Destiny 2: Shadowkeep
| Destiny 2: Shadowkeep | |
|---|---|
%22%3E%3Ctext%20x%3D%2250%25%22%20y%3D%2250%25%22%20text-anchor%3D%22middle%22%20dominant-baseline%3D%22middle%22%20fill%3D%22%2354595d%22%20font-size%3D%2216%22%20font-family%3D%22sans-serif%22%3EKey%20art%20for%20Destiny%202%3A%20Shadowkeep%3C%2Ftext%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E) Cover art showing the Scarlet Keep fortress on the reprised Moon destination | |
| Developer | Bungie |
| Publisher | Bungie |
| Directors |
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| Composers |
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| Series | Destiny |
| Platforms | |
| Release | October 1, 2019 |
| Genres | Action role-playing, first-person shooter |
| Mode | Multiplayer |
Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is a major expansion for Destiny 2, a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie. Representing the fourth expansion and the third year of extended content for Destiny 2, it was released on October 1, 2019. It was the first major expansion to be published independently by Bungie after acquiring publishing rights for the series from Activision in early 2019, as well as the first to arrive on Steam rather than the Battle.net client which had been used since Destiny 2's launch. On June 4, 2024, the Shadowkeep campaign became free-to-play for all players, with the rest of the expansion's content repackaged as the Shadowkeep Pack.
The expansion returns players to Earth's Moon as a playable destination, with the location reprised and expanded upon from the original version of the first Destiny (2014). The story sees the return of Eris Morn, who had been absent since the events of Destiny 2's original base campaign. Eris seeks the help of the Guardian in defeating "Nightmares" that she accidentally released into the Solar System after interacting with the dormant Pyramid ship beneath the Moon's surface. The Nightmares are manifestations of the Guardian's past, and players face off against previous adversaries, which are being resurrected by the Darkness, the ancient enemy of the Traveler. Throughout the story, Eris and the Guardian work together to figure out the cause of this unleashed madness and do what they can to put a stop to it. Shadowkeep added content for every aspect of the game; including new missions, new Player versus Environment (PvE) locations, Player versus Player (PvP) maps, weapons, armor, exotic gear, a new dungeon, a new raid, as well as further fundamental changes to the core functionality of the game, including a revamped armor system. A second dungeon was added later with Year 3's fourth season.
Alongside Shadowkeep's release, the original Destiny 2 base game was re-released as a free-to-play title called Destiny 2: New Light. At the time, this free-to-play version featured all of the content of the original Destiny 2 base game, as well as the content from the first two expansions, Curse of Osiris and Warmind, among various other PvE and PvP activities—much of this content, however, was removed from the game when Beyond Light released in November 2020. Upon release of Shadowkeep, it and all future expansions and seasonal content (including the previous expansion Forsaken) were viewed as standalone releases, not requiring the purchase of previous premium content; they only required owning the free-to-play New Light. Shadowkeep had four seasonal content offerings for Year 3 of the game: Season of the Undying, which was available alongside Shadowkeep, Season of Dawn in December 2019, Season of the Worthy in March 2020, and Season of Arrivals in June 2020. Unlike the season's from the prior year, which remained in the game until Beyond Light's release, Year 3's seasons were immediately removed from the game upon the conclusion of each season. This was changed in Year 4, wherein the seasons remained in the game for the entire year and were not removed until the release of the subsequent expansion.
The seasons bridged the events of Shadowkeep to the next expansion, Beyond Light. Following Shadowkeep's campaign, Season of the Undying saw the Sol Divisive Vex launch an aggressive invasion of Earth's Moon, with Ikora Rey and the Guardian initiating a counter-offensive, constructing a massive portal in the Tower to hunt down and eliminate the Vex leader—the Undying Mind—across all timelines. In Season of Dawn, the legendary Warlock Osiris enlisted the Guardian's help to protect the Sundial, a time-traveling device on Mercury, as the Red Legion's Psion Flayers attempted to hijack the device to rewrite history and erase the Vanguard's victory in the Red War, while also rescuing Saint-14 from his demise in an alternate timeline, bringing him to the present. Season of the Worthy saw the Cabal Red Legion send their star-destroying superweapon, the Almighty, on a suicide collision course with the Last City, requiring the Guardian to ally with the Warmind Rasputin and Ana Bray to power up its orbital satellite network and destroy the plummeting vessel. In Season of Arrivals, the Black Fleet of the Darkness arrived in the Solar System, positioning Pyramid ships over Io, Titan, Mercury, and Mars; while Eris Morn and the Drifter decoded the Darkness's messages to understand its intentions, the Traveler reawakened, only for the Darkness to consume the destinations.