This is an archive of patch notes originally posted on 21 May 2026.

Destiny 2

Destiny 2: Every End is a New Beginning

Posted by Bungie on

For almost twelve years, we have had the joy and honor to explore the Destiny universe with you all. Through all the ups and downs, surprises and triumphs, building Destiny alongside our players has been a monumental privilege. While our love for Destiny 2 has not changed, it has become clear that after The Final Shape, we have reached the time for our shared worlds, and Destiny, to live beyond Destiny 2.

As our focus turns towards a new beginning for Bungie, we will begin work incubating our next games. 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.

Though active development may be concluding, we will ensure that Destiny 2 remains playable, just as the original Destiny is today. Many changes in this final update will aim to ensure that Destiny 2 is a welcoming place for players to return to.

We're proud of Destiny 2, the places it took us, and the legacy it has created. Because of you all, our universe is vast, built on years of shared stories, adventures, and victories. From the Cosmodrome to the Pale Heart to the Lawless Frontier, we have forged life-long memories and friendships with you all.

We are incredibly grateful to everyone who made that journey with us.

From the deepest part of our hearts, thank you, and we'll see you in the stars.


Destiny 2: Monument of Triumph

Destiny 2 Dev Team

Since Destiny 2 launched, Guardians have turned back the Darkness, defeated gods, shattered blades, banished nightmares, outplayed Savathûn at chess, and forged legendary stories across the Sol system.

On June 9, Destiny 2: Monument of Triumph will be available to all players.

We are inviting all Guardians to take part in a celebration of these accomplishments: Legends, Dredgens, Renegades, Conquerors, New Lights — and everyone in between.

Each year since launch, Moments of Triumph celebrated highlights from Destiny 2's most recent chapter. This time, the Monument of Triumph update will broaden that celebration, bringing together experiences from across Destiny 2.

Legendary Marks return from ages of triumph past! Earned by completing a game-wide array of Triumphs, they will grant access to a vast selection of free armor ornaments, accessories, weapon engrams, and more. An additional Title and armor ornament set awaits those who range widely in their deeds, immortalizing your legacy in Destiny 2.

But this update has much more to offer than the Monument itself.

Rediscovering Sol

We've been embracing the mission of making this update feel meaningful, looking back at many of the requests that players have shared with us over the years while finding ways to bring some of them to life.

And now, on June 9, we're aiming to deliver a collection of love letters to players across all activity types within Destiny 2. Although many were intended for future releases, we wanted to make sure you had them in this update.

Our goal is to ensure Destiny 2 can be a place you come back to and feel rewarded no matter what you play, while also having enough variety in activities to fit your mood for a given play session.

Whether you're looking to play competitively, slay a god or two, or just spend some time exploring the destinations... there will be something for you.

Below you'll find a laundry list of features and bullets but expect further blog breakdowns to give a full picture. And of course, a few surprises for you to find on launch day, too.

Story

  • Monument of Triumph will deliver small character beats to leave the story and characters in interesting places, touching on themes across Destiny.
  • We encourage reading and exploring to find all the easter eggs, callbacks, reveals, and love for the lore hounds.

The Return of the Director

  • We have embraced the player feedback about the Director and Portal, and a newly refreshed Director returns to its rightful place as the center of activities in D2.
  • All portal activities are still available via lists in the nodes at the bottom of the Director.

Pantheon 2.0

  • A new Pantheon is coming as a permanent addition with a fresh slate of bosses to challenge and overcome.
    • June 9: The first slate of bosses becomes available, with two activities each featuring a unique roster of bosses.
    • June 13: What we're calling the gauntlet, the full line-up of boss encounters in a single activity.
    • June 16: Encounter rotations begin; players can attempt featured single boss encounters for rewards.

Raid and Dungeon Loot Updates

  • All raid and dungeon weapons and armor have been revisited to bring them to modern standards, with full Tier parity, set bonuses, new perks, and more.
    • Crafted weapons will have an upgrade path for Tiers 1-5, with more information coming in a future article.
  • Weekly Featured Raids and Dungeons return, giving players additional opportunities for high-tiered rewards each week.
  • We have all the details and specifics planned for an upcoming TWID.

Destinations: A trip down memory lane

  • Destination weapons and armor have also been revisited to bring them to modern standards, with full Tier parity, set bonuses, new perks, and more.
  • Some destinations will have Distortions, a new addition to bring more variety and a touch more challenge to your time planetside.
    • Distortions also bring unique rewards to earn for participating, beyond your slate of destination drops.

Sandbox: New Abilities and Ability Updates

  • New Aspects
    • Solar Hunter: Crackshot
    • Void Warlock: Soul Siphon
    • Solar Titan: Shieldburst
  • New Hunter Melee
    • Void Hunter: Phantom Surge
  • New Grenades
    • All Classes: Strand Slicewire Grenade
    • All Classes Stasis Shatter Grenade
  • Class Specific Abilities
    • Warlock, Titan, and Hunter are all getting some new love. Mindspun will interact with Threadling Grenade, Ward of Dawn is getting a complete rework, Trapper's Ambush has new capabilities, and more.

Sandbox: Elevating Exotics

  • All Exotic armors earned since The Edge of Fate launched will be automatically upgraded to have Tier 5 stats.
  • We've made some changes to a handful of Exotic armors.
    • As an example, what if Warlocks could throw two Nova Bombs in quick succession to create an even larger explosion?
    • More on this in a future TWID!
  • Various Exotic weapons will receive a tuning pass, and many will be receiving Catalysts.

Portal Overhaul

  • All Portal activities are still available to players via the portal nodes at the bottom of the Director.
  • We've taken a deep pass on the Portal's difficulty system to ensure players can approach the ops categories and have fun with Destiny 2 while still being rewarded.
    • We want to remove choice paralysis; players should be able to sign in and find the fun quickly rather than being mired in stacking as many difficulty modifiers as possible to earn desirable rewards.
  • We are expanding our weapon offerings within portal activities; each experience (Solo ops, Fireteam Ops, Arena Ops, Pinnacle Ops, Crucible Ops, Gambit Ops) will offer a different pool to earn.
    • We're also updating armors across the Portal, with new art and new set bonuses (and some reprisals, too), while adding an exclusive armor to Competitive Crucible.
  • Onslaught and Crawls (Contest of Elders, and The Coil) have received balance passes on difficulty and length.
    • All three activities will once again feature escalating difficulty over time, rather than starting at the highest difficulty from the start.
    • Onslaught has been rebalanced to remove revive tokens and get you more scrap more often to bring back the feeling of building up defenses over time.
      • “Shaxxmaxxing” has returned.
      • A few weapons will also be making a return, only available through Onslaught...
    • Contest of Elders has been reduced from four laps down to three to help the activity flow better.

Crucible Playlists, Private Matches, and Balance

  • We have three new game modes coming to the Crucible: one entering our playlist rotation and two more available via private matches.
    • Playlist - Arena: Gunplay-centric with some old school Bungie PvP vibes.
    • Private Matches – Glass Cannon: A throwback to Destiny 1 balancing.
    • Private Matches – Software: Third-Person Abilities Only – Think Mayhem, but a little more wild.
  • Iron Banner will run every four weeks, and Trials will appear on non-Iron Banner weekends. Both game modes feature tiered loot and new armor sets to earn.
  • Heavy Metal returns with a third vehicle type, The Cabal Walker, a brand-new map, mixed vehicle combat and vehicle selection.
  • A full suite of Competitive Crucible weapons will become tiered and, as mentioned above, a unique armor set has been added to incentivize more competitive play.

Gambit Ops

  • Gambit is being upgraded to an Ops category and receiving a rewards refresh.
    • New armor to earn with a unique set bonus.
    • We're reprising iconic Gambit weapons as tiered gear with new perks to earn.

Seasonal Events

  • Seasonal events are being retired.
    • A collection of weapon Rewards for Festival of the Lost, The Dawning, Guardian Games, and Solstice can be earned through engrams on a Monument of Triumph vendor.
    • Armor ornament sets previously available for Bright Dust will be available, not only through direct exchange, but also through Bright Engram Focusing (more on that below).

Eververse

  • Silver & Bright Dust
    • Bright Dust will continue to be an earnable currency through gameplay objectives, and we have expanded the offering of cosmetics that can be acquired with this currency.
    • Silver will continue to be available for players to purchase and exchange for various items in the Eververse.
  • Bright Dust rotation is being changed from weekly to daily, giving players more opportunities to exchange this earned currency for the cosmetics they desire.
  • We've added a Focusing system for your Bright Engrams.
    • Using an Engram and some Bright Dust, you can select from an array of Engrams that guarantee the item category result and do not produce duplicates, gradually filling out your collection.

Rewards Pass

  • The Monument of Triumph update brings an updated rewards pass (what was originally planned for Shadow and Order), featuring a new Exotic Hand Cannon, Armor Ornaments, and more.
  • We have increased the number of cosmetic rewards on the pass as well, including multiple Armor Ornament sets, ghosts, shaders, and more.
    • Yes, we said and more twice – look, we put a lot of extras on this thing.
    • We hope you enjoy it!

Armor Ornaments: True Exotic Armor Transmog

  • Starting June 9, players may apply common/uncommon/rare/legendary armor ornaments to their Exotic armors, visible in PvE environments!

Destiny 2: The Collection

  • We are bundling all Destiny 2 content packs into a singular purchase, available on June 9.
    • This includes campaigns, Dungeon Keys, the 30th Anniversary Pack, and more.
  • Individual content packs and expansions will also receive permanent markdowns in June.

One more thing… Sparrow Racing League Returns!

  • Sparrow Racing League (SRL) returns as a permanent addition, reopening tracks from the original Destiny experience and adding a new space to race opponents on.
  • We've created a new, unique weapon set to earn by competing in races.
  • Armor sets return with a new set bonus, and numerous cosmetics (including horns) will be available to earn.

We'll have a full breakdown of SRL in the coming weeks, previewing the upcoming feature.


TWIDs and Developer Insights Through Launch

Each week through launch, we'll be diving a bit deeper into each subject through a mix of Developer Insight articles and This Week in Destiny updates. We're spreading things out just a bit to avoid massive walls of text and information overload – while giving our teams some time for last-minute tuning and testing passes.

First on our list will be a deeper dive into the return of the Director, how we're updating activities across the game, and how we're updating SRL for Destiny 2. This will be followed by a full week of articles dedicated to our weapons sandbox, raid and dungeon updates, and then a week dedicated to armor updates and abilities.

After launch, the TWID will continue for a few weeks to keep you informed on any immediate Monument of Triumph news. Once we're through our launch window, our weekly blog entries will be entering a form of hibernation as well. This won't be the end of communications from us by any means; we'll still be keeping in touch with you and sharing community highlights through our website, social media channels, Discord, and other outlets.

Once we have more news to share on Destiny, you'll be the first to know.


Thank You

Destiny 2 has been our home for many, many years. The unknown can sometimes feel wild, even a bit scary at times, but these opportunities to explore the future are invigorating. As we look ahead, our commitment remains the same: to make games we, and you, are excited to play.

From all of us here at Bungie, we cannot thank you enough for joining us on this journey throughout the Sol system. You'll still find us starside for years to come.

Per Audacia Ad Astra