Bungie teases what’s ‘beyond’ Destiny 2 amid Destiny 3 speculation

Bungie executive creative director Luke Smith has teased plans for the Destiny franchise beyond Destiny 2.

At the beginning of a live stream this week showing off Destiny 2’s next expansion, The Final Shape, Smith briefly teased plans to reveal the future of the franchise in the coming months.

“Facing The Witness is not the end of Destiny 2, and it’s definitely not the end of Destiny,” he said. “After you face The Witness, we’re going to tell you what’s coming next to Destiny 2 – and beyond. We’ll see you soon.”

Following a delay, The Final Shape is scheduled to launch on June 4. It’s set to complete the Light and Darkness saga, which has been building since the first expansion to the original game.

Bungie has previously said that following the expansion’s release, it plans to replace the game’s current seasonal structure with an episodic one.

During Wednesday’s live stream, Bungie also announced the new Prismatic subclass, which combines the powers of the Light and Darkness for the first time.

The official announcement lined up with a Reddit leak posted in February, when it was claimed that Bungie was “working on a system called prism that will allow players to mix and match abilities from different subclasses”.

Notably, in the same post, the leaker also claimed: “Destiny 3 is (was? idk) in development under code name payback. One of the big changes for Destiny 3 is (was, again idk) for classes to no longer exist and allow any character to spec into any ability since lore wise there is no reason you couldn’t (Hunters explicitly learned blink from Warlocks and blink isn’t tied to a single element, hence the logic there).”

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Since yesterday’s news, the same Reddit user has resurfaced, claiming (via Forbes): “I’ve seen some speculation on this front and want to set the record straight. Codename Payback does not mean we lose in the Final Shape, or after the 3 episodes (though, tbf, I know nothing more than any of you about the episodes).

“The internal codename of D3 is not a reference to any story events. Rather, Codename Payback refers to Bungie getting payback against themselves by creating something they hope everyone will love. I do not know if there are any plans for Destiny 2 items to carry over into Destiny 3.”