Will Destiny 2's ‘Edge Of Fate' Expansion Actually Attract New Players?

Forbes

5 hours ago

Destiny 2
With no Destiny 3 anywhere on the horizon, Bungie has said that a goal of the upcoming Frontiers era, starting with the Edge of Fate expansion, would be to try to grab new and lapsed players with various forms of 'resets' and a different overall structure.
The question is…will it? I know the immediate, cynical snap judgement answer from jaded community members may be 'no,' but I want to dive at least a little bit deeper than that; the way this may work, is supposed to work, and will work in different areas.
A New Saga – Bungie has officially closed the book on the Light and Darkness saga, the ten-year fight against the Witness with the help of the Traveler. Bungie says this saga began in Shadowkeep, but no, it's been in motion since the literal start of the series in the first game.
Now, I can in fact view this as a truly new start. It's an interesting idea to choose The Nine as a big focus of the coming story, given that if there is one group that has barely been explored in the last ten years, it's The Nine, who dip in and out and sometimes give us PvP modes or sometimes game shows with sparkly horses. It's a lot.
But with The Nine, it's a fresh start, with the idea being that each have different goals and personalities in a way I'd sort of view like a pantheon of Greek gods, more so than the Hive Pantheon, even (there are a lot more, as a start). So I do think that's an interesting starting place, albeit this story is going to feature long-running characters that have anywhere from 5-10 years of history behind them, which new players will not know lest they watch 10 hours of Byf videos.
FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™
Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase
Pinpoint By Linkedin
Guess The Category
Queens By Linkedin
Crown Each Region
Crossclimb By Linkedin
Unlock A Trivia Ladder
Destiny 2
The Portal – Possibly the biggest idea that Bungie has for this new era is the use of a main landing page called The Portal. It will also have the current expansion destination planted on there, in this case, Kepler, moving away from the sometimes-beloved but admittedly confusing solar system director.
The idea behind the Portal is that things are broken up very clearly into Solo, Team, PvP and then 'Hard Team' missions to play as the core activities. Not that you can't play old stuff, but that's the focus.
The Portal feels like a mixed bag. It's activities to jump into fairly easily to earn current gear, but it's going to feel very weird for new players to be playing the Fireteam Ops missions pulled from the last six years with dialogue that's from old storylines they won't know at all. I also think that there will be no real engagement with the new difficulty mod system past the set ones that are in place for matchmade playlists. That system is more geared toward long-term players, but those players may not be amused that these playlists are all literally things they've been playing for years still.
Destiny 2
New Gear System – It's more streamlined, I'll give it that. Tier 1-5 armor and weapons, full stop. Clear benefits to each tier, pretty clear instructions on where to get them in activities, etc. Buildcrafting is still going to be initially opaque, and keep in mind these are players that will be mission dozens and dozens of exotics if they're just coming in now. Getting new legendary gear may not be a problem, but that will.
I do think this system is better than the one we have now in terms of new players taking it on, but it's not as if Destiny has become wholly uncomplicated (good luck knowing exactly what 100 different perks and mods do, and which ones are actually good). Basing the system heavily around 'New Gear' and the new tier system means that old players aren't at some wildly huge advantage in that department.
Lesser Treadmill – It's just going to be less content overall, fewer ongoing seasons to grind and catch up on. The time period for releases is now more or less six full months, with some new additions in the middle. The expansion campaign will be smaller, the new destinations probably will be, the power climb is perhaps a bit less confusing. The idea is that it will be easier to hop in without feeling exceedingly behind.
However – Look, I see the vision for most of this. But there is intention, and there is what happens in practice. I just think it's going to be a difficult sell to tell people now is the time to get into Destiny after ten years and almost eight years after the release of Destiny 2, no matter how things have changed. Destiny 3 would have been a much clearer break point, but I do worry about how attractive the game remains despite whatever changes exist. We may understand them as existing players, but as an outsider, this still may be too complicated. At the same time, Bungie has to retain some level of challenge and complexity to make sure the game is not too dull for the players that they're trying to hang on to, many of whom bailed after The Final Shape.
We'll start to see the patterns here in a week; check back then.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.