Destiny 2: Beyond Light is a major expansion for Destiny 2, a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie. Representing the fifth expansion and the fourth year of extended content for Destiny 2, it was released on November 10, 2020. Players travel to Jupiter's icy moon Europa to confront the Fallen Kell Eramis, who plans to use the power of the Darkness to save her people and take revenge on the Traveler back on Earth, as she and many Fallen believe that the Traveler had abandoned them before the Golden Age of humanity. The player's Guardian also obtains this new Darkness-based power as a subclass called Stasis, which features new ice-based abilities that can freeze enemies. The expansion sees the return of the Exo Stranger from the original Destinys campaign, as well as Variks from the original game's House of Wolves expansion, both of which guides the Guardian on Europa. Furthermore, Beyond Light adds other content across the game, including missions, player versus environment locations, player gear, weaponry, and a raid. Beyond Light is the first expansion of Destiny 2 to be released on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S platforms. Bungie described this expansion as the beginning of a new era for the Destiny franchise.
In addition to the expansion, some of the less played locations and activities from the first three years of Destiny 2 were cycled out of the game into what Bungie calls the Destiny Content Vault (DCV), which also includes all areas from the original Destiny. This was done to cut down on the install size of the game, but Bungie plans to cycle areas in and out of the DCV, updating older destinations to fit the current state of the game. Earth's Cosmodrome from the original game returned alongside Beyond Light. This location mainly serves as the introductory and tutorial destination for first-time players of the New Light free-to-play base game with a full questline, but it has also been utilized for seasonal content. The original game's "Vault of Glass" raid also returned during Season 14, updated with Destiny 2 mechanics.
Beyond Light had four seasonal content offerings for Year 4 of the game: Season of the Hunt, which was available alongside Beyond Light, Season of the Chosen in February 2021, Season of the Splicer in May 2021, and Season of the Lost in August 2021, which was the longest season for Destiny 2, lasting six months due to the delay of the next expansion, The Witch Queen, to February 2022. Due to the lengthened time, the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack was released in December 2021, which added a new dungeon, a six-player activity, and gear inspired by Bungie's previous games as a celebration of the developer's 30th anniversary. With the release of The Witch Queen, this seasonal content was removed from the game with the exception of the Battlegrounds activity from Season of the Chosen and the content of the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack; the Battlegrounds activity was merged under the Vanguard Operations playlist.
Gameplay
Beyond Light maintains the basic gameplay of Destiny 2; the player, as a Guardian using a power called Light that gives them superhuman abilities and the ability to be regenerated, fights in a mix of first-person and third-person shooter gameplay in both player versus environment and player versus player activities in a massively multiplayer online game world. Cooperative activities include various bounties, story-related missions, "strikes," dungeons, raids, open-world public events, and special seasonal events, while competitive matches include matches with other Guardians in the Crucible or a team versus team mode in the Gambit arena. Players are rewarded with both new weapons and armor as well as various materials that are used as a form of in-game currency to gain or upgrade other equipment. Players can have up to three active characters, one from each of the game's main classes: Titan, Hunter, and Warlock, each that has several subclasses based on the type of elemental damage they select prior to missions. Players seek to improve their character's overall Power level—a rough average measuring the quality of weapons and gear they have collected—that allows them to take on more challenging activities in the game.