The launch excitement surrounding Destiny 2 is slowly fading. Time to look to the future. The crucial question has been open for two years: What are the contractors that Activision has hired to support Bungie doing?
It is a strange situation. For exactly 2 years now, we have known that Activision has set High Moon Studios to work on Destiny 2 to support Bungie. This was announced back then. But what are they actually doing?
Contractors for Destiny
High Moon Studios has been around since the early 2000s, later acquired by Activision, and has since been a “publisher-owned studio” based in California. The development team can therefore be deployed by Activision as needed. And since 2015, the need has been for Destiny. Because Bungie is unable to maintain a consistent flow of content in Seattle despite all resources and needs support.
Even today, you can read on the High Moon Studios website: “We are teaming up with Bungie to support the growing, award-winning Destiny universe.”
But we have not known for 2 years what specifically is happening there, what they are contributing to Destiny in California.
Instead, we heard more about Vicarious Visions before the launch of Destiny 2, another studio that is handling the PC version of Destiny 2 in partnership with Bungie.
High Moon Studios is Hiring People with Destiny Experience
To what extent content from High Moon Studios is in Destiny 2, we do not know. The studio does almost no public relations. There is no peep about Destiny 2 and the enormous launch success on social media. Bungie claims that success entirely for itself.
However, we know that the “High Moon Studios” are still assigned to Destiny 2 and are expected to deliver substantial content:
- For example, the studio sought a mission designer around March 2017, who is specifically supposed to be familiar with the Destiny franchise.
- In July 2017, Activision announced that High Moon and Vicarious Visions should provide content for Destiny 2, although game content that is to be released after the launch. This content from the contractors is supposed to ensure the content supply that was painfully lacking in Destiny 1.
But what exactly is High Moon Studios doing?
The trail leads to Mars – Is the 2nd DLC set there?
In a report from Kotaku in late 2015, it was stated that they had “taken a Mars section along with strikes, raids, and a social space” away from Bungie and handed it over to High Moon Studios. However, the Kotaku report is already two years old.
Back then, it was said that these Mars sections were supposed to be part of the large Comet expansion for Destiny 1, which later became “The Taken King.” However, this plan was scrapped in March 2014.
These game contents on Mars have not yet appeared in Destiny 1 or Destiny 2. However, we know: Nothing is ever discarded in Destiny.
Perhaps High Moon Studios is working on the 2nd DLC for Destiny 2, which will take place on Mars. There is surprisingly a lot to support this.
Is the 2nd DLC of Destiny 2 about Mars and Warmind?
We now know that the 1st DLC will revolve around Osiris and take place on Mercury.
There are some parallels between the 1st DLC and the “Mars game content” that High Moon Studios is likely working on:
- Just as in Destiny 1, Mercury and the character Osiris were underutilized, the same applies to Mars and the Warminds.
- Just as in the original story plan Osiris played a larger role, the same is true for the Mars Warmind Charlemagne. His role was originally intended to be larger, but he completely disappeared from the final game.
- It could also be the case that Charlemagne is crossed or mixed with the role of the Warmind Rasputin. Bungie has always liked to do that (also with the Exo Stranger or Mara Sov’s brother). Rasputin was also meant to play a much bigger role in Destiny originally.
Therefore, there is a lot of evidence that High Moon Studios has been working on this forgotten part of Destiny since 2015 and is reworking it into a DLC for Destiny 2.
This would also correspond to the logo of the Season Pass: Experts saw a hint of a “Warmind” DLC in the 2nd image.
In any case, two interesting questions about the future of Destiny 2 hang in the air:
- Can Activision maintain the content flow this time and provide Destiny 2 with substantial game content?
- And will there be a noticeable difference in quality if game content is no longer primarily developed by Bungie, but by other studios?
Well, it looks like we’ve just figured out what’s in the second DLC of Destiny 2. But that’s still music of the future. More about the current Destiny 2 can be read here:
