Bungie took a little time Thursday to expand on the Annual Pass content coming following the release of Destiny 2: Forsaken, announced earlier this week. PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC players have been excited about the promise of the expansion’s release in September, while still voicing concern over the post-launch content and monetization plan. The studio fleshed out what fans should and should not expect while balancing precariously on the head of a pin.
The main issue Destiny 2 players have with Forsaken is not the plethora of content and updates coming to the game, but rather Bungie and Activision’s approach to selling it and the Annual Pass. The major expansion costs $40 and will require players to own not just the base Destiny 2 game, but the Curse of Osiris and Warmind expansion as well.
This is the same approach Bungie took with the original Destiny and the Taken King expansion. It offered a $60 version that contained all the content through Taken King for those who did not already own it while the Season Pass was frequently available at a discount for those who owned the base game. This will likely be the same approach taken for Forsaken, though additional packages will be announced later this summer.
The Destiny 2: Forsaken Annual Pass is a completely different beast, however. Bungie is taking the focus off story content and pushing toward more frequent smaller DLC releases with a focus on end-game content. The plan is to release Black Armory in winter, 2018, Joker’s Wild in spring, 2019, and Penumbra in summer, 2019, with each coming with the following:
- More Pinnacle Activities
- More Weapons and Armor
- New and returning Exotics
- More Endgame Challenges
- More Raid Lairs
- Unique vanity rewards
- More Triumphs to collect
- More Lore to discover
That is in addition to new Crucible maps and modes, special events, activities, and more that will be available to everyone. This means Destiny 2 players should not expect these future DLC releases to look anything like Warmind and Curse of Osiris. There will be no new destinations or cinematic story content in any of the three Annual Pass content releases.
Destiny 2 players might consider this a good thing, however. Curse of Osiris was blasted for its dearth of content, disappointing destination, and a lackluster story of a major lore figure. Warmind was a vast improvement, but was still knocked for its use of Strikes to fill out story missions.
Given the amount of time and resources required to develop new destinations and story content, it is not terribly surprising to see Bungie take the risk to abandon those in order to try and deliver an extra content release through the next year with a greater focus on the Destiny 2 endgame.
Potentially three Raid Lairs is a huge draw for endgame players along with “more endgame challenges” if they are to the level of quality of Escalation Protocol. The question is what Bungie means by “more Pinnacle Activities.”
It is possible these could be Strike-like activities since that staple activity of Destiny is not mentioned at all by Bungie. The new Dreaming City destination will likely serve as the home for the Pinnacle activities and other content, as Bungie mentioned in the Forsaken doc video, as reported previously by the Inquisitr, the location would change and evolve over time. The Annual Pass content releases should be what drives this evolution of the destination. However, Destiny 2 fans who are running low on goodwill toward the game since release will want to hear more before spending money on the Annual Pass.