Destiny 2's The Final Shape And The 'Avengers Endgame' Problem

There have been a million rumors about all aspects of the MCU as of late, with one recent one being reports about the Avengers reassembling, meant to include the likes of Sam Wilson Captain America, Hulk, She-Hulk, Shang-Chi, even Moon Knight. But the idea is pervaisive, that despite some good moments, things have never been quite the same with the MCU since Avengers Endgame wrapped up essentially a decade-long story.

The Marvels, Eternals, Black Widow, Quantumania and Shang-Chi all rank in the bottom of Marvel's box office totals compared to past installments. There are a few exceptions, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 did well. Wakanda Forever. Multiverse of Madness. A huge standout is Spider-Man: No Way Home. But between a lot of underperforming entries and the huge shift to often-not-widely-watched Disney Plus series, it's been a different era entirely.

Quantumania

Destiny 2. I imagine you know where I'm going with this. Destiny 2 is about to wrap up its ten year Light and Darkness saga in The Final Shape, which will represent a final showdown between The Witness and The Traveler with player Guardians making the difference in the fight.

We know that immediately after that finale, Bungie will launch into Destiny 2's first "episode" of 2024, which is what the series is moving to. These are three disconnected stories that will take place in the aftermath of The Final Shape, but after that, there is no clear picture of where Destiny goes from here, even if we have been promised it is continuing on in some form.

The issue here is that for many players, this may feel like a hard "Avengers assemble" ending for the series, something they may return to in order to see the end of, but after that, they drift away. The problem? Bungie is not Marvel, and they badly need player retention to consistently generate live revenue and build bridges to their future projects like Marathon.

The issue is simply the nature of the release itself. The Final Shape can be great, and I worry they may not be able to avoid this problem anyway. Bungie has been making great content for most of the past year in particular, building incredible new activities, story beats and wild new things like an entirely new enemy race and an element-bending subclass just to give people more of a reason to buy The Final Shape. It's really excellent.

Destiny 2

But Bungie has to avoid the narrative that this is a true finale. Granted they couldn't extend the Light and Darkness storyline forever, but I'm not sure if moving to disconnected episodes rather than starting a firm new storyline is the play.

It's a challenge, both narratively and for a playercount and revenue perspective when we know Bungie has found themselves in hot water in that department this past year despite overwhelmingly good content (once Lightfall ended, anyway).

We will know more about the future of series right after The Final Shape, I imagine, but it's going to be a tough hill to climb, that's for sure. However, Marvel has the Fantastic Four and the X-Men coming, and I wonder what might be Destiny's equivalent of that...

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