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Bungie is apologizing for Destiny 2's poorly received State of the Game update by offering up some free Eververse armor and a new PvP "strike team" with more maps.
For the uninitiated, Destiny 2's sweeping State of the Game blog post arrived earlier this month to an almost universally upset audience, despite some genuinely promising news about several future updates. The update was unequivocally bad news for Gambit which is now all but dead, the PvP mode Crucible which won't be adding any more maps because Bungie can't spare the resources, and even Vanguard and Rituals, but there are some legitimately exciting changes to seasons, the sandbox, and quality of life. Still, the update went down so poorly that Bungie has now issued a formal apology with a few choice peace offerings.
Trying something different, yall have 15 minutes to chat? pic.twitter.com/wzB6xqJPGUAugust 15, 2023
"A few weeks ago we put out a State of the Game communication that wasn't up to our standards for what y'all have come to expect from those kinds of communications," says Destiny 2 game director Joe Blackburn in a video update. "It didn't provide the high level vision that we normally provide, and really and truly a bunch of us were heads down working on Final Shape and weren't able to give it the sort of care and love that we usually put into these kind of communications, and that's nobody's fault but mine."
Blackburn begins by clarifying that the upcoming August showcase dedicated to Destiny 2: The Final Shape - the finale of the MMO's 10-year Light and Darkness saga - was recorded before and thus won't be impacted by feedback from the State of the Game blog. He also said the showcase is intended for a wide audience, "much wider than probably whoever is watching this video," and thus won't have a bunch of nitty gritty details. Though there will be a strange coin and a Xur revamp, along with a refactor of the HUD, in The Final Shape, that stuff won't be discussed in the showcase.
As a show of goodwill, Bungie is offering an Eververse armor set, previously planned as a season 22 drop, as a virtual reward that'll be free for everyone to earn. More substantially, it's also creating a "PvP strike team," which has nothing to do with the co-op strikes and instead will be a development team dedicated exclusively to improving the Crucible experience based entirely on community feedback.
"These strike teams are built from the ground up to look at, 'Hey, what are the pain points that are hitting our community the most," Blackburn says. "So, all of this list [of changes] is gonna be built around, 'Hey, these are the big issues the PvP community is looking at in Destiny."
Any changes Bungie plans will go through Blackburn and then will be shared directly to the community via TWAB updates and on Twitter before they're actually implemented in the game, presumably giving players a chance to share feedback about the updates before they go live. Hopefully that avoids situations like we had with the latest State of the Game where many felt blindsided by changes they felt would negatively impact the game.
Blackburn also briefly explains a broad change to the "philosophy" around new Crucible maps. Instead of the recent focus of adding one new map a year, starting next year there will be a "pack" of new maps that'll be free for everyone, with each new map being specifically structured for a certain mode.
"Imagine new maps coming in one drop where we can make a bunch of new experiences that can all be good at specific things and adds a big variety in a single drop," Blackburn adds.
Here's why our resident Guardian doesn't want another 10 years of this Destiny 2.
