Destiny 2 players will have to reinstall the game entirely when Beyond Light launches next week, as Bungie is rolling out a series of engine upgrades alongside the new expansion.
The changes are coming in place of a third Destiny title, as Bungie continues to refine the game.
Destiny 2 Getting Engine Overhaul With Beyond Light
In a blog post from Bungie, Destiny's Engineering Director, David Aldridge explains:
"To support that strategy [of building on Destiny 2], we’ve made several tech investments to help us sustainably evolve the game for years to come, and some of those investments are arriving in Beyond Light."
"Many of these changes are under the hood and won’t affect your experience (except insofar as they help us deliver you more and better Destiny in the future), but some may result in neat improvements, curious behavior differences, or bugs," he warned.
Explaining some of the new tweaks, Aldridge notes that the mission scripting model now runs on the Physics Host instead of the Mission Host, which will mean more "novel mission mechanics".
The changes have caused some bugs in the interim, with Bungie noting that it caused the Prophecy dungeon to go away for the time being. It'll also allow players to team up with friends in the Tower more quickly.
Aldridge also explains that the way content is rolled out and patched will be changing in the coming weeks, but this will require a new fresh download of Destiny 2 and its expansions on all platforms ahead of Beyond Light's launch.
The good news is that, depending on the platform, the game's installation size could shrink by 30 to 40 per cent, and allow fixes to be rolled out more quickly.
Bungie is also adding new customisation options in the future, with changes to the way faces are built in-game. "We’re also building a list of Guardian face shapes we should bring to the game in the future in order to increase Guardian diversity in Destiny, with the long-term goal of enabling everyone to imagine themselves as their Guardian," Aldridge explains.
Finally, some destinations have been relit to offer a visual refresh, namely the EDZ and Nessus. Bungie notes that the "changes are intentional and are meant to bring the visual quality of these spaces up to our current lighting standards, while providing a fresh coat of paint for some of our Year 1 locations."
That's a lot of change, and hopefully, it'll help improve loading times and the like on the console versions of the game.
Beyond Light launches on November 10.