Destiny sequel launches in 2017 after ‘large new expansion’ drops this year

You’ll get more Destiny this year, but not Destiny 2.

Activision confirmed that developer Bungie has more of its multiplayer online sci-fi shooter coming to fans this year, but the full sequel will not go on sale until 2017. This is one of the publisher’s core franchises that now stands alongside perennial military-shooter blockbuster Call of Duty and interactive-toy game Skylanders. While those two games get yearly sequels, Activision is letting Bungie focus more on expansions and downloadable content to keep Destiny fresh and making money in the console business that’s worth tens of billions of dollars.

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Bungie is the studio that produced the marquee Microsoft franchise Halo. After separating from Microsoft, the developer partnered with Activision to help it produce Destiny. This new game, while also a sci-fi shooter, is much more about online experiences. It takes a lot of inspiration from massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft. This has led to a game that is almost always in desperate need of more stuff for dedicated fans to do. But unlike Blizzard’s beloved MMO, Destiny doesn’t have a monthly subscription — and it didn’t even launch with in-game items to purchase with real money. This has led to a situation where Bungie went months without releasing new content in the first year to providing almost nothing major since releasing The Taken King expansion on September 15 to kick of its second year.

But a major expansion could keep fans happy, and it could keep Destiny’s revenues rolling in until Bungie can get a sequel out the door.

Here’s the exact announcement from the Activision press release for its fourth-quarter earnings report:

“Activision Publishing, along with its partners at Bungie, expects to bring a large new expansion to Destiny in 2016 and to release a full game sequel in 2017.”

This is the first solid news we’ve heard about the future of content in Destiny. The last we heard, Bungie said it was pulling away from major expansions in favor of microtransactions that support live events like racing minigames. Now, it sounds players will get an expansion after all — but this is to hold them over for a full Destiny sequel that many were expecting this year.