Year One’ As Its Own Standalone Game

Well, I have a ridiculous idea, but it feels kind of appropriate given the ridiculous situation we’re in in Destiny 2.

In order to set up the stage, “Destiny 2″ spent nearly two years”Content storage” or “canceling” some of its oldest content. The ones that have been cut so far are:

• Destiny 2’s Vanilla Red War Story Campaign (and Planet Titan and Io)
• Curse of Osiris DLC (and its planet Mercury)
• Warmind DLC (and its planet, Mars)
• The Forgotten Expansion Story (and one of its regions, The Tangled Shore).
• Previously free seasonal content, Forge Seasons, Drifters and Abundance

Of course, all the other seasonal stuff since Shadowkeep, but I have to draw a line somewhere, that’s all. My thinking is that Bungie should package everything I just mentioned and release it as Destiny 2: Year One, disconnected from the current “live” version of Destiny 2.

My advice here is to try to keep things simple and this will be a standalone product. New characters, nothing has carried over to the current Destiny 2 Live Edition. So why? Why do this?

Several reasons:

• I fundamentally think that if you pay for content, you shouldn’t see that content removed and unplayable. I know the technical reasons why Destiny 2’s content library exists, but I still think it’s a bad practice. Bungie agrees that’s not ideal, and says they won’t stop expanding from now on, but that doesn’t bring back what’s gone. And there’s no indication it’ll return in any way, except temporarily, like Haunted Leviathan (which itself will re-sunset when the seasonal content fades away after this year). Everything here, including the ephemeral Forsaken, is free until it’s vaulted.you Can Release it for free in this standalone format as a way to bring players into the Destiny universe, or charge new players a small fee. But players who have previously purchased the original game or Forsaken can get it for free either way. It’s essentially returning something they’ve already purchased.
• Second, I think a clear, start-to-finish campaign with mostly Red Wars, two DLC and Forsaken as an introduction to Destiny 2’s “live” saga of light and dark would help the series as a whole because it actually The only way to catch up on Destiny 2’s original storyline right now is through YouTube videos, which is a ridiculous situation.
• Third, some of Destiny 2’s best content is here and shouldn’t be banished to the corridors of time. This will mark the return of all-time great quests like Whispers and Zero Hour (I hope one day Presage can return to living Destiny 2 itself). Bungie put a lot of work into all this content, and it should be there and playable…somewhere. And it seems clear that most of them will never return to live games.
• Finally, as a standalone optional game, this at least addresses one of Bungie’s concerns about Destiny 2 taking up too much hard drive space. I know some people recommend installing or uninstalling toggles for certain parts of the game at any given time, but even though that’s fine in theory, in practice I’m worried it’s going to be too complicated and most of Bungie’s initial content overload issues will stay down.

Of course, this is an idea full of complexities. Is there enough population to maintain things like old strike playlists, zoos and forge or old raids? Or what’s the “meaning” of grinding out gear when an indie game like this has a fixed end point?

However, I just can’t get rid of this feeling:

• Players who purchased this content should retain access to it.
• New players will benefit from this old content, whether it’s the story or the gameplay.
• Bungie’s hard work on all of this content deserves to be continued in some form, not wiped from existence.

So that’s why I came up with the idea.

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