Some incredibly sad news regarding Bungie's long-running space fantasy looter shooter Destiny 2 came about a week and a half ago, with the studio announcing that the game's live-service development is coming to an end on June 9 following an extended period of underwhelming and delayed updates and expansions. At that time, its final Monument of Triumph content update is dropping across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation — one last hurrah before the end as the servers go into a static state.
It's good that the game will, at the very least, remain playable. But it's still a sad and sudden end for an experience that's been held dear in the hearts of millions (mine included) since its arrival in 2017, and one that players have rallied against with a petition for the development of Destiny 3.
Indeed, while Destiny 2's fate is sealed, there are hopes that enough of a push from the game's community will drive Sony and PlayStation (the company that acquired Bungie in 2022) to greenlight a sequel. Thus far, over 325,000 people have signed the aforementioned petition on Change.org — and there's encouragement from Bungie devs for players to flood the servers come June 9, with some thinking one in particular is hinting we could see a Destiny 3 eventually come if enough of a commotion is made.
Sunday, Destiny 2 community lead and principal communications manager Dylan "dmg04" Gafner posted a statement that caught the eyes of many: "Guardians make their own fate."
Longtime Destiny players will recognize the phrase as text that appears to signal the start of a damage phase against Atheon in the Vault of Glass raid. In this context, though, fans believe Gafner is alluding to the fact that players may be able to sway Sony towards supporting the creation of a Destiny 3 instead of moving on from the series.
Notably, Gafner went on to repost a rallying cry of "LOG ON JUNE 9TH" from community figure Zavalr, then followed that up with another post: "Do not go gentle into that good night."
He was referencing the use of the famous Dylan Thomas poem in the beloved film Interstellar, but hey, it sure is a pretty interesting time to Tweet out the iconic line. It precedes another very noteworthy one at the end of the first stanza: "Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
In the end, it's totally hopium to believe that the community will manifest the creation of Destiny 3 through a petition and a strong return of players for one last big Destiny 2 update. It's hopium I'll huff without hesitation, though, because Destiny means a great many things to a great many people, and it deserves better than to end in the disappointing place it's been steered to by poor executive leadership at Bungie and Sony.
Besides, Monument of Triumph looks like it's going to be an incredible update, so logging in will be worth it anyway. The colossal patch is adding and reworking a ton of weapons and armor sets, with revamped activities, new "Pantheon" raid gauntlet challenges, and more set to drop as well. It's no exaggeration to say that Destiny 2 is going out with a bang.
Do you plan on playing Destiny 2 one last time when the Monument of Triumph update releases on June 9? Let me know in the comments, and in our poll.
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