Summary
Destiny 2reached incredible heights with The Witch Queen expansion, at times also following up with great seasons, all building hype for the release of Lightfall and the end of the Light and Dark saga in The Final Shape. However, Lightfall was not what players expected in many ways, and one of the biggest issues with the expansion was that it not only failed to provide answers to the many questions players had, but it also posed even more questions. This eventually led to some players not being as excited about new releases, andDestiny 2’s Season 22 Raidcould repeat this pattern.
While Season of the Deep was and still is providing players with plenty of answers and good lore bits about the overarching story, recent statistics show that the player count has not been great forDestiny 2since Lightfall’s release. This is not ideal for any live-service game out there, and in the case ofDestiny 2, it seems to stem from a general sense of frustration with the title’s unresolved issues and the fact that Lightfall added more. As such, the Season 22 reprised Raid contending its release date with this year’s most highly-anticipated game doesn’t bode well for Bungie.
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Destiny 2’s Raid’s Conflicting Schedule With Starfield’s Early Access
Bungie’s tradition of adding a new Raid per year alongside the main expansion and then reprising an older one a few months later still stands, butSeason 22’s reprisedDestiny 2Raidalready potentially faces a big issue. This is because there are only twoDestinyRaids left that Bungie has yet to port, but Crota’s End is Dungeon-length at best, and Wrath of the Machine’s signature Exotic is already in the game and the studio stated it has no interest in bringing SIVA back.
Thus, remaking the assets for Wrath of the Machine from scratch could be a problem because Bungie wouldn’t really be able to reuse them further down the line, whereas reprising Crota’s End could be disappointing because of how short the original was. The solution would be to reprise one ofDestiny 2’s vaulted Raids, like the Leviathan, but that too could prove a hassle because it could make some players upset given the monetization of it. On top of that, Bungie is keeping the Raid’s identity a secret, which could very well backfire due to its shared release date with another sci-fi game.
In fact, the Season 22 Raid is launching on September 1, which is the same day asStarfield’s early access. This alone could have serious consequences forDestiny 2’s player count given its nature as a live-service game that one can theoretically go back to whenever, but added to the storm that’s brewing within the community it could be even worse. NewDestiny 2Raids are typically a massive event for the game because of the associated World First race that sees top players and their teams compete against time to finish the activity before anyone else, but this time around participants and viewership could be lower than usual.
WithStarfield’s early access launch happening the same day as the Raid’s release, it’s likely that a lot of potentialDestiny 2players will jump ship and check out Bethesda’s new RPG first, whereas those who don’t have access to it yet might check it out on streaming platforms instead of watching the Raid race. Given thatStarfieldformally releases on September 6, there wasn’t really a great moment for Bungie to launch its new Raid, especially considering that they typically come the same weekend of a new season. Still, this choice could have big repercussions onDestiny 2, as inevitable as it seems.
Destiny 2is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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