Destiny 2 game director Joe Blackburn has taken to Twitter to apologize to players for the standard of Bungie's poorly received August State of the Game post, and to outline changes coming to the live action multiplayer shooter.
“A few weeks ago we put out a State of the Game communication that wasn’t up to our standards for what you all expect of those kinds of communications,” said the Destiny 2 game director in a 16-minute Twitter (X) video addressing the Destiny community. “It didn’t provide the high level of vision that we normally provide, and really and truly a bunch of us were heads down working The Final Shape, and wern’t able to give it the care and love that we normally put into these kinds of communications.”
While some Destiny 2 players embraced aspects of the August 3 State of the Game update, others were left underwhelmed, to say the least.
Upper Management needs to have a conversation with whoever proof read that and said "sounds great, post it". Because they def. should've stopped this from going out.
— HelloImBradly (@HelloImBradly) August 3, 2023
well, that was pretty underwhelming?
— Era-7, Collector of Names (@NewEra7Official) August 3, 2023
This was a let down, but those were my expectations, so I'm not really upset. Just proves that TFS will be another mediocre year for Bungie/Destiny
— The Jman (@th3jmanx) August 3, 2023
TLDF: Game dev says gamedeving is hard. Gamedev also gives no info in many words.
— Menacing Banana (@Menacing_Banana) August 3, 2023
My expectations were to the ground.... Then you brought a shovel...
— Brandon Conley (@deathhawk14) August 6, 2023
Blackburn went on to note that while the Destiny 2 team is busy preparing its climactic The Final Shape expansion for its 2024 release, the work “doesn’t mean our communications have to suffer”.
“The first thing, we want to be talking to you all more. But, talking to you all more, our number one priority [is that] we have to keep our community members, and our community leaders safe on the Bungie side,” explained Blackburn. “I don’t want anyone that signs up to come work at Bungie and to talk to you about the game to have to worry about their personal safety.”
Blackburn’s comments come in the wake of a number of instances that saw Destiny 2 community members harass company employees. Bungie recently won a legal victory against one such internet troll who had targeted a community manager with a campaign of harassment and terror that put them in fear of physical harm, after the perpetrator made it clear that they knew the location of the employee's family home.
However, the Destiny 2 director did emphasise that Bungie will be more active in engaging the community moving forward using its branded social media accounts. Blackburn also took the opportunity to admit that Bungie’s current approach to PvP map releases simply wasn’t working.
Trying something different, yall have 15 minutes to chat? pic.twitter.com/wzB6xqJPGU
— Joe Blackburn (@joegoroth) August 15, 2023
“I think it’s fair to say, this approach is not producing the Crucible that our players expect of us,” said Blackburn. “It’s clear that the sort of, slow trickle of PvP maps, isn’t having the effect we want, and although it gives an injection of PvP maps every so often with the ecosystem, its also forcing this, like, one new map a year, which means that we’re trying to build a map which can do everything, which means it can’t be good at anything."
Instead, Bungie is planning to focus its efforts in 2024 on the release of a single map pack, that will be free “for everyone”, and will provide “a bunch of new experiences that can all be good at specific things”, all while adding a greater degree of variety to the multiplayer experience.
Blackburn also revealed that Bungie is putting together a ‘strike team’ led by PvP developers to remedy player complaints regarding the Crucible, and that a number of changes are going to be implemented when it comes to the core multiplayer playlists.
“We know that we need to bring more of our modes into the core playlists,” explained the Bungie employee. “We’ve been putting a lot out in labs, we’ve been putting a lot out in Iron Banner. And to be honest, there’s a few obstacles to us putting these into our core playlists, be this VO, or small bug-level issues… I think that has been blocking us from doing the right thing here."
Moving forward Bungie intends to push through these "obstacles" to bring the requested features to the core playlist. Blackburn also revealed that the Destiny 2 publisher would also be bringing popular game modes like Countdown Rush into the competitive scene, while removing less popular modes like Rift from rotation.
Bungie is set to hold a showcase next week to spotlight Destiny 2's upcoming expansion. “We’re really excited about a bunch of the content in there, and truly, that showcase is not a reaction to the State of the Game last week, it is not a reaction to a bunch of the sentiment online, it is definitely not a reaction to this video," said Blackburn.
"The Final Shape is focussed on the light, it’s focussed on the enemies we’ve been setting up, and the allies that you’ve come to know. It’s not about a bunch of wacky new systems, or wacky new themes coming into Destiny. Instead, we want to make an experience that’s super easy for anyone that’s ever played Destiny to come in and fall in love with the content before them."
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer
