Mastermind Luke Smith talks Destiny 2’s future: Need to “get the engines running again”

Anyone who has been in Destiny 2 in the past few months knows that Bungie is just about to finish its great saga of light and darkness. But what comes after the dramatic showdown? That’s what Luke Smith, Bungie’s “mastermind,” commented on this week. MeinMMO brings you up to date on what Bungie is planning.

Destiny 2 has now become a live service game with a series character and serves its guardians not only with regular content, but also with a seasonal weekly narrative.

Players return to the loot shooter universe week after week to learn how the ongoing story continues and to empower their Warden in the final battle. A basic concept that Bungie wants to expand on for its IPs in the future.

• The upcoming Lightfall expansion, expected to launch in early 2023, will once again take players a step further in this series-format storytelling.
• And in the last officially announced expansion, The Final Shape, slated for early 2024, Bungie announced that it will bring the saga of light and darkness to “a dramatic conclusion.”

But what happens after “…and beyond”?

Is Destiny 2 officially over after Final Shape?

While Luke Smith hasn’t spoken directly about what comes after, Bungie’s “mastermind” and executive creative director did hint at a future for the Destiny cosmos in a Game Maker’s Notebook podcast with Insomniac Games’ Ted Price.

Luke Smith knows the problems of the Guardians: The first thing that became apparent in the podcast was that the Executive Creative Director is aware of the things that are spoiling the player’s experience in the current version of Destiny 2.

He knows that “right now every player who plays the game feels like what they love could be better.” -2-Free2Play version, and the gaming experience of veterans.

• While the Content Vault is handy for Bungie as a developer for a live service game as massive as Destiny 2, many players hate it because the system regularly swallows up beloved destinations and seasonal activities.
• In addition, Destiny 2’s story is so complex that new players who join via NewLight cannot follow at all. They are thrown into the middle of the story and are slow to understand the universe, which frustrates them.

This “content understanding problem” is omnipresent, especially on reddit and in the community. Far too many new players in the current Destiny 2 have the feeling “that you are late for the party”, Luke Smith describes this problem.

So you have not only been actively looking for contact and feedback from your player community for years, which is really not always easy, but also for solutions for upcoming content.

If you compare the two projects [Destiny 1 und Destiny 2] together, we are in the eighth year [und] a lot has happened in the last eight years. You can’t play everything. So how can we give people [zukünftig] help to catch up?

Luke Smith, Executive Creative Director at Bungie

He absolutely appreciates the work of the veteran players and YouTubers who are currently providing regular story recaps for Destiny 2 newcomers, but also says, looking ahead, “we shouldn’t expect that from our players!”

Here’s how Bungie wants to “get the engines running again”: Player support within DLCs and the game is something that Bungie hasn’t done at all in the past and has only recently focused more on it.

That’s why the developer wants to break new ground after “The Final Shape” so that more players can grasp and understand future game worlds more easily.

I think as we look at this arc that we’re calling the “end of the light versus dark saga” we’re kind of going to get the engines running again and the [Spieler] welcome back. […] we will continue to have to figure out how to do that [Spielern]returning to the universe can pave the way, and what Bungie can do to help.

explained Luke Smith in the podcast

In Destiny 2, Bungie will continue to expand and perfect its special way of telling captivating, profound and also epochal stories in the coming seasons and next expansions.

Currently, the current Season 17 offers more than ever story content that “revolves around a meaningful experience”. The project lead for “Lightfall”, Blake Battle, had already announced this development in early 2022 at the start of Witch Queen. He has since also confirmed that the Lightfall expansion will feature a legendary campaign.

• The new DLC “Lightfall” will offer players the choice between the classic campaign, for casual players, and the legendary campaign, for veterans.
• In addition, one can strongly assume that Bungie will also storywise maintain the direction of its narrative as a “weekly series format”.

Destiny 2 is supposed to merge into “Destiny” as a universe

Luke Smith’s current personal work at Bungie currently has little to do with Destiny 2 directly, as he revealed. There is another leadership team working on the planning and future of the space shooter.

Instead, he and his longtime production partner Mark Noseworthy are currently responsible for expanding the “Destiny” brand. So their mission for the future is “to think about making Destiny a universe that […] endures and will endure beyond a single MMO project.”

There will probably never be a Destiny 3: As Luke Smith explains, they’re “getting to a point where a bunch of people have come to Destiny 2, to Bungie, to work on Destiny going forward.” They’re bringing a breath of fresh air to the company.

He also addresses in the podcast what has become increasingly clear since the introduction of the Content Vault:

I think Destiny 2 is Destiny. The design of Destiny 1 and 2.

Bungie believes in the concept of live service games, which Joe Blackburn, the current game director, is pushing forward with equal determination. And so the content of Destiny 1 and 2 is slowly coming together.

Captivating TV stories like the “Star Wars” universe or “The Witcher” should then continue to unfold in a similar way with the story of Destiny 2 in the future, while Bungie wants to establish its new gaming vision. What exactly is planned here, whether a new IP or a changed Destiny universe, he left open.

On YouTube you can the full interview between Luke Smith and Ted Price by Insomniac Games.

At the end of the interview, Luke Smith also shared a personal vision for the future:

sometimes are […] resources worth it. And sometimes you look [zurück] and thinks, “We couldn’t support that as well as we wanted to.”, like bringing back popular modes from Destiny 1. […] We get up and we just move on, we come back and we move on. We will keep trying to learn and improve. I think it will be a highly competitive environment.

You’ll use a lot of opportunities for projects that people might like. But Luke Smith is also certain that some people will be unhappy if projects or single-player games that weren’t previously live service games become live service games in the future.

I’m not saying nobody should hear that and say, “Luke said, ‘Every single, you know, single player game is going to be a service game. I don’t mean to say that at all. What I’m saying is that there are many ways to create experiences that fans and potential fans will love. And I’m not afraid of a world where there are more service games. I think if anything it will be a challenge for all of them to do better and find a better way. And in a way that maybe that entity always has one.

he carries out his “Luke Smith vision”.

What are your thoughts on Bungie’s plans for the future and future enhancements to the NewLight Free2Play player experience? Do you think a reboot for the Destiny brand and universe is possible? Or will you finally turn your back on the universe after the conclusion of the light and dark saga? Please write your opinion on this in the comments.