70 Fun Facts About Destiny 2

In what year was the original Destiny released for PlayStation and Xbox consoles?

It launched on September 9 for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One at once, and was the developer's first new console franchise in over a decade.

Destiny was Bungie's first new console franchise since which series?

Bungie built its own Tiger Engine for Destiny, but that engine was itself based on the one used for most Halo games.

How long was the publishing agreement Bungie signed with Activision in 2010?

The deal did not run its full course: Bungie announced it was ending the partnership and taking over Destiny publishing in January 2019.

In which year did Bungie announce it was splitting from Activision to self-publish Destiny?

Shadowkeep, released that October, became the first expansion Bungie published on its own.

How much did Sony Interactive Entertainment pay to acquire Bungie in 2022?

Sony expected at least $1.2 billion of that sum to go toward retaining Bungie's existing employees, and the studio remained multi-platform.

Which company acquired Bungie in 2000, making Halo a launch title for its new console?

Bungie went independent again in October 2007, but Microsoft kept the Halo intellectual property.

In which US city was Bungie originally based?

Founder Alex Seropian met programmer Jason Jones in an artificial intelligence course at the University of Chicago; the studio is now in Bellevue, Washington.

Which actor originally voiced the player's Ghost in the 2014 base game?

His restrained delivery drew heavy criticism after the alpha, and Bungie later sold a charity shirt poking fun at his most infamous line.

Who replaced the original Ghost actor for The Taken King and re-recorded all of Ghost's earlier lines?

He said he deliberately avoided listening to the old recordings so no preconceived notions would shape his performance.

According to a much-mocked line from Destiny's alpha test, where did "that wizard" come from?

Bungie revised Ghost's dialogue for the beta and again before release, but the line lived on as a community meme.

Which actor voiced Cayde-6 for the majority of the character's appearances?

The developer gifted him a commemorative prop of the character's signature hand cannon; he had earlier voiced roles in several of the studio's previous games.

Which actor voiced Commander Zavala from Destiny's launch until his death in 2023?

He also gave his voice and likeness to Sylens in the Horizon games and Martin Hatch in Quantum Break.

After Reddick's death, who took over as the voice of Zavala for The Final Shape?

The recast came only months before the expansion shipped in June 2024, and he stayed on for later content.

Which actress voices Ikora Rey, one of the three Vanguard leaders?

The same original cast list has Lauren Cohan as the Exo Stranger and Claudia Black as Eververse vendor Tess Everis.

Which British actor voiced the Speaker, the Traveler's representative in the Tower?

The Speaker is captured and killed by the Consul during the Red War, but delivers a posthumous voiceover as Destiny 2's campaign ends.

Which class is described by Bungie as a kind of "space wizard" and has the Nova Bomb super?

The Nova Bomb is a sphere of Void energy that can be thrown in different ways depending on the chosen upgrades.

Titans were partly inspired by Stormtroopers and which of Bungie's own earlier characters?

Titans are pitched as "space gladiators" or tanks, favouring heavy weapons, melee and tough resistance.

How many shots does the Hunter's Golden Gun super fire in its base magazine?

The Gunslinger tree also gives Hunters a throwing knife and an upgrade to a triple jump.

Cayde-6, Banshee-44 and the Stranger all belong to which race of humanoid machines?

The number in an Exo's name counts their reboots, so Cayde had been reset six times before the events of the games.

Who killed Cayde-6 at the start of Forsaken?

The killer, driven mad by a partial Taken infection, was hunting for his supposedly dead sister, Queen Mara Sov.

Cayde-6 was murdered with his own signature hand cannon. What is it called?

The Guardian recovers the weapon during the campaign, and it became an exotic players could earn for themselves.

Cayde-6's killer was later resurrected as an amnesiac Lightbearer known by what name?

He debuted in Beyond Light's Season of the Hunt and eventually succeeded Cayde as Hunter Vanguard after The Final Shape.

What was the name of Cayde-6's Ghost, whose destruction meant he could not be revived?

Cayde also kept a pet chicken named Colonel, and despite being a robot he was fond of eating ramen.

Bungie's in-game tribute after Cayde-6's death was a coupon players collected from which Tower booth?

The coupon carried Cayde's written musings on his favourite food, the Last City and its residents.

Destiny's first raid, the Vault of Glass, is set on which planet?

It opened on September 16, 2014, one week after launch, and its final boss is Atheon, Time's Conflux.

Crota, the antagonist of The Dark Below, is the son of which Hive god?

The father came for revenge in The Taken King, whose story ends with his corpse hurtling toward Saturn.

The Dreadnaught, the Hive ship explored in The Taken King, sits within the rings of which planet?

Bungie pitched it as "an inscrutable loot-filled fortress", and its Court of Oryx let players summon bosses with runes.

Which of the three original Hive siblings carries the title "God of War"?

The three began life as Krill on the planet Fundament, a world with an inescapable gravity well.

Eris Morn first appeared as the sole survivor of a fireteam that had tried to take on which enemy?

She emerged from hiding to warn the Tower of the Hive prince's return, and later interacted with the Pyramid beneath the Moon in Shadowkeep.

Which Destiny expansion introduced the Prison of Elders arena and Trials of Osiris?

The same expansion added the Vestian Outpost social space and the sidearm weapon class.

Rise of Iron's Fallen enemies were empowered by what self-replicating Golden Age nanotechnology?

Lord Saladin, the last known Iron Lord, guides players to become a new generation of Iron Lords and wipe it out.

Which two consoles did NOT receive Rise of Iron, making it the first Destiny content to skip them?

The base game and first three expansions had shipped on all four consoles; from Rise of Iron on, updates went only to the newer generation.

Gjallarhorn, the Year One fan-favourite exotic, is what type of weapon?

A black "Iron Gjallarhorn" was a Rise of Iron pre-order bonus, and the weapon returned to Destiny 2 in the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack.

Xûr, the weekend exotic vendor, is described as an agent of whom?

In Destiny 2 he showed up on September 15, 2017, alongside Trials of the Nine, and still only appears at weekends.

Which enemy race is described as a military-industrial empire of gigantic amphibians?

They rely on heavy armour, ballistic shields and jump packs, and had never had their Martian Exclusion Zone breached before the Guardian arrived.

The Vex are made of microscopic organisms that survive in what organic fluid?

Their vast processing power lets them constantly simulate past, present and future, and they have mastered elements of time travel.

The insectoid nomadic pirate race called the Fallen are also known by what name?

The Traveler once visited their homeworld Riis, where they worshipped it as the "Great Machine" before it left them.

Which former Beatle collaborated with Marty O'Donnell on the music for Destiny?

The eight-movement suite was finished in 2013 but went unreleased for years after O'Donnell's dismissal and legal fight with Bungie.

Roughly how much did Destiny sell at retail in its first five days, then the biggest new franchise launch ever?

The $500 million figure that circulated before launch was Activision's total investment including marketing and engine costs, not the development budget.

Which Cabal faction, commanded by Dominus Ghaul, attacked the Last City at the start of Destiny 2?

Ghaul's forces caged the Traveler and drained its Light, leaving the Guardian powerless until they found a haven at the Farm.

On PC, Destiny 2 launched exclusively on which storefront in October 2017?

It was the first non-Blizzard title distributed there, and it moved to Steam two years later when Shadowkeep launched.

Under what title did Destiny 2 go free-to-play on October 1, 2019?

The free version reintroduced the original Destiny's first mission as the opening for new players.

Which PvE/PvP hybrid mode, hosted by the Drifter, debuted with Forsaken?

The original best-of-three format was later replaced by Gambit Prime from Season of the Drifter.

Beyond Light took Guardians to which icy moon of Jupiter?

There the Fallen Kell Eramis wielded Stasis, and the Deep Stone Crypt raid revealed the Clovis Bray facility where the Exos were born.

In Beyond Light, the Exo Stranger reveals she is the sister of which Warmind-era character?

As Elisabeth "Elsie" Bray, she is also the granddaughter of Clovis Bray I and despises his experiments.

Which new weapon type, with both melee and short-range attacks, debuted in The Witch Queen?

The expansion also added weapon crafting, done at the Enclave on Mars below Savathûn's Throne World.

Who is the final boss of the Vow of the Disciple raid?

He fights atop a Darkness superweapon called the Upended, powered by the catatonic Worm God Xita.

Lightfall's city of Neomuna is located on which planet?

Its inhabitants descend from a lost Golden Age expedition and are guarded by cybernetically enhanced Cloud Striders.

Which movement tool does the Strand subclass, introduced in Lightfall, give Guardians?

Strand draws on a psychic power to lash enemies with web-like tendrils via a matrix called the Weave.

The Final Shape's 12-player finale, Excision, pits Guardians against which villain?

The activity unlocked worldwide only after the first team completed the Salvation's Edge raid, three days after launch.

What is the name of The Final Shape's destination inside the Traveler?

Its areas echo destinations from across the franchise's history, and it is where Crow meets the spirit of Cayde-6.

Which sixth subclass, added in The Final Shape, lets Guardians mix Light and Darkness abilities?

It draws supers and abilities from Void, Solar, Arc, Stasis and Strand all at once.

Bungie's Marathon, released in March 2026, is what kind of game?

It is the first new Marathon since 1996's Marathon Infinity, set on Tau Ceti IV in 2893, with players taking the role of Runners.

Sparrows, the Guardians' personal vehicles, were noted for closely resembling which sci-fi rides?

GameStop pre-orders even came with an exclusive red Sparrow, and Rise of Iron pre-orders added the Iron Gjallarwing.

The Grasp of Avarice dungeon from Bungie's 30th Anniversary Pack is set inside which infamous Destiny farming spot?

Its story follows a fireteam led by Wilhelm-7 lured there by Fallen promising riches, who descended into madness.

Curse of Osiris centred on which procedurally generated Vex simulation inside Mercury?

Its master, Panoptes, Infinite Mind, showed the Guardian a future where all non-Vex life had been wiped out; the area was later reused for the Halloween Haunted Forest.

Which horde mode, startable by anyone in patrol on Mars, was added by the Warmind expansion?

Destructoid called it the "shining star of the DLC", which otherwise focused on the AI Rasputin and the worm god Xol.

Which enemy faction introduced in The Final Shape was the first new race since Forsaken?

They serve as the personal soldiers of the franchise's chief villain, alongside the Tormentors first seen in Lightfall.

What was the initial Light level cap in Destiny at launch, before The Dark Below raised it?

Character experience stopped at level 20; only armour with Light pushed players higher, to 32 with The Dark Below and 34 with the next expansion.

Which December 2025 Destiny 2 expansion was themed around Star Wars, with crossover elements?

It ended up being the tenth and final expansion after Sony cancelled the two planned for Year Nine.

Which Guardian led the ill-fated Vault of Glass fireteam alongside Praedyth and Pahanin?

Kabr, the Legionless, took a Titan, a Future War Cult Warlock and a well-known Hunter into the Vault and none came back.

Roughly how many players did Destiny's July 2014 public beta attract before it closed?

The beta ran on PlayStation from July 17 and Xbox from July 23, and was open to anyone who had pre-ordered the game.

Who was the mastermind behind Rise of Iron's SIVA Crisis and final boss of the Wrath of the Machine raid?

Shiro-4 tells the Guardian the Archon dwells inside the Cosmodrome Wall; the raid opened on September 23, 2016.

In the Grasp of Avarice dungeon, which Exo led the fireteam the Fallen lured into the Cosmodrome?

The lore has him descend into madness as his fireteam dies one by one, and finally perish himself.

Which Hive Wizard, the Deathsinger, must be defeated in the Crota's End raid before facing Crota?

Crota's End sends a fireteam deep beneath the Moon's surface, and it returned to Destiny 2 as a free raid in September 2023.

How much did Chinese conglomerate NetEase invest in Bungie in 2018 for a minority stake and a board seat?

The investment came the year before Bungie split from Activision, giving it a cushion to self-publish Destiny.

Which studio joined Bungie and Activision on Destiny 2's development team in December 2016?

Halo 4 lead writer Christopher Schlerf had joined Bungie earlier that year to help address the original's story criticisms.

What was the only thing that carried over from a Destiny character into Destiny 2?

Even that required reaching level 20 and finishing the Black Garden quest; veterans got commemorative emblems instead of gear.

Which North American console game outgrossed Destiny 2 in 2017, keeping it in second place?

Digital downloads made up more than half of Destiny 2's sales, and it was Activision's biggest PC release by units.

What was the name of the June 2026 update Bungie announced as Destiny 2's final live-service release?

It had been planned as Shadow & Order and was renamed; Sony had just taken a $765 million impairment on Bungie after Marathon underperformed.