Bungie tweaks expansion-locked Destiny 2 modes in wake of player criticism

Bungie is in the process of reworking Destiny 2's endgame content after facing player criticism for locking existing modes behind the game's first expansion, Curse of Osiris. 

The company offered a detailed breakdown of the issues and their respective fixes in a recent blog post. The post itself offers developers a look at some of the potential complications that can arise when both running and introducing new content into an online game while at the same time offering a nice dose of transparency for players that might still be upset over the game's last big controversy. 

In the post, Bungie explains that it had originally decided to lock certain postgame modes that launched with the original Destiny 2 behind each of the game's new expansions as they released in a bid to keep certain modes competitive as new level caps and PvP maps entered the fold.

Now, following community feedback, Bungie is lifting the restrictions that would have otherwise required players to pick up the Curse of Osiris expansion to participate in certain cooperative and competitive multiplayer game modes. 

"With Curse of Osiris now live, it’s clear that we’ve made some mistakes with how we have handled content access," explains the post. "In Destiny 1, as your character grew more powerful throughout each expansion, some of our best content, like Vault of Glass, was left behind and lost its relevance for players. We wanted a better solution for Destiny 2, where all of our Endgame activities could stay relevant as each expansion causes your Guardian to grow more and more powerful."

While the developer's intent was to keep vanilla Destiny 2 content from fading into obscurity after expansion releases, the result instead was players losing access to content that had released alongside Destiny 2 if they opted not to immediately purchase expansion packs.

Bungie says that, following today's hotfix, certain affected game modes like the prestige raid, Trials of the Nine, nightfall, Iron Banner, faction rally, and Dawning modes and events will once again be open to all players and only locked behind DLC ownership if an expansion-specific map is included in the activity's weekly rotation, similar to how content was handled in Destiny 1.

It's also worth noting that this isn't the first time Bungie has had to introduce significant alterations to Destiny 2 following fan outcry. Just weeks ago, the company had to retool its experience point system after players discovered a secret mechanic that was misrepresenting experience gains.

Following that, Bungie laid out a roadmap for changes coming to Destiny 2 and promised more transparency that detailed how the company handles individual fixes and offered developers a peek at what goes into implementing even small changes in a live game like Destiny 2.