Everything you need to know about Destiny 2: Beyond Light

During a Destiny 2 presentation on June 9, Bungie offered a look at everything coming to the sci-fi MMO shooter over the next few years. While the game's next season, the Season of Arrivals began that same day, Game Director Luke Smith and General Manager Mark Noseworthy also dropped some major bombshells about the next big expansion called Destiny 2: Beyond Light.

For those of you looking to hop back into the game once the new expansion rolls around, we've rounded up everything you may want to know about Destiny 2: Beyond Light.

When is the Destiny 2: Beyond Light release date?

Like previous expansions to Bungie's sci-fi MMO shooter, Beyond Light was supposed to be released in September. Sadly, Bungie delayed the expansion's launch to November 10, 2020, in July. "As the first chapter in a new trilogy of expansions, Beyond Light is the beginning of a new era of Destiny 2," the post revealing the delay explains.

"We have a powerful story to tell and incredible new features that we're really excited for players to experience," it reads. "As always, our goal is to make the coolest, most entertaining expansion we can possibly make for our fans. To that end, we are doing what’s best for the game and moving the launch date." Because of this delay, the current Season of Arrivals will run until November 10 instead of September 22.

What is the story of Destiny 2: Beyond Light?

Beyond Light is an important expansion for the game as it's the start of a new "era of Darkness" for Destiny 2. A new story that plays out over the next couple of expansions is poised to begin here. The main new location of the expansion is Europa, a moon of Jupiter that's home to one of the mysterious Pyramid ships that have been making their way into Destiny 2. The Stranger also makes her triumphant return in Beyond Light, appearing alongside Eris Morn and The Drifter in the teaser trailer.

"A new power is born out of the ancient Pyramid ship above Europa's frozen frontier, and a dark empire has risen beneath, united under the banner of the Fallen Kell of Darkness, Eramis," the description for the expansion explains. "Join your fellow Guardians and bring down the empire at any cost — even if it means wielding the Darkness itself."

A revelatory part of the Beyond Light experience is the introduction of new Darkness-based subclasses for each of the three core classes.

What are Destiny 2: Beyond Light's new gameplay features?

The most drastic gameplay shift coming in Beyond Light is a new damage type called Stasis. While we don't know how exactly this new damage type will function yet, a new gameplay trailer did give us a brief look at the Darkness-fueled damage type in action. It will surely cause some big shifts with the game's meta and how players deal with combat encounters, so it's definitely the main new gameplay feature to look out for. Luke Smith noted that this was the "first" Darkness-based damage type, implying that more might be coming.

Bungie will be rethinking how seasons function following the launch of Destiny 2: Beyond Light. While Bungie didn't go into too much detail about this, the game director did confirm that next year's seasons will get rid of the FOMO (fear of missing out) that current Destiny 2 seasons have.

From an even broader perspective, Destiny 2: Beyond Light will be the start of Bungie phasing out older Destiny 2 content and putting it into a Vault that'll allow them to keep the overall file size for the game as low as possible. Bungie will remove the least-played parts of the game, though the developers can go back to and rework older content that was phased out on a rolling basis.

Will Destiny 2: Beyond Light be on PS5 and Xbox One?

Destiny 2 is currently available for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Google Stadia. Bungie plans on supporting all of these platforms for the foreseeable future, but there are also plans to include PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X when they launch later this year.

Player progress will carry over to these new versions of the game as well, so you don't have to worry about losing anything when making the jump to next-gen.

Will Destiny 2: Beyond Light support cross-play and Smart Delivery?

With the jump to next-gen, players will also be wondering how they will be able to play on the next-generation of platforms. As mentioned, your progress will carry over to the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of Destiny 2, so you won't be at a disadvantage when starting on a new console. You also won't have to pay for these new versions either. On Xbox Series X, all Destiny 2 Xbox One players will get the next-gen version free-of-charge.

While Sony isn't touting Smart Delivery as a PS5 feature, Bungie did confirm that PS4 players will also get the PS5 version of Destiny 2 for free. As for cross-play, Bungie confirmed that Destiny 2: Beyond Light will feature intergenerational cross-play.

There is one major caveat though, and that's the fact that Xbox Series X players will only be compatible with people on Xbox One, while PS5 players will only be grouped with PS4 players. Still, it's likely that the people you already play Destiny 2 will stay with Xbox or PlayStation. If that's not the case for you, keep in mind that Bungie plans to implement cross-play across all six platforms sometime in 2021. That's not the only thing coming in 2021 either.

What are the 2021 and 2022 Destiny 2 expansions?

While Destiny 2: Beyond Light was the focus on the June 9 presentation, Bungie did tease the expansions that will come to the game in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, we will get Destiny 2: The Witch Queen and then Destiny 2: Lightfall in 2022. The delay of Beyond Light does not seem to have impacted the release windows of those expansions.

Details on these expansions are purposefully scarce, but Bungie confirmed that these expansions will introduce new locations and more to the game. Beyond Light, The Witch Queen, and Lightfall will all be a part of Destiny 2's "era of darkness" so expect the events first set up in Beyond Light to finally come to head in Lightfall.

Right now, Bungie doesn't seem keen on leaving Destiny 2 players behind for a Destiny 3, so take solace in the fact that there are at least three more years of support for the game left.

Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Google Stadia and is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X.