Destiny 2’s The Final Shape expansion put an end to a 10-year saga, and it’s natural for fans to think about Destiny 3.
The current installment of the franchise is already seven years old, which comes with a heavy burden. The idea of a Destiny 3 has loomed around the community, but more as a far-off hypothetical than something certain. While The Final Shape was a great setup for the future of the franchise, those plans seem to be in jeopardy, especially after Bungie laid off 220 of its workers less than two months after the Destiny 2 expansion released.
Here’s what we know so far about Destiny 3—and why it’s probably not coming in the near future.
Has Destiny 3 been confirmed?
So far, Bungie hasn’t officially confirmed Destiny 3. The year of The Final Shape will bring three episodes, and 2025 will usher in the yet-unknown Destiny 2: Codename Frontiers.
The dreams of a third Destiny title may just be wishful thinking, however. On Aug. 1, 2024, Jeff Grubb reported that Payback—which Bungie supposedly called “the next Destiny” internally—would be shelved. “A Destiny 3 or next Destiny is just not the thing that they are coming out of this looking toward, let alone working on in any real way,” Grubb added.
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier also reported that “Destiny 3 was not canceled because it was never in development, per people familiar,” indicating the sequel was farther away than many thought.
Destiny 3 might come eventually, but Bungie has plenty of housekeeping to do and internal fires to put out before working on the next installment of the franchise. It’s extremely unlikely that fans will see the game in the short term.
Codename “Payback” leak
Fans who look for a third Destiny might find mentions of “Payback”—the nickname for one of Destiny 2‘s most infamous leaks. At the time, some believed this would be a foundation for a potential next installment in the franchise, though hope for it seems to be gone following the July 2024 Bungie layoffs.
One such leak surfaced on the Destiny 2 subreddit a month before The Final Shape’s reveal. It described a system called “Prism” that allows players to mix and match subclass abilities, a detail that perfectly aligned with the new Prismatic subclass showcased during the stream.
This coincidence lent credibility to the leak’s secondary claim: Destiny 3, codenamed “Payback.” According to the leaker, there will be major changes in Destiny 3, like the removal of class restrictions. Further fueling the speculation, Luke Smith, Bungie’s executive creative director, offered a cryptic message: “Facing The Witness isn’t the end of Destiny 2, and it’s definitely not the end of Destiny.”
Has Payback been canceled?
While Payback’s fate (and even its existence) was always somewhat mythical, reports after the July 2024 layoffs indicate the project has been put to rest.
“Bungie did some very early work on a spinoff project called Payback, but they canceled that a while ago,” Jason Schreier reported. Payback “was a totally different spinoff project that was canceled a while before these layoffs,” he added. Jeff Grubb also reported the project was “going on the shelf indefinitely.”
While this doesn’t exclude the possibility of ever having a sequel to Destiny 2, Payback doesn’t seem to live up to what some fans expected of it as a full-on sequel—and it also seems to be on the backburner for the foreseeable future.
