In June 2020, Bungie announced that Destiny 2's next expansion, The Witch Queen, would be released during 2021. However, today the studio announced that it has decided to delay the expansion to early 2022 for multiple reasons.

Bungie said that The Witch Queen expansion will be "something we've never attempted before, where characters, arcs, heroes, and villains will persist over multiple future releases. Those future releases will include an unannounced additional expansion following Lightfall, and will also wrap up the light and dark saga that began with the launch of the original Destiny in 2014. In other words, it's going to be pretty big, and Bungie expects Witch Queen to set the table.

"As we developed 'Witch Queen,' we realized that this release needed to be the first step in a pivotal moment for the story of Destiny," explains Assistant Game Director Joe "Jogoloth" Blackburn." Because there is so much that leads up to and depends on what happens in 'Witch Queen,' we wanted to make sure we had enough time to craft this journey the right way, starting with a special first chapter of 'Witch Queen'"

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The studio also wants to focus on properly developing the basics of Destiny 2 so that future goals can be met." This means "upgrading Destiny's approach to weapons and armor to keep the game fresh, refining the vision of PVP, implementing transmog, and adding cross-play.

Naturally, the COVID-19 pandemic also played a role in this decision: with developers continuing to work from home, it is simply not possible to complete the currently scheduled updates and have the Witch Queen expansion ready this year.

"This choice is not made lightly. Believe me, as someone close to the progress of Witch Queen, we are the only ones who want to release it as soon as it is ready," Blackburn wrote. But at the end of the day, we know that we are making this decision for all the right reasons for the upcoming chapters of The Witch Queen and Destiny 2, putting our team first and putting the game on the quality level that we ourselves are aiming for."

Bungie will also do away with weapon sunsets, a process introduced in Season 11 that capped power levels by the season in which a weapon was released; Blackburn said the studio still believes in the principles that drove this decision and that "the execution It's clear that the execution was off the mark."

"We have made the decision that weapons and armor that can currently be infused to maximum power will continue to reach maximum power indefinitely. Beginning with Season 14, we will not set an infusion limit for any weapon or armor that has not yet reached the maximum at the start of Season 13. This means that you will be able to take on the Witch Queen raid with your Trusty, Falling Guillotine, and all of the high-status armor you acquired this year," he wrote.

"While we still strongly believe that 'Destiny' needs a way to shift the meta in the game's most challenging activities, we don't think infusion caps are the right answer. We have taken time this year to research and validate a plan that creates a fresh, balanced ecosystem for the most engaging content and doesn't make rewards feel like they have an expiration date. We've learned a lot this year and don't want to rush into finding the best plan.

That means players can expect more tuning of Destiny 2's "biggest outliers" in both PvP and PvE in the future: "Yes, Felwinters and Warmind Cell," Blackburn noted. While the nerf to the shotgun that has terrorized PvP and the introduction of a mod system that allows you to nuke an entire room with little effort in PvE are not surprising, it will be interesting to see what other nails the balance team decides to hit now that gear is permanent.

The update also confirmed that both Armor Transmog and the resurrected Vault of Glass will be available next season. Further nerfs to several overpowered Stasis abilities were also detailed:

Behemoth Titan:

Revenant Hunter:

Shadebinder Warlock:

General:

Various There are. So there was little time to include the fact that gear shaders will be an unlockable item rather than an expendable one. More details can be found at bungie.net.