Bungie Delays Major Destiny 2 Update by Three Months to Focus on ‘Quality-of Life Updates’

The next major Destiny 2 update, Shadow and Order, has been delayed by three months, until June 2026.

In a series of messages posted to Bluesky, developer Bungie admitted the expansion was “undergoing large revisions,” and “will be delayed” from its original March release.

“This update is being changed and expanded to include sizable quality-of-life updates and as a result, will also be renamed. This update will now launch on June 9, 2026,” the studio said. “We will provide exact details closer to release covering previously announced Weapon Tier Upgrading, but also additions like expanding Tiered Gear to all Raid and Dungeon activities, Pantheon 2.0, Tier 5 stats for Exotic Armors, and more.”

The studio is, of course, preoccupied getting Marathon out of the door after last week’s State of Play reaffirmed its March 5 release date. Nonetheless, the delay intimates the studio may be struggling to juggle everything on its plate, particularly as it alludes to “sizeable quality-of-life updates.”

“Through June, we will continue to have routine bug fixes and stability improvements, continued portal modifiers, Guardian Games (March), and the return of a more frequent Iron Banner cadence (April),” Bungie added. “In terms of communications, we will be focusing on providing you with updates about our live game content, community activations, and general upkeep through the TWID and our Destiny social channels.”

The statement closed on thanking players for their “continued patience and support,” and said there’ll be more information on the next major update and future plans for Destiny 2 “closer to launch.”

“Raids and dungeons getting tiers and pantheon 2.0 is great, but will there even be anyone left playing by then?” asked one player on the Destiny 2 subreddit. “I still log on every week and play a little bit, but nobody can deny that renegades was not meant to last six months.”

“Not to be a total downer, but that really gives me age of triumph ‘final update’ style vibes of making all the endgame viable,” added another fan. “Not to mention this is just a major update in the end. It isn’t gonna have expansion level content, but its now releasing right around when the next expansion was supposed to, which I assume is also delayed at least three months. Even with way more content in this update, renegades being the expansion for nine months at least now is very bad.”

“Until June is rough. The population is going to be absolutely dire by then…,” one player commented, to which someone replied: “Dire[?] It’s dire right now. Falling off a cliff.”

At the time of writing (when, admittedly, much of the U.S. is asleep), there are 10,463 players online right now on Steam. Once Human, eFootball, and single-player Hollow Knight: Silksong all have higher concurrent counts.

It’s undoubtedly a tough time for Bungie and Destiny 2, with parent company Sony recently saying the studio has failed to meet its sales and user engagement expectations. In its latest financial report, Sony said it had recorded a 31.5 billion yen (approx. $204.2 million) impairment charge as a result of Destiny 2’s underperformance. That was significant enough to drag down profits at Sony’s Game & Network Services Segment, which includes Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Following the launch of The Edge of Fate expansion in July, Destiny 2 saw a slump in player activity, and Bungie’s team is feeling the pressure. “For years now, Destiny has been on this steady hardening of the core [audience],” game director Tyson Green told IGN back in November. “More and more core players are staying and playing the game, but relatively few [new] people come into the game. There’s a tightening and contraction, and this presents problems for a game that you’re trying to maintain as a live service, especially when you want to keep serving those core players with great, compelling expansions.”

Vikki Blake is a reporter for IGN, as well as a critic, columnist, and consultant with 15+ years experience working with some of the world’s biggest gaming sites and publications. She’s also a Guardian, Spartan, Silent Hillian, Legend, and perpetually High Chaos. Find her at BlueSky.