Destiny 2 not launching September 2016, report says

Although Destiny 2 was forecast to launch in September 2016, it will no longer meet this window and will be released later than initially expected, a report has claimed.

While the sequel has not been officially confirmed by developer Bungie or publisher Activision, court documents published in September 2015 laid out the roadmap for the sci-fi shooter franchise.

The release schedule indicated a new entry in the series would be launched in September 2016, but this is no longer the case, according to Kotaku. Citing sources "familiar with goings-on at the studio," the site reports "plans for Destiny's future are constantly in flux" and "just last week higher-ups at Bungie delayed Destiny 2 out of this September."

It is worth noting that original release schedule in the documents were based on the first Destiny launching in 2013, which it did not. The title was delayed and instead launched in 2014 in order to accommodate "substantial revisions" to the story.

Bungie and Activision intended to release new, disc-based sequels every other year until 2019, with large downloadable expansions in between. It is not clear if plans were amended in light of the delay, but the release of The Taken King in 2015 suggested a full sequel would follow in 2016.

In November 2014, Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg revealed that development has started on the next "full game" in the Destiny series.

"Work has also begun on future expansion packs, as well as on our next full game release," he said at the time.

As of August 2015, Destiny has accumulated over 20 million registered players, who have clocked 20 billion hours in the game.

In December 2015, Bungie community manager Eric Osborne addressed concerns there "won't be any more substantial content until [the studio ships] another full game, or that all of the content for the rest of Year Two will come in the form of timed events."

According to Osborne the studio has a whiteboard full of "developments planned for Destiny's not-so-distant future," including new "events, activities, content and features."

"The first of these early 2016 experiences will be on a scale close to Festival of the Lost," he said. "The second will be far larger than anything you've seen since the release of The Taken King. There's also another significant update to the world and sandbox planned in this same window."

The experience "on a scale close to Festival of the Lost" mentioned above is the Valentine's Day in-game event, called "Crimson Days." The event begins on February 9 and runs for one week. As part of this, Destiny's social space, the Tower, is getting a red-themed visual overhaul. The Crucible mode, meanwhile, will have a new two-vs.-two variant called Crimson Doubles.