Destiny 2: Shadowkeep is a major expansion for Destiny 2, a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie. Representing the fourth expansion and the third year of extended content for Destiny 2, it was released on October 1, 2019. It was the first major expansion to be published independently by Bungie after acquiring publishing rights for the series from Activision in early 2019, as well as the first to arrive on Steam rather than the Battle.net client which had been used since Destiny 2s launch. On June 4, 2024, the Shadowkeep campaign became free-to-play for all players, with the rest of the expansion's content repackaged as the Shadowkeep Pack.
The expansion returns players to Earth's Moon as a playable destination, with the location reprised and expanded upon from the original version of the first Destiny (2014). The story sees the return of Eris Morn, who had been absent since the events of Destiny 2s original base campaign. Eris seeks the help of the Guardian in defeating "Nightmares" that she accidentally released into the Solar System after interacting with the dormant Pyramid ship beneath the Moon's surface. The Nightmares are manifestations of the Guardian's past, and players face off against previous adversaries, which are being resurrected by the Darkness, the ancient enemy of the Traveler. Throughout the story, Eris and the Guardian work together to figure out the cause of this unleashed madness and do what they can to put a stop to it. Shadowkeep added content for every aspect of the game; including new missions, new Player versus Environment (PvE) locations, Player versus Player (PvP) maps, weapons, armor, exotic gear, a new dungeon, a new raid, as well as further fundamental changes to the core functionality of the game, including a revamped armor system. A second dungeon was added later with Year 3's fourth season.
Alongside Shadowkeeps release, the original Destiny 2 base game was re-released as a free-to-play title called Destiny 2: New Light. At the time, this free-to-play version featured all of the content of the original Destiny 2 base game, as well as the content from the first two expansions, Curse of Osiris and Warmind, among various other PvE and PvP activities—much of this content, however, was removed from the game when Beyond Light released in November 2020. Upon release of Shadowkeep, it and all future expansions and seasonal content (including the previous expansion Forsaken) were viewed as standalone releases, not requiring the purchase of previous premium content; they only required owning the free-to-play New Light. Shadowkeep had four seasonal content offerings for Year 3 of the game: Season of the Undying, which was available alongside Shadowkeep, Season of Dawn in December 2019, Season of the Worthy in March 2020, and Season of Arrivals in June 2020. Unlike the season's from the prior year, which remained in the game until Beyond Lights release, Year 3's seasons were immediately removed from the game upon the conclusion of each season. This was changed in Year 4, wherein the seasons remained in the game for the entire year and were not removed until the release of the subsequent expansion.
The seasons bridged the events of Shadowkeep to the next expansion, Beyond Light. Following Shadowkeeps campaign, Season of the Undying saw the Sol Divisive Vex launch an aggressive invasion of Earth's Moon, with Ikora Rey and the Guardian initiating a counter-offensive, constructing a massive portal in the Tower to hunt down and eliminate the Vex leader—the Undying Mind—across all timelines. In Season of Dawn, the legendary Warlock Osiris enlisted the Guardian's help to protect the Sundial, a time-traveling device on Mercury, as the Red Legion's Psion Flayers attempted to hijack the device to rewrite history and erase the Vanguard's victory in the Red War, while also rescuing Saint-14 from his demise in an alternate timeline, bringing him to the present. Season of the Worthy saw the Cabal Red Legion send their star-destroying superweapon, the Almighty, on a suicide collision course with the Last City, requiring the Guardian to ally with the Warmind Rasputin and Ana Bray to power up its orbital satellite network and destroy the plummeting vessel. In Season of Arrivals, the Black Fleet of the Darkness arrived in the Solar System, positioning Pyramid ships over Io, Titan, Mercury, and Mars; while Eris Morn and the Drifter decoded the Darkness's messages to understand its intentions, the Traveler reawakened, only for the Darkness to consume the destinations.
Gameplay
Shadowkeep is similar in scale to the original Destinys fourth expansion, Rise of Iron, and features a "full campaign", two new multiplayer PvE "strike" missions, and one new PvP Crucible map, as well as two reused ones. The expansion features the Moon as a returning, playable destination, where it has been reprised and expanded upon its original patrol mode from the original Destiny. Bungie claimed that the Moon would be twice the size of its original iteration, featuring major changes to the lunar environment, including the erection of a massive Hive fortress on the lunar surface, the Scarlet Keep, that serves as a key area for the expansion. Eris Morn, a character from the original game who had been absent since the events of Destiny 2s base campaign, serves as the main non-player character (NPC) for Shadowkeep. The expansion also introduces a new faction of enemies called Nightmares—spectral manifestations of the trauma from the Guardians' past that have been reanimated by the Darkness and have been accidentally unleashed onto the Moon by Eris. Nightmare enemies are mostly major story bosses from both Destiny and Destiny 2, as well as minor enemies from the Fallen, Hive, Cabal, Vex, and Scorn enemy races, made more powerful by the Darkness and can even regenerate their health. Nightmare enemies can also be found in Lost Sectors. A new raid mission, "Garden of Salvation", was released on October 5, 2019, and takes place in the Black Garden on Mars from the original game; the raid was tied to the expansion's first seasonal content offering, Season of the Undying, which focused on the Vex, who invaded the Moon as a result of players' actions during the raid. A new dungeon, "Pit of Heresy", was added on October 29, and takes place underneath the Scarlet Keep on the Moon. A second new dungeon, "Prophecy", was added on June 9, 2020, upon the release of Season of Arrivals, and takes place in the realm of the Nine in unknown space.
The expansion also features a new PvE activity on the Moon called "Nightmare Hunts", which are unlocked after completing the main campaign of Shadowkeep; they feature powerful Nightmare enemies with a major Nightmare boss at the end. The activity has four new difficulty modes—Adept, Hero, Legend, and Master—with brand new, preset modifiers. The Hero version of the activity released on October 8, while the Legend and Master versions were released on October 15 and 22, respectively. Matchmaking is only available in both the Adept and Hero difficulties. Nightmare Hunts award "Nightmare Essences", materials which are required to craft new weapons and gear through another NPC called the Lectern of Enchantment. A new version of the PvE Nightfall strike activity called "Nightfall: The Ordeal" was released; The Ordeal features a weekly rotating Nightfall strike with the Adept, Hero, Legend, and Master difficulty modes as well (also with preset modifiers), and can award exotic weapons and gear as well as upgrade materials. Unlike the regular Nightfall activity, matchmaking is included in The Ordeal but only on the Adept and Hero difficulties. Legacy Nightfall strikes also remain available for all players. A fifth difficulty exclusively for The Ordeal, Grandmaster, was added on April 21, 2020.
Changes were also made to the Crucible for Shadowkeep—the Control game mode is now in its own separate playlist, while a "Classic Mix" playlist consisting of the Control, Clash, and Supremacy modes is also available. Survival is now the only available competitive mode featuring its own playlist and has been revamped into a 3v3 game mode; a separate "freelance" playlist is available for players who prefer to play Survival in a solo queue. The Crucible Labs playlist also returned during Season of the Undying, which featured a beta version of the 3v3 Elimination mode from the original game's House of Wolves expansion; Elimination has since returned as a permanent game mode as of Season of Dawn. Other Crucible game modes are now featured as two weekly rotating playlists. A new rotating PvP mode called "Momentum Control"—a version of Control where weapon damage is more lethal and abilities are only restored via weapon kills—was released on October 29, 2019.
Trials of Osiris, the pinnacle PvP mode from the original game's House of Wolves expansion and the predecessor to Destiny 2s pinnacle PvP mode Trials of the Nine, was announced on February 25, 2020, alongside the announcement of Season of the Worthy, and returned on March 13, 2020. Similar to its original iteration, Trials is only available every weekend from Friday until the weekly reset on Tuesday, and uses the 3v3 Elimination mode with Power levels enabled; access to the activity is only granted upon a purchase of a "Trials Passage" scorecard with a recommended Power level of 960. Fireteams of three attempt to win as many matches as possible; going flawless with seven wins and no losses grants access to the original Lighthouse social space on Mercury for pinnacle rewards (including Trials gear from the original game), while losing three matches renders the player's scorecard void and a new scorecard must be purchased to continue. Saint-14, a character from the lore of the original Destiny who returned as an NPC in Season of Dawn, serves as the game mode's main vendor and announcer.
The armor system of Destiny 2 received a major overhaul with Shadowkeep. The "Armor 2.0" system rebuilds many of the functional aspects of the former armor system, allowing players more customization and control over their characters and their armor. Armor 2.0 allows players to use an "energy system" within each armor piece in order to equip armor mods; each mod acquired can be reused indefinitely, which allows for more experimentation and customization. Mods come either as a general mod or an elemental mod. Elemental mods must have the same energy type (Arc, Solar, or Void) that matches the armor piece's energy type in order for them to be equipped. General mods, however, can be equipped as normal. Each mod has an energy cost to them depending on its type, function and how powerful they are; players can upgrade armor pieces to increase their energy capacity to allow for the use of more powerful mods, and armor pieces get a small stat boost when they are fully upgraded. As of Season of the Worthy, players can change each armor piece's energy type by spending upgrade materials. Armor 2.0 also reintroduces the Intellect, Discipline, and Strength stats from the first Destiny game, which allows players to reduce the cooldown times of their super, grenade, and melee abilities, respectively. Each armor piece also features a "Universal Ornament" slot, where players can change the aesthetic appearance of any Armor 2.0 piece to look like any Eververse armor pieces if they were already purchased and/or unlocked from Eververse or season passes. These ornaments do not impact gameplay. The Majestic Solstice armor earned during the Solstice of Heroes event during Season of Opulence was updated to the Armor 2.0 system; players have access to the Armor 2.0 version of the armor set via Banshee-44 if they have fully upgraded their Solstice armor to its Majestic level during Solstice of Heroes. All other armor sets (including exotic armor) were also updated to the Armor 2.0 system.