The forthcoming sequel to the 2014 smash hit Destiny has been completely “rebooted,” according to a report from the video game website Kotaku. Luke King, the creative director of the 2015 expansion The Taken King is now apparently in charge of development.
A New Leader
Yesterday, a marketing poster was leaked on Reddit, essentially confirming the forthcoming expansion for the Bungie-produced first-person shooter, available on both the Xbox One and the Playstation 4. Multiple insider sources at Bungie revealed to Kotaku that the poster was indeed legitimate and that the name for the expansion will be Rise of Iron.
This expansion, which should be officially revealed at E3, is expected to be released in September.
These insider sources also confirmed that there has been complete staff reorganization on the development of the Destiny sequel, with The Taken King creative director Luke Smith taking the lead on the project.
“Replacing [Destiny 2] in this fall’s slot will be Rise of Iron although it’s not clear what else Bungie will release between then and fall of next year,” Kotaku reported. “From what we hear, Destiny 2 was recently rebooted, with Taken King director Luke Smith taking the reins of that project in the wake of a Bungie staff reorganization.”
This should be great news for Destiny fans, as the 2015 expansion was widely praised as a significant improvement to the original game, both in gameplay mechanics and depth. The expansion introduced new story lines and content to both the single player and multiplayer aspects of the first-person shooter, so gamers can expect that its sequel will follow in suit.
Destiny itself went through a complete staff reorganization in the months leading up to its originally-planned 2013 release. This “rebooting” process eventually caused the game to be delayed until 2014, which led to internal strife at the developer. Lead writer Joseph Staten and composer Martin O’Donnell ultimately left the project.
Destiny content coming soon
An official sequel to the game was announced in February, as part of a projected earnings report from Activision Blizzard. There have not been any significant developments on the sequel’s progress, apart from the publisher revealing that it is a “full game sequel” due to release in 2017.
Hardcore fans will be able to get their Destiny fix soon, however, as the Rise of Iron DLC is projected to be released later this year. Just as they have for the sequel, Activision has been keeping mum on any details, only revealing that it is a “large new” expansion. If this is the case, gamers are certainly hoping that it follows in the footsteps of The Taken King rather than the smaller The Dark Below or House of Wolves expansions, which were released in 2014 and 2015, respectively.
“Of course, as The Taken King showed us, the amount and scale of content in a Destiny expansion can vary wildly and it may not be fair to compare this to the previous DLC,” said Kotaku.
With such a prestigious creative director at the helm, Destiny fans the world over (the game just celebrated 30 million registered users) should be extremely excited and enthusiastic about this “rebooting” process. While it certainly will take time to complete the adjustment, such a large reorganization process in the development of the game demonstrates that it is assuredly being taken seriously.
You can check out the full report from Kotaku here.
