Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate

Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate is an upcoming major expansion for Destiny 2, a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie. Representing the ninth expansion for the game, it is set to be released on July 15, 2025, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The expansion is also the start of the eighth year of extended content for Destiny 2, referred to as the "Year of Prophecy", which will include the next expansion, Renegades, in December 2025.

Following the conclusion of the "Light and Darkness" saga (2014–2024), The Edge of Fate begins a new major narrative for the franchise called the "Fate" saga, with players exploring the planetoid Kepler in the Solar System's Oort cloud. It will have a major overhaul on the game, essentially resetting players back to a base level with a rework on gear and how it affects the players' stats. This is also the first of at least four planned shorter expansions, each lasting six months with one major update in between, rather than the previous year-long expansions with three seasons/episodes. While each expansion will be paid content, the major updates will be free for all players. The major update for The Edge of Fate will be Ash & Iron in September 2025, with this first half of Year 8 referred to as the Season of Reclamation.

In the previous expansion, The Final Shape, the Vanguard and their allies defeated the Witness and its three Echoes that were created from its defeat, concluding the "Light and Darkness" saga that began with the original Destiny (2014).

As the Vanguard dealt with the final Echo of the Witness, the Emissary of the Nine gave the player's Guardian an invitation from the Nine, a pantheon of mysterious, dark matter-based entities that have taken up residence in the celestial bodies of the Solar System, to visit the planetoid Kepler in the Oort cloud, before disavowing herself as the Emissary, no longer willing to do their bidding.^[1] The Nine continue to send these invitations, and eventually draw the Vanguard's attention by sending a 21st-century subway train car to bring the Guardians to Kepler. When they arrive, they are greeted by Lodi, a human that also appears to be from the 21st century, who explains that Kepler is held together by a singularity, which would destroy the entire Solar System should it collapse.^[2] The Guardians also meet the Aionians, the native humanoid population on Kepler, and also face against the Fallen/Eliksni House of Exile, who are also native to Kepler and worship a mysterious entity only known as the "Giver", as well as the Vex, who are also on Kepler due to the Nine's influence on the planetoid.

Destiny 2 is a first-person shooter with roleplay and massively-multiplayer online gameplay elements. It takes place in the Solar System in the far future; the system was visited by a massive spherical object called the Traveler that granted humanity with knowledge to create a Golden Age, but its arrival also drew warring alien species to the system to gain the Traveler for themselves. The Golden Age was followed by the Collapse, wiping out most of humanity, but the remnants of humanity survived with the aid of the paracausal Light of the Traveler, which granted certain beings the ability to be resurrected as Lightbearers, also known as Guardians, and use the power of the Light to fight off these aliens, some who wield the Darkness, the counterpart of the Light.

The player in Destiny 2 creates their character from one of three classes: Hunters which specialize in stealth and trapping, Titans that specialize in melee combat and shielding allies, and Warlocks that heal and buff allies while using magic-like like abilities. These classes also have subclasses that the player can freely switch between; initially with Destiny 2's release, three subclasses were available based on the Light classes, Arc, Solar, and Void, which three more have been added through expansions, the Darkness subclasses of Stasis and Strand, and the Prismatic subclass which combines both Light and Darkness powers. These subclasses define which abilities the Guardian can use in combat, as well as a powerful Super ability that requires recharging over time. Players earn gear by performing missions, earning armor pieces, kinetic, energy and power weapons across a range of weapon archetypes, and resources that can be used to improve gear to take on more challenging missions. Available content is a mix of gameplay modes across player-versus-environment (PVE) in the Vanguard playlists, player-versus-player (PvP) in the Crucible playlist, and player-versus-player-versus-environment (PvPvE) in the Gambit mode. There are also dungeons for three-player fireteams and raids for six-player teams, along with various patrol zones across the planetary environments in the Solar System.

The Edge of Fate will introduce several major changes to the base Destiny 2 gameplay. The game's main navigation menu, the Director, will remain, but Bungie has designed a new "Portal" page that allows the player to navigate between various classes of activities, such as solo and fireteam content, along with multiplayer Crucible playlists.^[3] From the Portal, players will be able to add additional modifiers as to increase the difficulty of the content and seek better rewards from completion.^[4] While the game's Vanguard and Crucible activities will be expanded to incorporate new changes with The Edge of Fate, Bungie plans to hold updates to Gambit in check until a future expansion, keeping the game mode in legacy play.^[5]

Gear will also see a major change. The character's armor will use a new "Armor 3.0" system. In this, a new set of six attributes (Weapons, Health, Class, Grenade, Super, and Melee) will replace the existing attributes, which can be enhanced through armor mods. Armor will only have points in three of these attributions based on one of six armor archetypes, which help to favor two specific attributions with the third attribute randomly selected from the rest. Armor archetypes can be directed by players to favor specific archetype, and more difficult activities can generate armor with more points within the archetype's attributes. New armor introduced from The Edge of Fate onward will also include set bonuses, where, by wearing at least two pieces from the same set, the player's Guardian will receive additional bonuses. A player's existing armor will be converted to the new Armor 3.0 attributes upon the launch of the expansion, maintaining their current attributes under their new names, while exotic armor pieces will be converted to use the armor archetype based on their current attribute distribution.^[6] Weapons also will now drop with a tier from one to five, which will depend on the difficulty of the content being played. Higher-tier weapons will have higher attributes and enhanced perks, and at the highest tier, will gain a unique appearance.^[4] In addition to the existing archetypes, The Edge of Fate adds a new heavy weapon type, a crossbow that fire a single, recoverable bolt.^[7]

The new destination Kepler will not be a patrol zone as most previous destinations in Destiny 2 have been, but is designed for a single player to explore in the style of a Metroidvania game.^[3] The player will acquire new, dark matter powers by completing missions on Kepler, gaining the ability to access previously-blocked areas and find other secrets, as well as gaining access to higher tier activities. One of the key powers will be the Matterspark that uses the strange energy of Kepler to allow the player's Guardian to turn into an Arc ball and roll through narrow corridors as well as to attack enemies. Other existing abilities of the Guardian are also enhanced by the mysterious energies of Kepler, such as Matterweave, allowing players to move or manipulate certain objects using Strand and use them as platforms or to open new paths, and the Relocator Cannon, allowing players to teleport from one area to another using Void and Eliksni technology.^[3] A new raid, "The Desert Perpetual", will be released on July 15, 2025, and will take place in unknown space in the realm of the Nine.

After finishing development of The Final Shape campaign, Bungie opted by September 2024 to move away from annual expansions to shorter expansions. Game director Tyson Green said that "Expansions have started to feel too formulaic and are over too quickly with little replay value", and that "Seasons and Episodes keep getting bigger but can still feel like you are just going through the motions."^[8] Instead, Bungie wanted to be able to offer more exploration experiences and try different approaches to gameplay, such as non-linear campaigns, and opted to make future expansions shorter to allow them to try these experiments. At that time, the first planned expansion after The Final Shape was given the codename "Apollo".^[8]

Several of the design elements of Kepler, and the new Matterspark powers, were directly inspired by the Metroid Prime series, according to Green.^[4]

The Edge of Fate is scheduled to be released on July 15, 2025, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It will be available as paid downloadable content (DLC). In addition to the standard version, the expansion is also included in the "Year of Prophecy" pack, as well as the "Year of Prophecy – Ultimate Edition" pack. Pre-orders for any edition include immediate access to an exotic ghost shell and a legendary emblem (as early as the Rite of the Nine event in May 2025 during Episode: Heresy, or Season 26). The "Year of Prophecy" pack includes both Year 8 expansions, The Edge of Fate and Renegades; pre-orders for this version also include an exotic ship and another legendary emblem that will be added to players' inventories in September 2025. The "Year of Prophecy – Ultimate Edition" additionally includes an exotic emote, an exotic sparrow, the Dark Side Legends Bundle, which features Star Wars-based armor ornaments for the three character classes (General Grievous for Hunters, Darth Vader for Titans, and Kylo Ren for Warlocks), as well as the No Land Beyond exotic sniper rifle (including its exotic catalyst which will become available with the launch of The Edge of Fate). There is also a physical collector's edition which includes a 1/8 scale statue of the three character classes, as well as The Edge of Fate soundtrack, among other items; however, this does not include the expansion.^[9]