Bungie confirms Destiny 2 is done with annual expansions and Episodes – now the MMO will get 2 "medium-sized" expansions plus 4 free updates a year

Destiny 2 is moving away from its longstanding annual expansion model after The Final Shape, Bungie announced in a seismic blog post marking the series' 10-year anniversary and charting its future, and embracing "medium-sized" expansions released twice a year and cut with four annual free updates.

The game is also quickly dropping the three-Act Episode model which has become the epilogue to The Final Shape. Beginning in 2025, a paid Destiny 2 expansion will arrive every six months. Each expansion will start a new season, with the season itself being "available to all players," and free "Major Updates" coming every three months will refresh these seasons and introduce new content of their own. 

Destiny 2's next expansion, Codename: Apollo, is set for summer 2025, after the end of the ongoing Episodes and Acts already teed up. It will launch with a major update codenamed Arsenal, and then fall 2025 will see another major update codenamed Surge. Looking further ahead, expansion Codename: Behemoth is set for winter 2025, with its own two major updates to follow. 

Game director Tyson Green reckons Destiny 2 has "become too rigid," with expansions starting to feel "too formulaic" and "over too quickly with little replay value." Likewise, "seasons and Episodes keep getting bigger but can still feel like you are just going through the motions." Green adds that "it’s time for Destiny to change and evolve," and that starts with the new expansion model breaking some norms.

"We’ve loved creating annual Expansions and are especially proud of The Final Shape," Green writes. "But the truth is that they dominate almost all our development effort. We need to free ourselves up to explore and innovate with how we deliver Destiny 2 content so we can invest in areas of the game that will feel more impactful to players." This notably follows word that, despite critical acclaim, The Final Shape reportedly continued the trend of Destiny 2 expansions selling worse and worse year over year.