Bungie Cutting Content for Last-Gen ‘Destiny’ Players

Destiny on “legacy” consoles has been essentially retired and will wrap up the remainder of its existence with minimal support from Bungie.

One year and eight months after release, Bungie’s first new IP since Halo is moving on from last generation hardware. We’ve already heard that Destiny‘s next expansion Rise of Iron will not be coming to the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3. What we didn’t know until now is that the decision was a prelude to seemingly leaving those players behind altogether.

Beginning in August, travelling “exotics” merchant Xûr will reduce his stock to a single engram, no longer selling specific weapons and armor for Xbox 360 and PS3 players. Live Events like last Halloween’s Festival of the Night will also no longer occur. The Iron Banner and the Trials of Osiris, weekly and monthly staples of multiplayer content, will also promptly cease.

It means that not only will PS3 and 360 owners be unable to continue with the new content progression, they will also be barred from interacting with content included in the product for which they’ve already paid.

It’s a pretty significant step up from choosing to leave the last generation of consoles behind with the new expansion, and isn’t likely to ingratiate Bungie to a community with whom they’ve already had a rather contentious relationship. And while it is practically inevitable that companies will abandon support for older machines in favor of newer ones, this move seems an especially aggressive way to break up with a portion of your loyal fans.

There has been very little word on the Destiny sequel originally slated for release this year — except to say that it’s been pushed toward sometime in 2017. This doesn’t bode well for current-generation players, with shiny new “half gen” consoles launching in the same window. If this is how Bungie cuts ties with an active player base on a “legacy” platform, it seems all too easy to get left behind.

Follow Nate Church @Get2Church on Twitter for the latest news in gaming and technology, and snarky opinions on both.