I keep thinking surely this will be the last time I write about Destiny 2.
I have told this story enough times that it if you have any history with this site, you already know exactly what I’m going to say, but I got my gig here at Black Nerd Problems as the quote unquote Filipino-American correspondent because I played Destiny with our editor-in-chief, Will Evans. This was right at the transition time between Destiny and Destiny 2, and over the years, I played many a Nightfall and Raid with the team and wrote many an article.
God, there are so many articles. Anissa’s What Your Favorite Weapons Says About You? It’s been on best-of lists, Top 5: Dead or Alive, had frequent cameo on the now-on-permanent hiatus of This Week in Nerd News as a trivia of “how many hours does Mikkel have now”, and many a conversation of whether or not this will be the thing that will kill the franchise or conversely whether or not this will be the thing that save the franchise. It is unfortunate that digital archival work is cumbersome that I’m not readily able to make a list of everything single bit of coverage, but even skimming through the nostalgic Corridors of Time from not even two years ago when The Final Shape concluded the Light & Dark Saga as we knew it, there was a sense of perpetuity, of permanence.
I suppose the reality spoke for itself though. After the Final Shape, after defeating the Witness, after a decade, there wasn’t much left to do. Inertia kept me the dredges of the BlvckJvck clan playing through the Episode: Echoes/Revenant/Heresy codas and by the end of it all, we all came to the same realization: we had done the things. The Edge of Fate may have been on the horizon, but we would not be making our way to Keplar. The off ramp was obvious between the overhaul of fundamental systems and the simple fact that we had been playing functionally the same game since 2014. I say “functionally the same game,” as though the gunplay, moment to moment gameplay, and buildcrafting weren’t some of the more utterly thrilling I’ve experienced as a gamer. Solo-ing dungeons, completing Raid seals, playing enough Gambit to confuse the ever-loving hell of four different groups of friends.
There was precious little left to add as a journalist. There were a couple things left as a fan: a recount of the last day I logged in, a fanfic giving my fictitious Titan some sort of closure.
And of course, the Destiny 2 tricorn shaped hole in my life would be filled by other things and games over time. I’d still follow the same creators I’d subscribed to back in the day, keep tabs on the universe, watch recaps, and lore. Part of me wanted a reason to come back. Part of me knew I was better off leaving it in the past. But it was always supposed to be there y’know? Even if the new systems were janky. Even if the inexplicable Star Wars crossover felt like the continual Fortnite-ification of yet another live service game. Destiny had survived for a reason. It was the singular game as a service game that managed to endure. Through sunsetting, through the Destiny Content Vault controversy, through XP throttling, balance passes that did not adequately shape the meta, poor communications, and delays.
And the death knell.
“To that end, on June 9, 2026, we will release the final live-service content update for Destiny 2 to begin that new journey as a studio.”
I quite literally hung up my jersey when I quit last year.
It was not a financially smart decision. But between my 3 tattoos and countless memorabilia accrued over a decade plus, hanging up the jersey felt like the right thing to do. I uninstalled the game from both my laptop and PS5. I laughed thinking about the brief stint in time I played on Stadia. I went about life thinking surely the game will be there if I ever want to go back.
And in a sense, the game will be there if/when I want to go back. But a game in perpetual stasis, with an unfinished story, a slight asymmetry between light and dark, with nothing new to chase and no further aspirational, is not the Destiny I knew or loved.
When the news broke, former Guardians came out of the woodworks to mourn with me. I got asked “would I come back for Moments of Triumph? Would you play a Destiny 3 if ever came out?” And I sat with my thoughts.
This was a franchise that captured my imagination and attention for over 10,000 hours. It was a franchise characterized by unforced error after unforced error, and some of the most brilliant moments of gaming I have ever experienced. Beautiful music and scenery. An exhilaration of power that made me an FPS fanatic for a much longer time than I ever expected.
But as the Moments of Triumphs begin, I will not be amongst the returning Guardians…at least not immediately. I think I got to make a full year without touching the game. I think there’s not much left for me but nostalgia. And if/when I do return, it still won’t be the game I dedicated myself to. It’d be a damn fine approximation as far as I can tell, but in all of this, the loss of Destiny 2 is just proof that you cannot always go back home.
And I think that’s okay.
Cover image via Steam Community
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