Bungie has announced a slight delay to the release of the Destiny 2: Shadowkeep expansion, from September 17 to October 1. Destiny 2: New Light, the rebranded free version of the game that will include all year one missions, activities, and rewards, has also been pushed back to the same date, but the long-awaited Cross Save feature is still slated to arrive this summer, "well ahead of Shadowkeep."
"As we get closer and closer to serving up Shadowkeep and New Light, it has become increasingly clear to us that our releases for this Fall would benefit from a bit more time in the oven," Bungie explained in a blog post. "Being independent means that the future of Destiny 2 is entirely on our team. It also means that we’re agile enough to choose to do what's best for the game and our players, even if it's the hard choice."
Bungie didn't delve into specific reasons for the delay (developers don't tend to in these situations), but said that it "didn't make this decision lightly," and apologized for screwing up any plans people might have made to ditch work in order to dive into the expansion the moment it goes live. It also laid out some other date-related changes coming in the wake of the rescheduling:
- The World First for the new Raid Garden of Salvation will begin on Saturday, October 5. It’s a weekend Raid race and Contest will be active
- We’re extending Moments of Triumph through September 17 – you’ll have three more weeks to complete this year’s challenges and unlock all of the in-game and Bungie rewards
- We’re going to run an additional Iron Banner the week of September 17 as well
- Cross Save will come online later this Summer, so you’ll have time to sort out your Friend Lists well ahead of Shadowkeep
This is probably the biggest Destiny 2 news of the day but Bungie confirmed that the regular This Week at Bungie update will run as usual later today. (Update: And now it has.) Game director Luke Smith also said that he hopes to go more in-depth on what Bungie has learned about Destiny 2 over the past six months—the post-Activision era, basically—and how (and why) it's impacting some of the changes being made in Shadowkeep. Our resident Destiny junkie is predicting a nerf to the Well of Radiance super, but we'll have to wait and see whether Smith decides to spill.
I'm hoping to publish a State of the Game (warning: likely very long, somewhat-to-very nerdy) post next week looking at the last six months of learnings from Destiny 2 and outlining the kind of changes we're making to the game in Shadowkeep and why.August 1, 2019
In the meantime, you can get an early start on the new armor 2.0 system coming in Shadowkeep with our in-depth Destiny 2 Solstice armor upgrade guide, and learn how to get a good gun without actually being good with a gun in our analysis of the unstoppable rise of the "Dad Loadout."
