Destiny 2’s Open Access Extends an Olive Branch That Shouldn’t Be Taken Away

Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate launches in less than a week, and Bungie has been keen to get disengaged players back on board for the next saga. One of these ways is Destiny 2 Open Access, which makes all the game’s vast library of expansion content free to play until July 22, and the rewards free to keep.

After a large portion of the player base left the game following the Light and Darkness Saga concluding in The Final Shape, Bungie has been radically reshaping its systems in an attempt to streamline the experience. Open Access is extending an olive branch to win over old and new players alike, but its expiration date shows that Bungie hasn’t learned a key lesson about Destiny 2.

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Destiny 2 Edge of Fate Announces Big Changes to Vendors and Inventory

Bungie confirms that Tower vendors in Destiny 2 are seeing major changes within The Edge of Fate, including the weekend exotic merchant Xur.

Destiny 2 Open Access Needs to Stay if Bungie Seriously Wants to Attract New Players

While Open Access is a fine gesture by Bungie, it feels like too little, too late. The game has an absolute mountain of content, to the point that Destiny 2 sunset half its content, allegedly due to engine limitations. Even after this, there are multiple destinations left, dozens of activities, and thousands of individual pieces of gear to chase. Players could go through its legacy expansions for hundreds of hours and still not get everything the game has to offer, so having a few weeks to explore three enormous expansions isn’t a lot of time. But that isn’t even the crux of the issue.

Bungie’s Refusal to Make Older Content Permanently Free Is Hurting Destiny 2

Destiny 2 has a problem onboarding new players, and Open Access is not a good enough solution to this. One of the reasons for this is that new players are frequently overwhelmed by the amount of DLC on sale. For a player who has been with the franchise for a decade, it’s pretty easy to follow, and buying one expansion a year makes sense. For a new player, though, there is very little information about what is still relevant or necessary. Until last year, Shadowkeep as a full expansion was still on sale despite offering little of value in the current sandbox.

This is exacerbated when one useful weapon is locked behind a legacy expansion, as new players are railroaded into paying for a whole DLC just to get the one exotic they want. They can now play some older content, but quite often, there aren’t good reasons to do so, as the loot from these activities isn’t up to par anymore. Bungie tried to simplify this by turning older expansions into packs, which are cheaper versions of what came before that gave content out more generously. But packs show just how unwilling Bungie is to make a serious attempt at onboarding players, as the cost of entry is another barrier, and the value is hard for a new player to judge. If anything, the controversial Destiny 2 Starter Pack showed there was a will to squeeze value out of new players, a move so hated that the content was delisted.

Destiny 2’s Legacy Collection was a step in the right direction, but arguably did not go far enough.

Destiny 2 has had this problem for years, and limited-time expansion access won’t be enough to get people back into one of the most enduring live-service games ever. If expansions were made free a year or two after release, it would be far less difficult to get new and returning players into Destiny 2, and currently engaged players would have more people to play with. Bungie makes most of its money from new releases and Eververse; losing some up-front legacy sales might bring in less money this quarter, but it should minimize how many players get turned away at the door by the price of admission.