview panel, Destiny 2 general manager Mark Noseworthy outlined exactly what you can and can't do via cross save.
"We're still working out the details on a couple things, but with cross save, you're going to pick the set of Guardians on one platform that you're gonna promote," he explained. "These are the ones I put the most time into, these are the ones I care most about, that's got a star above it. That's the [set] you can play on all the platforms. Because of New Light, you can go to any of those three platforms and try out cross save for free. But if you wanna play, say, the story of Shadowkeep on that new platform, you've gotta buy Shadowkeep there."
Noseworthy's explanation makes more sense taken alongside this shot of the work-in-progress cross save menu, which was shown during the Shadowkeep reveal:
There are a few important caveats here. Firstly, you can only save one account's Guardians as your cross save profile. So if you initially played Destiny 2 on PS4 and later started playing on PC, but you're still missing some of the Exotics you got on PS4 or something, you won't be able to transfer just one of your old Guardians. You'll only be able to bring one Destiny 2 profile to other platforms, so use your most up-to-date one. It sounds like you won't be able to change your cross save profile once you assign one either - otherwise Bungie would have a logistical nightmare on their hands - so if you've kept up with multiple platforms, choose wisely.
Secondly, while you'll be able to access all destinations and base activities on all platforms thanks to the Destiny 2 free to play version New Light, you'll have to buy DLCs multiple times in order to access their story content and premier activities on multiple platforms. If you're a PC player but you have friends on PS4 and Xbox One, you can join them in the Crucible for free. But if you want to run the Shadowkeep raid with them, you'll need to buy the DLC again.
Bungie discussed plenty of other things during its E3 interview panel, including the decision to leave Activision, next-gen possibilities, and improvements coming to future seasons.
