Bungie to restore vaulted Destiny 2 campaigns while Marathon "needs to evolve"

Just days after outlining a new approach for major Marathon updates, Bungie has walked back its earlier decision to wind down Destiny 2 development — a call that had been accompanied by layoffs at the studio. In a candid blog post, the developer now promises to restore vaulted Destiny 2 content and describes the franchise as "foundational" to its future, opening that future with a lengthy apology to players.

Owning up to lost trust

"Bungie has been creating games for over 30 years and we have welcomed the communities that have formed around them," wrote newly appointed studio head Poria Torkan and Marathon general manager Josh Deane in the post laying out the studio's plans. "Over the last few years, we lost sight of that, and there have been real consequences. We lost trust, we lost incredible colleagues, and we lost sight of what we should be prioritizing most, our players. As a new leadership team, we must own that. We aren't just listening to feedback, we understand your disappointment."

That acknowledgment comes after Destiny players made their frustration loud and clear about the franchise being sidelined. In response, Bungie now states plainly that it "is not done with Destiny."

Bringing back what was vaulted

"Destiny is foundational to Bungie's future," Torkan and Deane wrote. "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."

To carve out that time, Bungie will return a batch of Destiny 2 campaigns, destinations, and raids that were previously removed to make way for newer updates. The studio stressed that restoring this content is no small technical task, and also conceded it "cannot change the decision [it] made" regarding Destiny 2 — about as close as it came to admitting that reintroducing old material, rather than building new additions, may be a compromise shaped by the recent layoffs.

Marathon still needs to evolve

On the Marathon side, Torkan and Deane echoed the kind of language Sony has used about Destiny 2 in recent years. The extraction shooter "did not reach as many players as [Bungie] had hoped" and "needs to evolve," which is why the studio is dropping its seasonal update structure. The hope is that December's PvE update will spark a turnaround.

"This is an important time for Bungie," the pair concluded. "Our future depends on making clear choices about where we focus, delivering what we say we will, and being honest about our successes and failures. Stability doesn't mean shrinking our ambition. It just means that we have to focus on the things you want to see from us, and making sure our vision matches our reality." They added that Bungie has reshaped how it operates by simplifying priorities, cutting competing initiatives, pushing decisions closer to development teams, and retooling how it measures success with greater weight on player satisfaction.

What happens next

Whether lapsed players stick around once the nostalgia of restored raids and destinations wears off remains to be seen. The bet appears to be that Marathon will have found its footing by then, or that a substantial new project will be ready to tease. For now, there's no sign that Destiny 3 is anywhere close on the horizon — the near-term milestones are the returning Destiny 2 content and Marathon's December PvE update.

Source: the original publisher