With “Edge of Fate” teased from Bungie in a recent post, a lot of new excitement and worry mix into a serious conversation about live service and endings.
Right off the back of “Marathon” announcements this last Saturday, Bungie decided to break the silence on their latest updates for “Destiny 2.” Previously named “Apollo” and “Codename: Frontiers” for almost a year now, the newest main expansion has been named “Edge of Fate” and slated for a May 6th reveal date with a similar trailer. As news, it barely constitutes a lot of discussion by itself considering the sole image that was given to us. It does give us some knowledge on The Nine being involved as well as a lot of information revealed in subtext, such as the black hole behind the logo. This, however, is a pivotal moment within Destiny 2 as a live service game that leaves fans and critics alike having to grapple with the nature of how it functions to live.
Primarily is the “ending” of Destiny 2, especially with the release of “The Final Shape” back in 2024 that had players entering the Traveler and facing off against their most powerful foe: The Witness. It was a climactic ending to the Light and Darkness saga as noted by Bungie, wrapping up a number of storylines and bringing finality to a lot of threads we’ve been following. It was this ending, with a very satisfying resulting closure, that became a gaping hole in the franchise. Without The Witness and its universe-wide plan to end life as we know it, the stakes that had been raised since the first pyramid ships were discovered back in the post-credit scenes of The Red War in 2017 were finally lowered. A lot of players, including myself, were left asking, “What’s next?”
I’ve taken quite a break from the game, having played more than my fill during Episode: Echoes back in summer and slowing down during Episode: Revenant and finally taking a full backseat during Episode: Heresy this recent couple of months. A part of it was that feeling of lower stakes, especially considering how high the emotions have been running since the start of my playtime. I enjoy the game and a lot of the energy behind it, but there was a sort of freedom that came from that lower energy that made me feel free to put the game down and return to later. I’m certain that I’ll be running through more of the game as we approach the next campaign and raid, but I bet that other players may have reservations still.
In the research I was doing for this article I ended up watching a video on the announcement from YouTuber “My name is Byf” for a while in which his expertise on lore and understanding of the world has given him a rather unique perspective. With Bungie attempting to bring in new and returning players by creating a new starting point for the next story of Destiny 2, Byf notes how the story of The Nine will be complex and full of lore in a way that may turn new players away. While he holds an optimistic view on Bungie’s ability to pull it off, I think his understanding of how players must interact with a story through questions that are still unanswered is a key to live service survival that also creates a strange concept of “endings.”
For a game like Destiny 2, its design is almost a never ending one—games like Runescape and World of Warcraft also follow similar models that require the world to continue expanding and allow for these questions to continue driving players forwards. A feeling of that is clear within the recent ending in The Final Shape and how, with many questions now answered, player counts dropped off quite a bit with less questions pushing us forwards. Inviting this expansion’s likely connection to The Nine, one of our most mysterious forces within the universe, to bring up these questions can allow for a new jumping point into the series with some requirements for the story to bring people up to speed with the background lore that’s been teased so far. This is one of the best ways for a live service to continue—exploring more questions and providing answers in a way that can still set up for future questions that allows this cycle to exist perpetually.
It was this same concept that had me deep in thought about The Final Shape and my relationship with the game, something that others likely had similar to me. With such an ending that freed us from a lot of commitment and stories we’d been following for almost 7 years, this might have been the best stopping point for people who wanted to leave content. As we move into later years of Destiny 2, a true ending is far from sight and will likely never come until an End of Service announcement that could appear suddenly after low profits causes the developers to pack their bags and move on. With the cycle of unending questions, there may never be a place as final as The Final Shape. This is the curse—and in ways the beauty—of a live service game. A neverending story that, even when it dies, will likely never be complete.
It’s with that thought that I slowly await with bated breath for the announcement in May. With a suspense of disbelief, I and many others will have to choose whether The Final Shape was our last stop as Guardians or if we’ll be pushing on into the Edge of Fate and beyond. We may never get another chance to truly say goodbye on our own terms, and that relationship and trust with a game that we’ve sunk thousands of hours and hundreds of dollars into is one that I don’t think we should take lightly as “just a game.” The investment with live service media feels incredibly powerful with how much we give to ongoing games and shows, leaving us vulnerable to heartbreak in a way that only grows as time progresses. It’s a question that any of my Destiny 2 friends are familiar with as we wait for the next reveal trailer and expansion:
“Can they pull it off?”
We’ll have to wait and see.