Destinyhas all but concluded its 10-year promise withDestiny 2’sThe Final Shape, and since then, the franchise hasn’t exactly had an obvious goal in mind for the future during its epilogue stages. Bungie has talked about a new DLC, codenamed Frontiers, but most of the information sounds like preproduction work rather than anything that should be taken concretely.
Many in the community are hoping forDestiny 3, a complete refresh, wiping the slate clean, and offering with it a new sandbox to explore, along with completely new assets, areas, and stories. While no such thing has been alluded to by Bungie as of writing, it’s a good time to discuss what systems and mechanics the franchise should leave behind if it were to have a third installment.
6The Seasonal Model
Too Formulaic, With a Grip on Players from the Fear of Missing Out
The Seasonal Model needs no explanation for those that regularly playDestiny, and has come under a lot of scrutiny within the community already, and this is because they’re very formulaic. Each Season comes with a battlepass (which is embedded with gameplay-changing items including guns and endgame materials), the Seasonal story which changes every week, andan exotic missionthat unlocks another unique weapon.
This has been the formula foryearsnow, and despite rebranding to Episodes, the system has remained the same. The issue isn’t inherently the cadence or pricing of the structure, but rather that it’s incredibly static. When each week is planned out there isn’t much room for surprises, and when each week has to mirror another from the last season, innovation is all but abandoned to verify there are no interruptions to their strict cadence. That last adjective was really the key to why the model is harmful toDestiny; Seasonsconstrictwhat the game offers instead of allowing it room to innovate.
5Character Specific Progression
For an Alt-Friendly Future
The wayDestiny 2currently operates, there is character-specific progression and account-wide progression. Some character-specific progression makes sense, for example, gearing. A Titan cannot wear Warlock armor, so it makes sense that each of these classes only progresses in this sense when they’re in use. But many other forms of progression are locked behind specific characters.
Exotic quest steps, Subclass upgrades, and campaign progress are all dependent on different characters but don’t changeat allbetween different characters. There was one class-specific mission in 2015 withThe Taken King, but that has never been repeated. And without much change between playthroughs, it makes no sense to have to replay the same game three times just to be able to use a couple of new abilities. This may hurt Bungie’s bottom line, however, as they do allow players to pay $20 (USD) to skip the campaign on a character.
4Escape Sequences
A Played Out and Fairly Frequent Gimmick
This may be a bit of a nitpick, but there’s a tired piece of game design within Bungie that has existed from theHalodays and has somehow not left. Everybody that’splayed theHalogamesremembers the genuine tension riding the Warthog out of an exploding Pillar of Autumn in the first game, and how the third brought it back for its conclusion of the trilogy.
What people tend not to remember aboutDestiny,however, is how it did this more than three times in the span of 9 years. Thefirst time it appearedinThe Taken King, it was a little interesting; tricking players into thinking the mission was over by displaying the mission completed text, only for it to be interrupted with immediate danger. ButDestiny 2features it multiple times across its expansions, and they feel a tad awkward and easy that it is genuinely baffling why Bungie has continued to return to this gimmick of a gameplay sequence.
3Dungeon Keys
Confusing Monetization That Prevents Everyone From Enjoying the Best Content
The function of the dungeon key, simply, is to obfuscate the value of Bungie’s offerings. Previously, Dungeons were included in their respective expansions, likein most other MMOs, and were available to those who owned the current content update. Now, however, Dungeons are locked behind Dungeon Keys, a micro-transaction requirement for all players, even those who bought the latest expansion.
While the description makes it sound like a Mythic Key fromWorld of Warcraft, this is simply a $20 transaction that unlocks the dungeons released in a given year. Aside from the fact that this quarters off content that would normally be included in the expansion for an additional price, it makes the overall buyer experience incredibly confusing. What used to be a single transaction has turned into four: the expansion, Seasonal Battlepasses, Event Passes, and now Dungeon Keys, to get the full experience every year, and it’s a shame, as dungeons are easily one of Bungie’s strongest talents.
2Content Sunsetting
Destiny 3 Needs Reliability and Not Content Erasure
This would be the hardest task for aDestiny 3and would have to be a planned feature that the game is built around, not the other way around. In addition, future content updates would have to be both categorical; for easy grouping and rearranging, without being too similar. To elaborate more on this point, sunsetting content removes what players initially paid for, andveterans and newbies alikecan’t experience what came before.
Destiny 3needs to have the result of pools of evergreen content that get deeper as time goes on, to allow further experimentation on behalf of the devs to rearrange and tweak as time goes on instead of throwing it out only to make identical content a couple of years later. This would, however, forcenew content to be more innovativeor risk being considered redundant, though this is a much-requested feature already from the community.
1Gear Score Requirements
Holding Fun Hostage by Chasing a Higher Power Number
This would be another extreme change for aDestiny 3, as it would essentially force Bungie to change how they approach progression, either birthing a new system or revamping another. The good thing about gear score requirements is that they preventnewDestinyplayers (blueberries)from biting off more than they can chew, heading into content designed for players with better gear and game knowledge. The bad thing about gear score requirements is that they force what a given player can play regardless of gear and skill. Experienced and geared players who leave for a year can most definitely handle the game’s hardest activities upon return, most of which will not have changed since they last saw them, butDestinyis built so that this is impossible.
A new year means new Gear Score ratings, meaning a new grind where players must imbue their gear withhigher power levelsto do activities that were open to them the year prior. It’s an arbitrary system designed to force players to play content they don’t like for the promise of being able to play the content they do like later. It’s purposely restrictive, and for those that only enjoy the higher-end contentDestinyoffers, it can be incredibly dissuading; locking players out of content they purchased and previously played, only returning it back to them once they’ve given Bungie enough engagement in return.
