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While hype is through the proverbial Tower roof for next year’s Destiny 2: The Witch Queen expansion and subsequent seasons, Many players are rather confused about the piecemeal approach Bungie is taking to adding content in Year 5. There’s already a lot of discussion over players losing content that they feel they have paid for thanks to the Destiny Content Vault, and now it seems that in addition to The Witch Queen expansion and Season Passes for each season being paid add-ons, dungeons added in Year 5 will also be separate purchase options.
Bungie Community Manager Cozmo confirmed and clarified the separate dungeon content in a reply to a thread on Reddit:
Hey everyone. We’ve seen some debate around the new dungeon content and wanted to clarify how it will be delivered next year.
If you get the Digital Deluxe Edition of The Witch Queen you will receive the expansion, all four Seasons for the next year, and the two Dungeons. If you get the Standard Edition, you can still upgrade to the Deluxe Edition to get the dungeons later. We will also be offering a separate way for you to purchase the Dungeons in the future, but they will not be included in the Season passes.
We will share more info on this closer to when this content is set to go live.
When The Witch Queen was announced, three (technically four) new product listings went up across various storefronts. The standard edition of The Witch Queen at $39.99 gets players access to The Witch Queen expansion, which includes the campaign, Raid, new destination, weapon crafting, and the other major additions coming with the expansion itself. This does not include the Season Passes for the Year 5 Seasonal content coming with Seasons 16-19, which run $10 each if you buy them one at a time.
Stepping up from that, players can opt for The Witch Queen Deluxe Edition at $79.99. The extra $40 nets you all of the Year 5 Season Passes, plus a bonus of “two Year-5 Dungeons, an Exotic SMG, catalyst, ornament, and an Exotic Sparrow.” This is where some eyebrows were raised and players started asking questions, wondering if the listed Dungeons were simply part of two of the Seasons, or if they were exclusive to this Deluxe Edition. Cozmo’s clarification definitively states that they are not included in the Season Passes nor, as it would seem, part of The Witch Queen expansion itself.
As another step up, Bungie is offering the $99 Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Deluxe + Bungie 30th Anniversary Bundle, which effectively offers all of the Deluxe Edition entitlements and gives a $5 discount on the upcoming 30th Anniversary Bundle coming in December. The 30th Anniversary Pack, which can be purchased separately for $24.99, includes a new Dungeon, Gjallarhorn Exotic Rocket Launcher, new weapons, armor, and “much more.”
The decision to release these dungeons as separate content is a highly unpopular one, especially in light of other disliked monetization decisions that many feel makes Destiny 2 feel piecemeal. Notably following on from the conversations about the Forsaken campaign and Tangled Shore destination leaving the game, there’s some apprehension at paying for individual content players feel Bungie may one day remove from the game (to play Devil’s Advocate, the content removal has only happened years later when Bungie’s data shows few people are playing that content anymore).
Still, it’s rather confusing to have these two Deluxe Edition-exclusive Dungeons. Cozmo promises that there will be ways to upgrade to the Deluxe Edition or buy the Dungeons separately, but it still feels unnecessarily broken apart. Others have pointed out that expansion entitlements don’t carry across platforms despite cross-save and cross-play, causing even more confusion about where one will have access to these Dungeons at. Others are saying they’d prefer the price of the individual Season Passes just moderately increase to cover the expense rather than having all the content so broken apart. Still others are concerned that the mess of content to buy is confusing and overwhelming for new players.
To Bungie’s credit, the two new Dungeons make up an impressive slate of endgame content that will drop a new Dungeon or Raid every three months throughout Year 5, but players are feeling a bit slighted right now with how this was communicated. Bungie offering full and clear transparency on this issue sooner rather than later would go a long way in appeasing Destiny 2 players who are feeling upset and confused at how Year 5 content will be delivered in a “slice and dice” manner.
[Source: Reddit]