Destiny 2 Beyond Light And So Much More

Yesterday, Bungie went all out and revealed the next two years of content plans for Destiny 2. It was a crazy stream, to which we’ll include a video of as soon as we can get one, but we’ve documented everything for you here anyway just in case you missed it.

To kick things off, there was a short segment about how Bungie made it possible to work on Destiny 2 from home. It sounds like their IT team did a phenomenal job over the course of the last few months, so a big shout out to them for keeping the game live.

The next segment was a somber moment, and one that I am incredibly proud of Bungie for putting in. They made everyone wait for the news about the next season and expansion for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time that a police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck while he cried out for help, that he couldn’t breathe, before finally dying. The video then showed a number of places that you can donate to help the Black Lives Matter cause. Please pay attention to those links, and wait for those 8 minutes and 46 seconds so that you get a real feel for just how brutally George Floyd was treated.

Then the video cuts to Mark Noseworthy and Luke Smith, two big shots of the Destiny 2 development team, discussing what’s coming. Strap in, because this is where it gets crazy.

In a cinematic clip we see Eris Morn and The Drifter on Europa, but we knew this already. However, there is also a Darkness Pyramid gearing up somewhere in space, probably near Jupiter, and the Exo Stranger is riding her Sparrow. The Exo Stranger arrives as Eris and The Drifter are having some sort of standoff, showing them a Pyramid in the ice of Europa itself.

This is the next expansion for Destiny 2, and it’s called Beyond Light. The expansion will launch on the 22nd of September 2020, and it’s available for pre-order right now.

Beyond Light is a brand new era in Destiny 2. It takes place on Europa, where a Pyramid ship is activating, and it’s where the Exo Stranger was born. The enemy we’re fighting is Eremis, a leader weilding a brand new sort of power forged from an ancient darkness. Eremis is seeking revenge against the Traveler for scattering her people’s once great houses, which sounds very Fallen to me.

We then get some actual gameplay for the new expansion, and it’s pretty great. I want to point out here that the Exo Stranger says that where she’s from, Darkness won. That’s quite a statement, and suggests that our system is close to losing.

This expansion is bringing some new technologically advanced Fallen enemies to Europa. These guys are another level on top of the SIVA Fallen of Rise of Iron, and they look incredible.

Another thing the trailer points to is us being able to wield the Darkness itself, something long speculated over by Guardians. This power is actually called Stasis, and it will fundamentally change how our Guardians work. It adds new subclasses and everything that comes with those, as well as a brand new damage type across all areas of the game, including weapons.

Next, Luke and Mark move onto the rest of the new era of Destiny 2, the following two expansions. After this year’s Beyond Light will come The Witch Queen in 2021, and Lightfall in 2022. This is the era of Darkness, and it’s going to be crazy, mainly because each big expansion has a brand new location with it.

The next think that is discussed is seasons, and thankfully they’re being reworked to remove all of the FOMO aspects that are currently in them. I’ve found this year’s seasons so hard to get into and stay with, so I’m glad that they’re being reworked.

Next is next-gen support. It is confirmed that on PS5 and Xbox Series X, Destiny 2 will run at 60 FPS and 4K resolution where you have the monitors. All currently owned content will also transfer to next-gen consoles, so don’t worry about upgrading all of your purchases, it’s going to happen anyway.

The biggest bonus that I think is coming with next-gen consoles is intergenerational crossplay. This means you can play between Xbox generations and PlayStation generations, which is one step closer to total crossplay.

Now comes the ultimate crunch news. Destiny 2 is hitting close to 115GB, which is just too big to patch. With each new expansion, older legacy content will now be put into the Destiny Content Vault. This allows more stuff to be added to the game, without the need for a Destiny 3 release. The idea behind the vault is to also allow Bungie to rework the content that’s in there so that it can eventually come back out as something everyone can enjoy again.

Luke Smith then casually drops in that the Cosmodrome from Destiny 1 will return as a location you can visit, with all three Strikes and the content that was there before! This is huge, and I can’t wait to try it out. He also mentions that the OG raid, Vault of Glass will return later this year as well.

Season Of Arrivals

This is it! The new season is then just dropped on us, and it begins today. Check out the trailer below.

As you can see, this is all about the Darkness Pyramids arriving on the locations we have in Destiny 2 already. This season is a prelude to Beyond Light, and it has everything that you’d expect, including a brand new dungeon, called Prophecy. The dungeon involved The Nine, but that’s all we know right now.

That’s all there was to the stream. This is a very exciting time for Destiny 2 I think you’ll all agree. We’ll be diving deeper into the coming content over the next few weeks.

Let us know what you think of the upcoming content, and Season of Arrivals, in the comments.

Image Source: Daily Star