Destiny 3 leak claims it's in "extremely early development," and it couldn't come soon enough

Destiny 2 is in a quite frankly woeful spot. Its current The Edge of Fate expansion has been a complete bust, resulting in Bungie's space game's player count dwindling to record lows; a point I never thought it'd reach following the excellent The Final Shape. It's now turning to the dark side with the upcoming Renegades, but I'm worried that an ostensible over-reliance on its Star Wars-y elements will result in D2 compromising its own identity. If this fresh Destiny 3 leak has substance to it, though, then a new hope may be on its way.

Earlier this month, Sony posted a whopping $204 million impairment loss against Bungie's intangible assets. I think we all know that Sony overpaid when it snapped up the iconic studio for a cool $3.6 billion back in 2022, but to see Bungie's decline has been nothing short of heartbreaking. In September, The Edge of Fate sank to a miserable 10% rating on Steam, painting a worrying picture for its post-The Final Shape future. Of course, if you've been playing for as long as I have, you'll know that Bungie is anything but consistent with its quality from expac to expac, and it usually takes a few tries to strike gold. This time, though, it feels different.

This month, Destiny 2 dropped to its lowest ever player count since launching on Steam, and is currently struggling to hit 20,000 players at peak times as per SteamDB. At the time of writing, it's nowhere to be seen in Steam's top 100 games list. Though the quality of Destiny 2's narrative work has come on leaps and bounds, it's dragged down by the repetitive reskinning of old enemies, recycled game modes, and an evermore unrewarding grind. Renegades looks to breathe new life into the game, but my alarm bells started ringing after I saw the Drifter encased in Stasis. It's a nice homage to Han Solo's carbonite era, but will it deliver a strong, original Destiny 2 experience?

As Destiny 2 continues to freefall, I'd posit that, if there's any time for a proper reset via a totally new entry into the series, it's now. According to a fresh report from reliable D2 leaker 'Colony Deaks,' we may be getting our wish, albeit not as soon as we'd hoped.

"Yes, Destiny 3 is in extremely early development," Colony Deaks shared to X. "Some of you may have seen a tweet early this afternoon that mentioned that.

"We have been sitting on the info for a few weeks now and wanted to wait to talk about this seeing as it is in such an early state, and it just sucks to see others post about it carelessly for free internet points."

While it's been postulated for some time now that we're starting to close in on the end of Destiny 2, Bungie has never confirmed that a sequel is in development. As with all leaks, take this one with a huge serving of salt. Colony Deaks further states that, "We plan to share more info in the coming months as we wait on the larger scale things to develop and take shape."

Should this information be true, then I don't expect to see Destiny 3 arrive until the turn of the new decade. In the meantime, then, Bungie is going to have to put some serious work in to fixing up D2 before it can jump ship.