Bungie to restore vaulted Destiny 2 content, evolve Marathon
"We chased visions without enough focus on what players loved and that's on us."
Bungie plans to restore previously vaulted Destiny 2 campaigns, destinations, and raids, the company announced in a new update from studio head Poria Torkan and Marathon head of product Josh Deane.
“We chased visions without enough focus on what players loved and that’s on us. We own that,” Torkan said in a video accompanying the announcement. “We’re not asking for your trust. We know we have to earn it.”
The restored content will be made available to all Destiny 2 players. Restoring it will require updates to lighting, encounters, combatants, and other underlying systems to ensure it meets the standards of the current game. More information will be announced in the coming months.
“We’re going to commit to unvaulting the Destiny 2 campaigns, the destinations, the raids that never should have been ripped away to begin with,” Deane said. “They were an essential part of our journey together and definitely a place where we built memories with y’all.”
Bungie also plans to further evolve Marathon. The company acknowledged that it did not reach as many players as it had hoped, and will expand the game beyond its original genre constraints for a “deeper survival experience.”
“We’re going to anchor on what makes Marathon special, but evolve it beyond the genre constraints that we placed on it,” Deane said. “We’re going to expand Marathon into a deeper survival experience that gives players more ways to take on its dangerous alien world.”
Future Marathon updates will include cooperative player-versus-environment, competitive player-versus-player, and player-versus-player-versus-environment gameplay. The Nightfall Refresh in October and Symbiosis update in December are still planned, with more information on the game’s future to be announced later this week.
Here is the full message from Torkan and Deane:
Hey all, Poria and Josh here.
For those who don’t know us, I’m Poria Torkan, Bungie’s Studio Head, and I’m Josh Deane, Head of Product and General Manager of Marathon. Together, we are responsible for leading Bungie and shaping the future of our games.
Today, we want to talk candidly about where Bungie is, where Destiny and Marathon need to go, and how we intend to earn back your trust. This is not only an update on our immediate plans. It is the beginning of a more consistent conversation about the future of our games and our studio.
First and foremost, we recently sat down to talk through the current state of Bungie and share our vision for the future.
The video shares our perspective on where Bungie is today and where we want to go. Below, we’re adding more detail on what that direction means for Destiny, Marathon, and how we intend to communicate about our progress.
Where Bungie is Today
Bungie has been creating games for over 30 years and we have welcomed the communities that have formed around them. Over the last few years, we lost sight of that, and there have been real consequences. We lost trust, we lost incredible colleagues, and we lost sight of what we should be prioritizing most, our players.
As a new leadership team, we must own that.
We aren’t just listening to feedback, we understand your disappointment. We are not asking you to trust what we say today. We know that trust must be earned through the quality of our games, the decisions we make, and how consistently we show up for our players.
Destiny is Foundational to Our Future
Bungie would not be what it is today without Destiny and the vibrant community that has rallied around it for more than a decade. When we announced that Monuments of Triumph would be the final content update to Destiny 2, you responded in force. Your voices mattered, and the way you showed up made a real impact. You reminded everyone how much this world, its history, and its future still mean to you.
Destiny is foundational to Bungie’s future. We have more stories to tell, new worlds to build, but we have to do it right and give our teams the time they need to do justice to this amazing universe.
All of this is to say, we are not done with Destiny.
We want to return Destiny to its original promise, to recapture the qualities that have always made it special. The awe-inspiring mystery, meaningful discovery, and a community of Guardians coming together against impossible odds.
That begins with restoring important parts of Destiny 2‘s history that players can no longer experience today.
We understand that removing these experiences had a lasting impact on player trust and enjoyment of Destiny. Destiny 2 is more than just the content itself. It is a place where players have built memories together, formed lasting friendships, and shared experiences that have stayed with them for years. We cannot change the decision we made, but we can acknowledge its impact and do the work to make it right by restoring these important parts of Destiny’s history.
As we shared in the video, we are beginning the work of bringing vaulted Destiny 2 campaigns, destinations, and raids back into the game, where they will be available to all Destiny 2 players.
Bringing this content back is not as simple as restoring old files. Changes made to Destiny 2 since Beyond Light require us to update lighting, encounters, combatants, and other underlying systems. That work will take time, but it is necessary to ensure returning content meets the stability and gameplay standards of Destiny 2 today.
Our team is very excited to deliver this for you all and as they progress, we will share more details coming in the months ahead.
When we look to the future of Destiny all up this restoration is the first step to lay the foundation for how we reforge into new stories and games that you all deserve. We’ll have more details on our unvaulting efforts in the coming months, and we’re very excited to share more about our vision to celebrate Destiny‘s legacy and build its future with you all as soon as we can.
Marathon‘s Evolution
Marathon is an important part of shaping where Bungie goes next, but it was never intended to replace Destiny. The game launched to strong critical reception, and the players who embraced Marathon connected deeply with what makes it distinct. At the same time, it did not reach as many players as we had hoped, and we also know and understand that the game needs to evolve.
So, we’re going to anchor on what makes Marathon special but evolve it beyond the genre constraints we placed on it. We’re going to expand Marathon to a deeper survival experience, that gives players more ways to take on this dangerous alien world.
Through the remainder of Marathon‘s first year, we will continue strengthening its combat, world, and competitive tension while giving players more agency in how they engage with the game. That means creating meaningful experiences whether you prefer cooperative player-versus-environment, competitive player-versus-player, or the unpredictable tension of Marathon player-versus-player-versus-environment.
It’s important to us that no matter your playstyle, or your skill level…. we find better ways to hear from you as we get back to where we need to be: making games you want to play.
As you heard last week from Del our Game Director, we still have a lot planned for our October Nightfall Refresh and Symbiosis update in December. You’ll hear more from the team later this week on our future vision for Marathon. Stay tuned.
Where Do We Go From Here
This is an important time for Bungie. Our future depends on making clear choices about where we focus, delivering what we say we will, and being honest about our successes and failures. Stability doesn’t mean shrinking our ambition. It just means that we have to focus on the things you want to see from us, and making sure our vision matches our reality.
How we bring this new Bungie to life has to be through the spirit of putting players at the forefront of what we do. We have to find a way back to making games that we want to play, but with you at the center.
Trust won’t be rebuilt through a single blog, video, or release. We also understand that trust extends beyond gameplay. It includes how we value your time, how we communicate, and how we action your feedback. Listening without action means nothing.
As we move forward, we’ll measure ourselves against a few core commitments:
Build a stronger long-term future for Destiny, while honoring and restoring its past. Evolve Marathon to grow our community and build a sustainable future. Increase transparency around development priorities. Communicate more consistently, especially when plans change.
We’ll hold ourselves accountable to these goals and share what we’re learning along the way. We are working with our Community team to establish a consistent way to report against these commitments and will share that approach alongside our next major updates for Destiny and Marathon.
Keep Us Accountable
We’ve made several changes with how we operate by simplifying our priorities, reducing competing initiatives, moving decisions closer to the teams building our games, and changing how we measure success to place greater emphasis on player satisfaction.
None of those changes earn trust on their own. What matters is whether they help us make better decisions, deliver stronger experiences more consistently, and communicate with greater clarity when plans change.
There is still a great deal of work ahead and challenges to overcome, but we believe deeply in this studio, our people, and the games we are building. But belief is not enough. It’s on us to prove progress through what we deliver. Thank you for continuing to challenge us, and for caring so deeply about the worlds we create. Keep holding us accountable. We are ready to do the work.
Watch the video below.