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[yurinka]

The Game Post has obtained a closed, invite-only survey Bungie sent to select Destiny 2 players earlier this week. The email says it is a one-time survey per account and offers 500 Silver in-game reward within four weeks of completion as a thank you.
Inside that survey, Bungie asks a long list of "potential features to be added to Destiny 2" and asks players to rank them. Some of the options are small quality-of-life ideas. Others would fundamentally change how Destiny 2 works. Let's break down what Bungie is asking about.


New abilities, power prestiging, and Portal changes

Question: "Please rank the following potential features to be added to Destiny 2 in terms of their potential to improve your enjoyment of the game."

Players are then given five options to sort:

• New Stasis & Strand abilities
• Gear Tier Enhancement, i.e., the ability to upgrade the tier of a weapon
• New, simplified Portal scoring system
• New Void melee abilities
• Power Prestiging (Ability to reset power to 10)

Fans have been asking for new Strand and Stasis abilities for years, so it's clear why Bungie wants to know if players still want new subclass options. The "Power Prestiging" option is especially interesting. After players already had their Power reset to 10 with Edge of Fate, and after months of complaints about how seasonal Power and Portal grinds feel, Bungie is still at least considering an opt-in reset that could come with extra rewards or prestige visuals.


Sparrow Racing League, new PvP and Gambit modes, and Raid Nights

Another question focuses on raids, dungeons, events, and core playlists. The exact wording is similar to the first ranking question, asking players to order a list of potential features. The options are:

• A Sparrow Racing League event or playlist
• Raid Night: A day of the week where players can play the featured Raid for extra rewards
• A New Gambit mode or Gambit event
• New difficulty tiers to legacy Raids & Dungeons
• Raid Rotator: Legacy Raids that are included in the weekly Raid rotation that offer special rewards and unique challenges
• Added old campaigns and other activities to the Portal
• Rotating Portal activities each week
• Daily / Weekly Competitive PvE Event
• New PvP Modes (e.g., Combined Arms)

This is basically a wish list for long-term endgame and ritual content. A legacy raid rotator with unique rewards, featured raids for "raid nights" with extra rewards. Adding old campaigns and activities into the Portal would help fill the current gaps in replayable story content.

Then you get to the real nostalgia bait. A "Sparrow Racing League event or playlist" is explicitly mentioned, alongside completely new PvP modes and updates to Gambit, either as a full mode or a time-limited event. Bungie is clearly trying to measure how much appetite there is for a proper playlist return of SRL and for finally doing something meaningful with Gambit after years of neglect.


Clan upgrades, trophy room, unvaulted campaigns, and NPC sidekicks

One of the biggest blocks in the survey is another ranking list for potential features to be added to Destiny 2. The options are:

• Unvaulted expansion campaigns such as Red War and Forsaken
• New Clan Upgrade & Progression system
• An in-game Trophy Room
• NPC Sidekicks to equip and fight alongside your guardian
• More replayable, story-rich side quests for NPCs
• More random encounters with other players while adventuring
• New Vault with increased space
• New Onboarding Experience (for new and returning players)
• An in-game Destiny 2 Information Glossary
• An in-game Destiny 2 Tutorial Library

Taken together, this reads like Bungie stress-testing a much more social and approachable version of Destiny 2. A clan upgrade and progression system would finally give clans something real to work toward. An in-game trophy room could let players show off seals, maybe an exotic weapon collection, and more.

There are also clear quality of life pitches. A new Vault with more space is on the list, even though Bungie has already confirmed more Vault space in Renegades. Then there is the nuclear option: unvaulting entire expansion campaigns, with "Red War and Forsaken" mentioned by name, plus NPC sidekicks you can equip and bring into fights. That last idea would be a huge shift in terms of how the game plays right now.


Bungie directly compares Destiny 2 and Destiny: Rising

Two questions in the survey pull Destiny: Rising into the picture, the mobile game developed by NetEase Games. One open-ended question asks:

"What does Destiny: Rising do better than Destiny 2, in your opinion? If you don't know enough to answer, please enter 'N/A.'"

Another follows up with:

"What features from Destiny: Rising, if any, would you be interested in seeing added to Destiny 2? If you don't know enough to answer, please enter 'N/A.'"

So Bungie is not only checking how players feel about Destiny 2 in isolation. The studio is openly asking which parts of Destiny: Rising feel stronger and what systems should be imported into the main game. Speaking of content vaulting, just days ago, Bungie fully settled a year-long copyright lawsuit with writer Matthew Kelsey Martineau, who claimed that the Red War and Curse of Osiris stories and related material copied his 2013 and 2014 work.

Because Red War has been vaulted for years, Bungie had to rely on fan videos and wiki pages instead of pulling its own campaign data to make its case, which did not exactly help in court. Bungie is also expected to release a full multi-year roadmap for Destiny 2 next year, so these survey responses may be early indicators of what we'll see in the coming seasons.

https://thegamepost.com/destiny-2-adding-sparrow-racing-unvaulted-campaigns-npc-gambit-survey/

 

[Arsic]

Is it destiny 3? No? Don't care.

 

[yurinka]

Is it destiny 3? No? Don't care.

No, it isn't Destiny 3 and isn't for you.

It's a Destiny 2 survey for the players who care about it.

 

[ZehDon]

I think continuing to heavily invest in Destiny 2 isn't a smart move at this point. Between their bad design and monetisation practices, they're down to ~18k players a day on Steam. Fix up the New Player Experience, cement the progression paths, and begin to sunset support - it's time to move on.

 

[struggler_guts]

Hold on didn't bungie make a big deal about how impossible it was to bring the red war back? Lmao

 

[Arsic]

No, it isn't Destiny 3 and isn't for you.

It's a Destiny 2 survey for the players who care about it.

 

[Shubh_C63]

Bungie always seems to know what fans are asking for, their internal forums are very very active with fans moaning and providing suggestions.

It's actually about bungie always thinking they know better what is good and what they can get away with. While admitting, for 2 years now that "they missed the mark" on the eventual player response.

I hope Sony really is looking at this IP from scratch. I still think no way Destiny 3 gets greenlit for another decade.

 

[Loomy]

SRL was one of the biggest most fun activities at the end of Destiny 1. What did Bungie do? Completely ignore it.

 

[BennyBlanco]

 

[Loomy]

I think continuing to heavily invest in Destiny 2 isn't a smart move at this point. Between their bad design and monetisation practices, they're down to ~18k players a day on Steam. Fix up the New Player Experience, cement the progression paths, and begin to sunset support - it's time to move on.

Unless Marathon hits, they don't really have a choice.

 

[Saber]

No, it isn't Destiny 3 and isn't for you.

Probably isn't for most either since most of them don't care. Why the need to be overly defensive with this rest of craps nobody gives a damn, I got no idea. Would be better to Bungie to move on.

 

[Donald mac Ronald]

Game needs rebuilding from scratch with destiny 3, especially with that map editor they use.

 

[willothedog]

It's a Destiny 2 survey for the players who care about it.

Why bother with a survey? Just get those ten people together on a zoom call.

 

[SnapShot]

TL;DR it was a survey they sent out to players

Most of it means nothing, they're just seeing what people want in the game most

 

[Hawkeye2890]

These motherfuckers are never going to move on to destiny 3, are they?

 

[yurinka]

I think continuing to heavily invest in Destiny 2 isn't a smart move at this point. Between their bad design and monetisation practices, they're down to ~18k players a day on Steam. Fix up the New Player Experience, cement the progression paths, and begin to sunset support - it's time to move on.

I think the best option would be to prepare for the PS6 launch:

• Upgrade Destiny 2 to a state of the art next gen engine
• Implement all the stuff they mention there, including unvaulting everything from Destiny 1 and 2 remastered and add a system to upgrade and evolve outdated old weapons and stuff
• Rename it to Destiny 3

P.S.: a 18K CCU daily peak doesn't mean 18K users a day. Means that the moment of the day that they had more players connected at the same time during that day had that amount. There are many players more connected in other moments of the day not included in these 18K.

And well, who knows. Maybe they want to take note but not really for what to add to Destiny 2, but instead in what to focus on for Destiny 3.

Why bother with a survey? Just get those ten people together on a zoom call.

I don't think this stupid post deserves to waste time on it. But a 18K CCU means they pretty likely have 50-100K users playing every day on Steam, and adding the ones in console pretty likely 200-300K. And pretty likely 1-2M per month.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

How about some PS5 Pro enhancements Bungie/Sony?

 

[Kerotan]

Is it destiny 3? No? Don't care.

They concluded the D3 storyline. The latest expansion is the beginning of Destiny 4.

 

[Coconutt]

The idea of a 10 year game never made since to me as a customer. Makes ton of sense for the ones making the game they save a ton on not having to innovate with a sequel every couple of years but as a customer I want improved engines capable of making large worlds, dont want to have to worry about content being taken away.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Pull the damn plug on that shitfest.

 

[PonyStation4]

I think continuing to heavily invest in Destiny 2 isn't a smart move at this point. Between their bad design and monetisation practices, they're down to ~18k players a day on Steam. Fix up the New Player Experience, cement the progression paths, and begin to sunset support - it's time to move on.

They're at 250k players over all systems right now. A couple months ago it was 500k. It's dropping due to decisions and age of the game, but it's still popular.

 

[Warnen]

Yay more old shit….

 

[ZehDon]

I think the best option would be to prepare for the PS6 launch:

• Upgrade Destiny 2 to a state of the art next gen engine
• Implement all the stuff they mention there, including unvaulting everything from Destiny 1 and 2 remastered and add a system to upgrade and evolve outdated old weapons and stuff
• Rename it to Destiny 3...

So, Bungie should spend a couple hundred million dollars at a minimum to create Destiny 3? I doubt Sony would allow them to given their player numbers are shrinking pretty steadily and their next game already has a negative narrative and it hasn't even released yet.

They're at 250k players over all systems right now. A couple months ago it was 500k. It's dropping due to decisions and age of the game, but it's still popular.

For a company the size of Bungie, with financial obligations to their owners Sony, 250k players won't keep the lights on.

 

[Bernkastel]

Destiny 1 was good. Bungie can't make a good game since then. All their OG writers left.