Bungie Confirms Destiny 2 Will Feature A New Start With Majority Of Character Data Staying Put

In an update posted to the official Destiny website, Bungie gives us a preview of the game’s final major content update, and also informs us about some caveats to expect when Destiny 2 drops later this year.

First and foremost, Destiny fans have been anxious for many months to learn about the final major content update for the game, and we now know that it will release either later this month or early next, and that it’ll called Age of Triumph. What we can glean from some of the teaser shots so far is that old raids – or at least Vault of Glass – are going to be brought forward.

Further, the below teaser shot shows a raid icon alongside the usual daily/weekly missions, which leads pretty much everyone to believe that special loot can be acquired on the first raid completion each week.

Unfortunately, with the great news of an update comes some bad news for those who hoped their Destiny adventure would carry over to the new game:

Sequels represent the start of a new adventure for every player, with new worlds to explore, new stories to tell, new powers to acquire, new loot to earn, and much more. This led us to a decision that would enable us to serve both the game and the player’s best interests: Destiny 1 power, possessions, and Eververse-related items and currency will not carry forward. They will, however, remain accessible to you in Destiny 1.

Essentially, nothing of importance will be carried through to the next game. For most fans, appearances being carried over isn’t exciting, as many have wanted the ability to change their character’s appearance for a while – and when you wear a helmet all of the time, your face doesn’t matter. What people actually wanted to keep were their Eververse purchases (which could involve real money transactions), and the collections people have worked hard to complete. Those can include equipment, color shaders, emblems, and so forth.

While Bungie promises that veterans will be honored in Destiny 2, the fact that so little carries over really dampers the promise of Destiny being a “10 year game”. That promise in effect meant so little. Does DICE call Battlefield a “20 year game” just because it releases a new iteration every couple of years?

As someone who’s put hundreds of hours into Destiny, I admit I am not too stoked about this news. In some cases, I feel like I’ve put too much time into the game, so knowing that absolutely nothing of importance will get carried through to the sequel makes me question whether I want to even continue the adventure.

I’m very much used to the MMO way of things, where a single character can be used throughout the entire series’ life. In Asheron’s Call, I used the same character for 15 years. In 2017, I could visit the same exact areas I could visit in 2002. That’s not a luxury that will be available in Destiny. I simply don’t think Bungie was wise to call Destiny a 10 year game from the get-go, because I consider it to be misleading when we’re talking about online games.

Nonetheless, there is still more cool Destiny content en route to lead us to the sequel’s release, but the question at this point is: knowing that nothing can be saved, are fans going to care?