This includes unvaulting major content.
Screenshot from the vaulted Red War campaign for Destiny 2 showing two of the game's main villains.

Destiny 2 died months ago. The game's developer, Bungie, suffered mass layoffs shortly after. Despite all of this, Bungie announced today that they are going back to Destiny.

A new studio update from studio head Poria Torkan and head of product Josh Deane says that Bungie is aiming to "return Destiny to its original promise." The studio also plans to make some major changes to the game. First and foremost, this includes the unvaulting of major game content that had met its end when Bungie introduced its highly hated Destiny Content Vault.

A video message from Torkan and Deane focuses on the future of Destiny within Bungie.

As we shared in the video, we are beginning the work of bringing vaulted Destiny 2 campaigns, destinations, and raids back into the game, where they will be available to all Destiny 2 players.

Bringing this content back is not as simple as restoring old files. Changes made to Destiny 2 since Beyond Light require us to update lighting, encounters, combatants, and other underlying systems. That work will take time, but it is necessary to ensure returning content meets the stability and gameplay standards of Destiny 2 today.

Our team is very excited to deliver this for you all and as they progress, we will share more details coming in the months ahead.

This does not mean that Bungie is suddenly about to make Destiny 3. It just means that they are, at the very least, aiming to restore a lot of that vaulted content back into Destiny 2. Beyond that is really anybody's guess. Whatever the case may be, it probably won't be happening anytime soon. It sounds like Bungie is just in the early stages of this plan of theirs.

While Bungie works on restoring old content to Destiny, the team is also working on their extraction shooter, Marathon. Bungie says that the game "needs to evolve." There were no real specifics given on how the studio will accomplish this goal beyond saying that they want to "anchor on what makes Marathon special" while evolving it "beyond the genre constraints we placed on it."

This seems to include a deeper focus on the survival experience, one "that gives players more ways to take on this dangerous alien world."

Through the remainder of Marathon’s first year, we will continue strengthening its combat, world, and competitive tension while giving players more agency in how they engage with the game. That means creating meaningful experiences whether you prefer cooperative PvE, competitive PvP, or the unpredictable tension of Marathon PvPvE.
In the very short term, Marathon will receive an "October Nightfall Refresh" as well as a Symbiosis update in December.

Bungie wrapped up their status update message by talking about how they want to focus "on thinks you want to see from us, and making sure our vision matches our reality." They hope to "find a way back to making games that we want to play, but with you at the center."

For those of you who have been fans of Bungie titles for any amount of time, you know that what Bungie says and what they ultimately do can be vastly different things. Bungie admits that they haven't been particularly good about earning and maintaining player trust over the years, which is honestly quite true.

Trust won't be rebuilt through a single blog, video, or release. We also understand that trust extends beyond gameplay. It includes how we value your time, how we communicate, and how we action your feedback. Listening without action means nothing.

As we move forward, we'll measure ourselves against a few core commitments:
  • Build a stronger long-term future for Destiny, while honoring and restoring its past.
  • Evolve Marathon to grow our community and build a sustainable future.
  • Increase transparency around development priorities.
  • Communicate more consistently, especially when plans change.
We'll hold ourselves accountable to these goals and share what we're learning along the way. We are working with our Community team to establish a consistent way to report against these commitments and will share that approach alongside our next major updates for Destiny and Marathon.
Bungie is certainly talking the talk (again). Let's see if the current iteration of the studio is also able to walk the walk.