The next two weeks could make or break the 'Destiny' franchise

Bungie

• Bungie plans to reveal the big September expansion to Destiny 2 on June 5 at 12 p.m. ET in a Twitch live stream.
• Destiny fans have been eagerly awaiting news of the September expansion, hoping it fixes some of the biggest issues with the game in the same way The Taken King expansion in 2015 drastically improved the first Destiny game.
• How Bungie communicates the new changes this week during the live stream, and the following week at E3 2018, the biggest gaming show in the world, could be crucial for the future of the Destiny franchise.

Most fans of the Destiny franchise will tell you that Destiny 2, the sequel to the popular alien-shooting game that came out in 2014, took several steps backward from the original. But that could all change in the big new Destiny 2 expansion coming in September, which Bungie will reveal in a Twitch live stream on June 5 at 12 p.m. ET.

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The next two weeks - between Bungie's Twitch reveal on June 5, and its presence at the world's biggest annual gaming convention, E3 2018, which takes place the following week - will be crucial for the game. Fans and players have high hopes the September expansion will do for Destiny 2 what "The Taken King" expansion did for the first Destiny.

The Taken King, like this planned September expansion for Destiny 2, released exactly one year after the base Destiny game launched to the public, in fall 2015. And in many ways, The Taken King was the game Destiny fans wanted all along: It introduced a coherent storyline that culminated in a fantastic six-man raid activity, called King's Fall; it introduced secrets into the game, which players would have to find for themselves, adding to the game's mystique; it added new subclass abilities, armor, and weapons; and most importantly, it fixed the biggest quality-of-life issues players had with the base game.

Fans hope this September expansion will improve Destiny 2 in similar ways.

Activision

The Taken King expansion made Destiny a better game.

Up to this point, the sentiment among most Destiny 2 players was that the sequel didn't learn enough from the first Destiny game, especially since so many of the quality-of-life improvements Destiny had accumulated by the end of its three-year life cycle were simply absent in Destiny 2.

And so, a common refrain among Destiny 2 players became "wait until September [2018]." If Bungie could fix the biggest issues players had with the game by that point - in the same way that The Taken King improved the first Destiny game - it would be worth giving Destiny 2 another chance.

To its credit, Bungie has shown in recent months that it's listening to players and wants to make the game something fans love again. Warmind, the second expansion to Destiny 2 that launched in the beginning of May, was a huge step in the right direction. Thanks to Bungie's work with Vicarious Visions, a video game developer based in New York, the Warmind expansion introduced addictive new activities, new secrets to the game, and most importantly, quality-of-life improvements that gave players new reasons to play.

Still, most players are still looking ahead to the September expansion, and how that will change Destiny 2 - hopefully for the better.

Bungie

In its effort to be more transparent, Bungie has been publicly updating a Development Roadmap to keep fans in the loop with what's coming down the pipe for Destiny 2. And based on the most recent update, it looks like the September expansion will introduce new gameplay modes, tweaks to weapon slots and loadouts, and more quality-of-life improvements to keep players interested, like record books, gear collections, and more.

But whether or not players actually like these changes, and how Bungie actually executes on these plans, is another story entirely. Fans will be paying very close attention to what Bungie says, and doesn't say, during its Twitch event and at E3 2018. The next two weeks, where players will undoubtedly have many questions, have the potential to drastically change the perception of both Bungie and Destiny, for better or for worse.