itself, sharing that certain modes would not have been funded without support from the Eververse store.As explained by the “Destiny Dev Team” in a Bungie blog post, discussions around changing the strategy for microtransactions came up often last year.
“As some folks have smartly pointed out, MTX is a big part of our business being a live game,” the post reads. “I’m not going to say ‘MTX funds the studio’ or ‘pays for projects like Shadowkeep’ — it doesn’t wholly fund either of those things. But it does help fund ongoing development of Destiny 2, and allows us to fund creative efforts we otherwise couldn’t afford.”
An example pointed to the Zero Hour mission becoming a reality due to funds from Whisper of the Worm’s ornaments.
Creative Lead on both the Whisper and Zero Hour, Rob Adams, told Game Informer (via PCGames) this past spring that Zero Hour was in development for approximately seven months, where as Whisper took only four months and had a smaller development team.
Eververse Store Changes
Bungie outlined various changes the storefront will see with the Shadowkeep update that has been delayed two weeks from the previous release date, to October 1. The store will move to the Director so players won’t have to head back to see Tess at the Tower every time they want to purchase something or check in on their Bright Engrams and Silver.
Class-specific content will be available in the store’s subpages – for example, if you are looking for a specific style of Hunter armor ornaments, you will find it on a page specified to Hunters. Silver prices will also be reduced for those who have purchased or acquired parts of a set, as Bungie said as an example, “if you are 3/5 Optimacy set on your Titan, the cost to finish the set in Silver will be reduced by 60%.”
Cosmetics & Gameplay Separation
In terms of cosmetic items and why they generally do not come from in-game events, Bungie said they have made an intentional choice to keep them separate.
“Gameplay rewards are where you get items, power, mods, perk combinations, stats, triumphs, and titles. The aesthetics for armor blurs the line some – we want players to get cool armor from activities and the world that feel thematic to where they were acquired. Cosmetic items like universal ornaments, weapon ornaments, shaders, ships, sparrows, emotes, and finishers typically come from the store (There are exceptions, but generally speaking, that’s how we think about this),” the post reads.
Bungie made the huge decision in January to split from their publisher, Activision, and Bungie now owns the publishing rights to the Destiny franchise.
In June, Bungie announced major changes for Destiny 2, including its official adoption of the term, “MMO” which will allow players more opportunities for new content – including the free-to-play base game, New Light. A new expansion, Shadowkeep, was also announced, which will let players return to the Moon to defeat enemies.
Additionally, Destiny 2 will be one of over 20 games on Google Stadia at launch and will allow cross saves across any platform. For more on Destiny 2, check out the Shadowkeep Collectors Edition which is currently available for preorder.
Jessie Wade is the Hunter Homepage Editor at IGN and loves Destiny 2 more than many other games. Chat with her on Twitter @jessieannwade.
