Destiny is hiding a teaser for Bungie's new IP

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The question is: where?

Destiny 2 Shadowkeep
(Image credit: Bungie)

A teaser pointing to Bungie's new mystery game is hidden somewhere in Destiny. 

That's according to game director Christopher Barrett, who confirmed that an Easter egg related to the studio's new IP is hidden somewhere in the world of Destiny. His answer, as well as the question he responded to, notably didn't specify Destiny 2, but given the studio's production timeline it seems all but certain that this new IP would've come about during the development or lifetime of Destiny 2. 

In a follow-up tweet, Barrett added a playful "maybe" paired with a very specific emoji: a smiley face carved into the Moon. This led some players to believe that this mystery Easter egg is hidden somewhere on the Moon, which was part of Destiny 1 and later added to Destiny 2 with the release of the Shadowkeep expansion. 

Of course, despite the efforts of the sleuths over at the Raid Secrets community, nobody really knows what we're looking for. It's likely that many players have passed right over this Easter egg while poking through Destiny lore. Even if it did stand out, we wouldn't even know what to look for, so any would-be Easter eggs would likely be seen as a bit of errant flavor text. 

One theory suggests that this tease could be related to the Matter trademark Bungie filed in 2018, but a scan of the Ishtar Collective lore archives doesn't show any unusual Matter listings, or at least none connected to Shadowkeep, which is still our strongest lead. 

This wouldn't be the first time Bungie's hidden a new IP in one of its games. As Barrett pointed out in the tweet that spawned this discussion, Destiny was teased in Halo 3: ODST before the Halo franchise made the jump to 343 Industries, but because nobody outside the studio knew what Destiny was, it went unnoticed at the time. Who knows, maybe we'll be kicking ourselves in a few years for not noticing an equally on-the-nose Easter egg in Destiny 2.

We do at least know that Bungie's working on a new third-person action game. 

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.