Head of product Josh Deane has confirmed that Bungie is currently in the pre-production phase of its long-term content unvaulting plans. The studio is specifically targeting content from campaigns, strikes, and raids to be brought back, along with the Menagerie and all of its activities. After this, the studio is looking at other things it could bring along as stretch goals, like more PvP maps and updates to raids and their associated weapons. And finally, Bungie might look at how it can improve the New Light experience, and we could even see things like seasonal story missions and their associated hubs return.

As for the timeline, Deane has said that the current timeline indicates that pre-production and the proof-of-concept stage will end by February, following which the full-blown production will kick off. All in all, the studio expects it to be completed in around 12 months from the first announcement.

“I think before we close it’s important to know that this is a true reset moment for Bungie, Marathon, and Destiny. We also know time isn’t our friend; we’re playing from behind with the cards we have and I’m sure we’ll have to take more punches and make some hard decisions along the way,” Deane explained. After discussing how the company has to work on its ongoing projects with different constraints and the need to allocate resources to them in appropriate ways, he went on to say that fans shouldn’t expect to see the Destiny logo randomly show up during The Game Awards.

“Knowing we are early in incubating our future and actively working on projects to bridge us to that new home, don’t expect us to make a Destiny announcement at the TGA’s this year, or to randomly drop a logo that sets the world on fire right away.”

In the meantime, Deane has also spoken about what it means for Bungie to be “not done with Destiny”. There are seemingly three things planned for the game: a “Celebration” beyond Moment of Triumph, “Legacy”, which might indicate plans to bring Destiny 1 content over to Destiny 2, and a “Redacted” thing. The last one wasn’t really detailed, with Deane simply offering a tease by saying, “Launch Ventrilo Message: ‘We’re back’”. Each of the three Destiny-related projects will get their own progress bars, with “Celebration” and “Legacy” getting theirs in February.

On the subject of “Redacted”, Destiny 2’s communications manager Dylan Gafner said that the “[I] always love when we use that.” He went on to reassert the fact that Bungie wants to be more transparent with its fans, and the progress bars for its projects are meant to be promises “we intend to keep”.

“The next thing is, I know there are a lot of questions on the how, what, when of unvaulting. Including any potential future updates to D2 and what’s beyond for Destiny,” noted Deane. “There’s going to be a very intentional process for all of it that will take time. But over the next few weeks (targeting prior to the end of October) we’ll talk about what our first step is going to look like with more clarity.”

However, Deane said that Bungie doesn’t yet have any “roadmap” for its plans moving forward, at least for now. Rather, the company will keep lines of communication with the community open, so that it can “bring you all closer, more consistently to our dev milestones.” The studio is aiming for transparency when it comes to any potential challenges it might face when trying to bring back campaigns like The Red War and Forsaken when content was vaulted during the release of the Beyond Light expansion.

“That way when we share a release date we’re all on the same page and have the right expectations that leads directly into how we’ll further celebrate Destiny‘s legacy and vision for the future.” In a tweet reply, he confirmed that the team will update players on the unvaulting plan next week.

When it first made its announcement that it is bringing back content to Destiny 2, Bungie had also said that there are “more stories to tell” and “new worlds to build”, indicating that the studio wants to go back to making more content for the game.

“We understand that removing these experiences had a lasting impact on player trust and enjoyment of Destiny. Destiny 2 is more than just the content itself. It is a place where players have built memories together, formed lasting friendships, and shared experiences that have stayed with them for years. We cannot change the decision we made, but we can acknowledge its impact and do the work to make it right by restoring these important parts of Destiny’s history.”

Further in its announcement, Bungie said that the decision to return to Destiny came from the player base being quite vocal about its love for the game. Your voices mattered, and the way you showed up made a real impact. You reminded everyone how much this world, its history, and its future still mean to you.”

“Destiny is foundational to Bungie’s future. We have more stories to tell, new worlds to build, but we have to do it right and give our teams the time they need to do justice to this amazing universe.

“All of this is to say, we are not done with Destiny.”

Destiny 2 was originally released on PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2017. Versions for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S were released in 2020, a year after the game went free-to-play with its “New Light” beginner experience. There was also a version for the now-defunct cloud streaming service Google Stadia.

While Disney, which owns the rights, is certainly considering the same, it could tap into an unusual alternative: Bungie, developer of Marathon and Destiny, according to Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb in the latest Game Mess Mornings episode.

“If the Force is not entrusted to DICE, it could land at none other than Halo, Destiny, and Marathon developer Bungie,” he said. He noted that the game doesn’t seem to be “in the works yet,” but “there are conversations at the very least about who should take it on.” And while DICE is still in that conversation, Disney reportedly has a “bad taste in their mouth from working with EA for a very long time.”

That last part is probably an open secret, as Star Wars Battlefront 2 caused massive controversy in 2017 due to its Star Cards. The backlash spurred government regulatory measures against loot boxes in some countries. Of course, DICE remained committed to removing the system, overhauling its progression, adding new content and improving several other areas to the point that the sequel became very well regarded among fans.

Regardless, Bungie is an intriguing choice because Marathon, despite some ambitious plans for the coming months, isn’t exactly setting the gaming world on fire with its player numbers. Nevertheless, it doesn’t seem set in stone, so stay tuned for more updates.

Concerns about Bungie potentially leaving the extraction shooter behind first came up with the studio’s emphasis on the permanent PvE mode coming to the game with the Symbiosis update in December.

“Last week we had a great time talking about the upcoming PvE and experimental PvP modes for Symbiosis in December. We want to be clear, Extraction is still a major part of Marathon, and we’re also going to continue updating it as we look to the future of the game.”

Chafe went on to ask fans of Marathon for feedback about “what you’re enjoying about Extraction today, what you think needs work, and what you wish was there.”

It is worth noting that, as part of announcing the future roadmap for Marathon, Bungie has said that it is aiming to create “connected PvE, PvP, and PvEvP experiences” that are bolstered by deeper methods of progression, expansions to the story, and other new content like zones and shells.

“Some players want a quick, lower-pressure run after work,” explained the studio at the time. “Some want to spend an entire night with their crew. Others want to test a build, compete directly against other players, chase a difficult challenge, or follow a strange clue deeper into the ruins of Tau Ceti IV. Marathon needs to support all of them.”

The Symbiosis update is also going to bring in other forms of content to the game, including an expanded version of Perimeter, a new shell, and general improvements to the onboarding experience to ensure that new players have an easier time getting into the extraction shooter.

“We know that rebuilding trust requires more than talking about the future. We need to share our work and clearly communicate what’s changing so the Marathon community has an accurate understanding of what each update will and won’t deliver.

“While we build toward December and March, we’ll continue making meaningful quality-of-life improvements and running focused experiments that allow players to participate without reorganizing their lives around limited windows.”

This move to focusing on larger updates is part of Bungie’s decision to move away from the seasonal content model that it was aiming for with Marathon. The studio announced in mid-September that this had also led to the Symbiosis update – originally slated for September 22nd – being delayed to December.

More details about the PvE mode haven’t yet been revealed, with Bungie noting that it still has to finalize some of its more minute details. However, the studio has promised that it will give us a look at the game mode before it comes out later this year.

In the meantime, Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

This will be followed up with a major update in December – Symbiosis – that will bring in the shooter’s first permanent PvE game mode along with other content like an expanded version of Perimeter, a new shell, improvements to the onboarding experience, and a new social space where players can hang out together. March will see further expansion of these concepts through what the studio has described as “connected PvE, PvP, and PvEvP experiences” along with deeper progression, a refactored version of Cradle, expansions to the story, and new enemies, along with an entirely new zone.

While the core PvEvP experience is meant to be an important part of Marathon, Bungie has said that it wants to offer players more options when it comes to the survival experience they want. More details about the PvE mode are slated to be revealed as we get closer to the release of the Symbiosis update, as parts of the experience are still being finalized.

“Some players want a quick, lower-pressure run after work. Some want to spend an entire night with their crew. Others want to test a build, compete directly against other players, chase a difficult challenge, or follow a strange clue deeper into the ruins of Tau Ceti IV. Marathon needs to support all of them.”

Bungie has also revealed more details about how it plans to overhaul its onboarding experience since, in its current state, the extraction shooter “asks new players to learn too much, too quickly.” To deal with this, a smoother onramp is being designed that will allow players to easily learn the core fundamentals for Marathon. The social space will play into this, since it will also include a firing range where players can test out their weapons and shell abilities.

“We know that rebuilding trust requires more than talking about the future. We need to share our work and clearly communicate what’s changing so the Marathon community has an accurate understanding of what each update will and won’t deliver.

“While we build toward December and March, we’ll continue making meaningful quality-of-life improvements and running focused experiments that allow players to participate without reorganizing their lives around limited windows.”

Bungie had confirmed earlier this month that Marathon would be moving away from its seasonal content model. This involved pushing back the release of the shooter’s major new update from its originally planned September 22nd date.

At the same time, Bungie has also confirmed that it is working on improving Destiny 2 by bringing back content that was vaulted with the release of its Beyond Light expansion. This means that players will finally get to re-experience the campaigns from Red War up to Forsaken.

Reportedly led by Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, it ended up canceled in Summer 2024. While details about Payback are sparse, the report indicates that it was going to essentially be the “future” of Destiny. Despite sharing the same universe, however, it may not have shared the franchise’s name. Its gameplay structure was also described as being quite different from what Destiny players might be used to.

Bringing up Genshin Impact for comparison, Schreier said that Payback was being designed as being more hero-centric, with gameplay revolving around open-world exploration and puzzle-solving.

“There were a lot of things that were different about Payback, but one of the ideas was to try to appeal to younger audiences, to new audiences, the audiences that weren’t already in the thick of the Destiny universe, because the average demographic of Destiny players kept getting older and older.”

Further discussing how Destiny 2 had become quite bad at bringing in new players due to poor onboarding and even Bungie’s content vaulting decisions, Schreier went on to say that Payback was a way for the studio to figure out how it can further grow its audience.

Since Bungie recently announced that it is “not done with Destiny” after confirming that it is bringing back Destiny 2’s vaulted content like the Red War and Forsaken campaigns, we might end up seeing Payback get further development. The studio made its announcement earlier this week, promising more stories and worlds for the shooter.

“We understand that removing these experiences had a lasting impact on player trust and enjoyment of Destiny,” said the studio on its content vaulting decisions. “Destiny 2 is more than just the content itself. It is a place where players have built memories together, formed lasting friendships, and shared experiences that have stayed with them for years. We cannot change the decision we made, but we can acknowledge its impact and do the work to make it right by restoring these important parts of Destiny’s history.”

However, the studio has said that it will need some time to bring back this content, largely due to the fact that the Destiny 2 engine has seen many changes since the content was vaulted with the release of Beyond Light. As a result, a lot of work has to be done to bring the older zones’ lighting, encounters, combatants, and gameplay systems up to modern Destiny 2 standards.

In the meantime, Bungie is also continuing its work on Marathon with the aim of creating a “deeper survival experience” that can evolve “beyond the genre constraints placed on it”. The next major update for the PvPvE extraction shooter will arrive in December, which will bring with it a team deathmatch mode, a social space, and a dedicated PvE mode.

“We understand that removing these experiences had a lasting impact on player trust and enjoyment of Destiny. Destiny 2 is more than just the content itself. It is a place where players have built memories together, formed lasting friendships, and shared experiences that have stayed with them for years. We cannot change the decision we made, but we can acknowledge its impact and do the work to make it right by restoring these important parts of Destiny’s history.”

While this is a positive step, there’s a reason Bungie hasn’t attempted this before: It’s far from easy. “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.”

Of course, the other big question is: Why? Monuments of Triumph was the last major content update for the looter shooter and was followed by mass layoffs that impacted the entire team. According to Bungie, “When we announced that Monuments of Triumph would be the final content update to Destiny 2, you responded in force. Your voices mattered, and the way you showed up made a real impact. You reminded everyone how much this world, its history, and its future still mean to you.”

“Destiny is foundational to Bungie’s future. We have more stories to tell, new worlds to build, but we have to do it right and give our teams the time they need to do justice to this amazing universe.

“All of this is to say, we are not done with Destiny.”

More details will be revealed in the coming months, including how exactly Bungie will begin the unvaulting process. Based on its wording, it certainly seems like the developer wants to continue supporting Destiny 2, though how that manifests (and whether it’s new content) remains to be seen. It’s also possible that it could opt to create a spin-off or something else set in the same universe, thus fulfilling the promise of “new stories” and “worlds.”

As for Marathon, the team is looking to create a “deeper survival experience” and evolve “beyond the genre constraints placed on it.” Of course, we already know about some of those plans, coming in December’s Symbiosis update, including an experimental Team Deathmatch mode, social space/firing range, and a dedicated PvE experience.

There will be more later this week on the shooter “future vision,” and if nothing else, it should tell us more about what to expect in October when Nightfall Refresh lands.

“As someone who’s worked on both Destiny and Marathon, I can confirm that the ‘leak’ about us merging the two IPs is fake. They share a lot of the same Bungie DNA, but like siblings, they’re also their own independent entities. Please don’t believe everything you read online.”

The rumor, which can be seen in the Marathon subreddit, makes several improbable claims, like Marathon getting a new PvE mode dubbed Investigations that would feature boss fights in the vein of Destiny’s raids, and that the extraction shooter would be going free-to-play in December.

The gameplay loop of the Investigations mode would involve 1 to 5 players taking on missions that were seemingly based on the gameplay loop of Monster Hunter and the Salmon Run mode from Splatoon, and would also include an element of extraction, culminating in epic boss battles.

Tying Marathon into Destiny would have been especially difficult. The rumor claimed that the former would be retooled into being a depiction of humanity’s Golden Age, as has been written about throughout lore entries in Destiny. However, anyone with a passing knowledge of either of the two franchises’ stories would have pointed out how difficult this is, since Marathon has its own lore that spans the course of several years, with 1996’s Marathon Infinity stretching the timeline out into Eternity.

Similarly, Destiny has quite a bit of established lore already set up before and after humanity’s Golden Age, and as such, no mention of the Marathon universe is made aside from a few Easter eggs like the presence of the MIDA weapons.

The fact that “most of” Destiny’s team faced layoffs earlier this year, with all content plans for the online loot-based shooter having been canceled, would also make the prospect of Bungie going back to the franchise at such short notice less probable.

In the meantime, Bungie has announced that it has pushed back Marathon’s next major content update from its previously planned September 22nd release date to December 8th. The decision comes as part of a larger plan to move the extraction shooter away from the seasonal content model. The studio also said that it delayed the update so that it could give the team “more flexibility to build, test, and improve features before they are released.”

The update, dubbed Symbiosis, will feature a refreshed version of Perimeter, a new Runner Shell, a Team Deathmatch game mode, and improvements in other areas of the game, like onboarding for new players. Interestingly, the update will also introduce a major new addition to the game in the form of a social hub area where players can hang out and even test out their weapons together at a firing range.

Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.

So when can you expect new content for the extraction shooter, which, if you’ve seen the Steam numbers, is looking absolutely dire? December 8th with the Symbiosis update. It includes a refreshed version of Perimeter, a new Runner Shell, an experimental Team Deathmatch mode, onboarding improvements, and perhaps most surprising, a social space that also doubles as a firing range.

This also marks the first permanent PvE experience, and while Bungie didn’t share many details, it will provide “a new way to explore, progress, and engage with the world beyond traditional PvPvE extraction gameplay.” Symbiosis is considered an “important milestone” and “the beginning of a broader evolution through March and beyond, shaped by what we learn from players along the way.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean the game is going dark until December. October 6th features a progression and economy reset, a new Rewards Pass, balance updates and even the return of Vault Breaker. Bungie will also continue with its “gameplay experiments,” so expect more details on that front.

As for the game’s future, a blog post will go live later this month where the development team outlines how it will evolve Marathon “into a more alien and dynamic survival experience.” At the very least, this isn’t an end-of-service announcement, so that’s one reason to celebrate.

Still, despite adding PvE modes and making it far more forgiving, Marathon hasn’t really caught on since launching last March for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. With Destiny 2 not receiving any more content and mass layoffs, it remains to be seen how Bungie can salvage it going forward.

“As part of that acquisition, Bungie also had a whole bunch of other live service games in the works that Sony wanted to see come out in the subsequent years in addition to, of course, Destiny 2, which is Bungie’s big ongoing project,” he explained before going on to discuss how “most of those projects fell apart” over the course of time “for a variety of reasons”.

It is worth noting that, currently, Bungie is in quite a dire state, having been hit by layoffs back in June that involved 292 job cuts. Many of these developers had been working on Destiny 2 at the time, according to Sony’s Herman Hulst. Reports at the time had also indicated that studio head Justice Truman was stepping down.

In July, this would then be followed by the departure of Marathon’s game director, Joe Ziegler. The role has since been taken on by Del Chafe III, and Julia Nardin has been made the creative director on the title.

“Both of them have been operating in a strong leadership capacity for the team and are ready to guide Marathon into the next chapter with an even better and brighter future. As for me, I’ll be heading to something new, somewhere else, and will update you on where and what soon.”

As recently as last month, Bungie had continued to experiment with Marathon by bringing in the game’s first true PvE mode – Vault Breaker. The mode tasked players with heading into the Cryo Archive, where they would face UESC enemies. No other players are present for this game mode aside from the player’s own team. There are also options for Duos and Trios matchmaking, as well as a solo mode.

The studio is also currently working on Season 3 content for Marathon. Slated for launch on September 22nd, the season will bring revamps to Perimeter as well as a brand-new Runner Shell.

Marathon is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. For more details, check out our thoughts on its PvE game mode, as well as our review from when the extraction shooter first came out.

As for Destiny 2, Bungie had announced that it was ending support for the shooter back in May. It got its final content update in June, and there are currently no confirmed plans for the franchise moving forward. Rumors had also indicated that, contrary to popular belief, there was no Destiny 3 in development at Bungie. In the meantime, however, Destiny and Destiny 2 are both still playable, and there don’t seem to be any plans to shut down the servers, at least for now.