Bungie’s Luke Smith stopped by Twitch’s talk show The Weekly Thursday afternoon to chat briefly about Destiny 2: Beyond Light. The game director discussed the studio’s vision for Europa, teased some new features coming to Destiny, and answered some viewer questions about the new expansion.
Smith recalled that Europa was envisioned in one of the first pieces of concept art for Destiny; there’s an image of Fallen trudging through the snow in the 2014 art book. He also said it was a deliberate choice for Beyond Light to return to elements of the first game’s original vision.
The Darkness is coming back
During a press conference held at Bungie in 2013, Europa was named as one of the destinations players would visit in the original Destiny campaign. That same event teased “giant obsidian pyramid ships.”
All these years later, of course, those pyramid ships have finally arrived in Destiny’s solar system. In Beyond Light, we’ll seek to understand them a little better.
“Europa was a human colony, but we abandoned it when the invaders struck, and now our structures are lost beneath the ice. Jupiter fills the skybox in dramatic fashion, one of many such spectacular views designed by skybox artist Mark Goldsworthy,” a 2013 issue of Edge magazine explains.
“And like every map in the game, Europa is subject to daylight, darkness, and the ravages of a persistent weather system.”
That very same notion of harsh weather became a unifying focus for Bungie during the development of Beyond Light, Smith said during Thursday’s broadcast. When people think about Europa, the team wants people to remember the ice, snow, and wind.
Beyond Light size: How big is it?
In response to a question about the size of the year-four expansion, Smith said, “Size-wise, I think the common comparison people want to make is to something like Forsaken.” That expansion, by contrast, was co-developed in partnership with Activision’s High Moon Studios.
“It’s not as big as Forsaken; we are one team working from home,” Smith explained. “But it’s definitely bigger than Shadowkeep.”
It’s unlikely, he said, that Bungie will ever deliver something on the scope of Forsaken again in the wake of its split from Activision.
As for what else we can expect from Beyond Light, it sounds like there’ll be plenty of fresh items to earn. “We are definitely refreshing the armor this fall. Strikes, Gambit, and Crucible are all going to get new [gear] for players to chase.”
One big piece of news is that Destiny 2’s new “transmog” system will let you draw from legendaries you’ve already unlocked — regardless of what you’ve dismantled to make space in your vault.
“What we’re doing with transmog is you’re not going to have to have a copy in your inventory,” he said. “You can just delete all that shit.”
If you’re wondering about the new raid, Smith’s keeping quiet on that one for the time being. “I’m not gonna say shit about what’s in the Deep Stone Crypt,” he said.
“It’s a pretty awesome raid.”
Beyond Light goes live on November 10, with additional “Season of the Hunt” content following a week later, on November 17.