The surprising news that came out of Bungie yesterday is that The Final Shape, the decade-long saga’s climactic expansion, is adding an entirely new subclass that will enable guardian’s to mix and match powers from all of the existing subclasses. (My emphasis there is to reflect how excited this made our resident Guardian (aka PC Gamer brand director Tim Clark).
However, once the shock had died down a little, things got weird. You see, it turns out that a month ago someone on Reddit not only predicted that we would be getting a new subclass—an unlikely but not unreasonable guess—but also pretty much the exact details of how Prismatic works, which nobody would reasonably have guessed at that time.
Which of course now has the community very interested in what else the apparent leaker’s account has had to say, the juiciest rumor being the claim that the studio is currently working on Destiny 3. Redditor 32638272187, for that is their chosen handle, went on to say that Destiny 3 is being developed under the codename Payback, and that the current class structure of Titan, Hunter, and Warlock, each with their own unique subclasses and abilities, will be scrapped: Instead, any character will be able to spec into any ability, enabling a freeform mix-and-match that’s currently just a happy daydream among Destiny fans.
This very major change is apparently justified by a blip of Destiny lore revealing that Hunters learned the Blink teleportation skill from Warlocks (although they don’t like to talk about it), a bit of narrative spice that could even be seen as a hint of what the future may hold for Destiny. There are also plenty of lore entries in which Guardians quickly combo between their Light powers, although mixing Light and Dark, as with Prismatic, is a new thing.
Obviously, we normally wouldn’t pay Reddit rumors much heed, but in this case the specificity of the subclass info really is what has made eyebrows rise. The leak dropped a month ago, claiming that a new system was coming to Destiny 2 called Prism that will enable players to mix and match abilities from different subclasses. That is pretty much exactly what was revealed in yesterday’s big Final Shape livestream: A new Prismatic subclass that lets players choose abilities from Light and Dark subclasses as they see fit.
The Prismatic subclass reveal came out of nowhere—”about as big a need drop imaginable,” as brandmaster Clark put it—and the fact that 32638272187 so perfectly nailed such a focused piece of info has Destiny fans suddenly paying a lot more attention to their Destiny 3 call.
The possibility that work on Destiny 3 may be underway was also alluded to in The Final Shape livestream by executive creative director Luke Smith, who said that once the forces of The Witness have been defeated, Bungie will “confirm what’s coming next to Destiny 2 and beyond”. Given that we already know three additional Episodes are planned for Destiny 2, the and beyond part really must refer to something else entirely.
To some extent, this could all be considered about as obvious as the sun rising. Destiny 2 is seven years old, and The Final Shape has been positioned pretty well from the start as the conclusion to the Light and Darkness saga that’s provided the narrative backbone for the entire series so far. And despite Bungie’s recent struggles, Destiny remains a hugely popular and tremendously valuable property.
What’s interesting is that in previous year’s the studio has been very gun shy when it came to questions about a third instalment, which is hardly surprising given how rocky the transition from D1 to D2 was. But perhaps things have changed under Sony’s stewardship, which certainly seems possible given last year’s layoffs, the cancellation of the Matter project, and the Japanese publisher’s apparent frustration with Bungie upper management.
The fact is Destiny 2 is still Bungie’s bread and butter, and it not only needs The Final Shape to succeed, but will need the franchise to continue succeeding long into the future in order for the studio to remain viable. So getting that right is clearly the focus right now. But to my reading, this leak—if it’s accurate—suggests Destiny 3 may be farther along than anyone realized.
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