Since day one, bounties have been a core element of the Destiny 2 experience. Whether it’s for a vendor’s weekly challenge or to stock up ahead of a new season launch for some free XP, Destiny players rarely go anywhere without some bounties in their inventory.
Bungie wants to change this in 2024, instituting an experimental new system with The Final Shape expansion that will eventually replace core ritual bounties as well. The news comes today via the State of the Game blog that just released, which goes into detail about the developer’s plans to maintain engagement in Destiny 2 for the long term. Part of that appears to be getting rid of most bounties and transitioning into something named the Pathfinder system.
“We called out back in February that we were initially targeting more changes to ritual content in the final season of the year,” wrote Joe Blackburn, Destiny 2’s game director. “While we’ve made the recent decision to push this initiative to The Final Shape, we have plans to replace some bounties with a more rewarding and engaging system tentatively called the Pathfinder.”
Even though players will be waiting a little bit longer for those ritual updates, Blackburn did grant players a preview of the Pathfinder system in the blog. While the UI itself is only a work-in-progress and light on details, it displays a series of interconnected nodes that can be completed in different orders to eventually reach a Prime Engram reward at its end.
Precedent dictates each node is most likely a challenge of some kind to complete, with the Pathfinder allowing players to choose their own path to some degree and only take on challenges they want to in order to get their eventual reward.
“This is going to be debuted on the new destination in The Final Shape,” he explained, “and we’re currently nailing down a plan for how we can use this new system to replace core ritual bounties in the new year.”
Related: Destiny 2’s next season finally adds one of the most highly requested cosmetic features
The Pathfinder system being utilized on the new destination is one thing, but the eventual plan to have it become a system universally used by ritual activities such as Vanguard Ops and the Crucible means its impact will be felt more fully in 2024. Not only does this mean a further reduction in the importance of bounties during day-to-day Destiny 2 gameplay (after the introduction of seasonal challenges already did that), but it’ll also prevent a lot of bounty stacking ahead of new season releases.
The State of the Game didn’t give many other details about what to expect from this new system, but Bungie will likely expand on their aims with it when The Final Shape expansion is given a more in-depth look during the annual Destiny 2 Showcase on Aug. 22.
