Destiny 2 Steam Release Coming, Leaving Activision's Blizzard Battle.net

Bungie recently assumed control of the Destiny franchise from Activision, allowing the former Halo developer to do as it pleases with Destiny 2. Numerous changes are on the way, much of it starting with the release of a new content expansion called Shadowkeep. That'll launch in September alongside new cross-play support and a new free-to-play version of the base game. And there's another big change coming for Destiny 2 PC players: with the launch of Shadowkeep, the game will leave behind Blizzard Battle.net in favor of not the Epic Games Store, but Valve's Steam platform.

Bungie made the announcement ahead of E3 2019 during a livestream detailing all its plans for Destiny 2 going forward. Destiny 2 was previously only available on PC via Battle.net, Activision Blizzard's PC portal, when Activision published the game. But Bungie split with Activision earlier this year, and Tuesday marked the release of the Season of Opulence, the final piece of Destiny 2 content from that partnership.

Starting with the release of the Shadowkeep expansion on September 17, Destiny 2 will leave Battle.net and head to Steam. It will also support cross-saves on all platforms, which include PC, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Google's cloud-based Stadia platform. Bungie also laid out a new approach for how it'll sell Destiny 2 to players: each new content expansion, starting with Shadowkeep, will be standalone and sold a la carte. That means you'll be able to pick and choose which Destiny 2 expansions you buy, and you won't be required to own all previous expansions in order to get the new ones.

Up until recently, Steam would have seemed like the obvious choice for Bungie to take Destiny 2, but Valve's grip on the market recently was shaken by the emergence of the Epic Games Store. The new platform has attracted a lot of developers and publishers with exclusivity deals, and that created a lot of ire among Steam fans.

Bungie said in its press release for the new Destiny 2 changes that it wants to move away from segmenting its player base across separate platforms, which might explain why it picked the more dominant Steam as a home for Destiny 2. Then again, Bungie is doing away with all platform-exclusive content, so maybe it'll show up on the Epic store at some point in the future.