Two years after its initial release in September 2017, Destiny 2 will become free-to-play. The free-to-play version of Destiny 2 will include the base game and all of its year-one content. As a result, the base game and its year-one content will be rebranded to a new title, Destiny 2: New Light.
It appears that this Fall will be the start of a new era for the Bungie looter-shooter. Along with being the time Destiny 2 goes free-to-play, a new standalone expansion will be released. You can buy this expansion, titled Shadowkeep, for $35. Again, this is a standalone expansion so you do not need to purchase any previous DLC content to play Shadowkeep. New Light and Shadowkeep will release on September 17th, 2019. You can see the trailer for Shadowkeep down below:
This is all awesome news for the Destiny franchise but Bungie didn’t stop there. The game will support cross-saving across all available platforms including PC (Steam), Google Stadia, Xbox One, and PS4. According to Kotaku, Sony finally agreed to cross-save support yesterday. This late-decision from PlayStation isn’t a shocking revelation when you think about Sony’s previous encounters with the notions of cross-platform and cross-save on PS4. What is shocking, however, is that there will be no more PS4 exclusive content starting with the Shadowkeep DLC.
It looks like Bungie just wants to make Destiny 2 available to as many gamers as possible. Having a free-to-play version not only entices new players to check out the game but also could potentially bring a few of their old player base back into the fold. Cross-saving and no exclusive content going forward help in that regard as well.
After the Activision/Bungie split back in January, Bungie assumed the rights to the Destiny franchise. It’ll be interesting how this free-to-play model works when it releases this September.
What are your thoughts on Destiny 2 going free-to-play and adding cross-save support? Let us know in the comments below!
