Why was Destiny 2’s Shadow & Order delayed?

Destiny 2‘s Shadow & Order major update was set to launch on March 3, but Bungie uncerimoniously delayed it by three months. The next big piece of content is scheduled for June, leaving even less to do in the game until then.

With less than two weeks to go until the scheduled update, Bungie made an anemic announcement of the delay in official channels, where it promised to bundle a slew of other improvements to the game by June 9. The Shadow and Order name is gone altogether, though it doesn’t have an official replacement.

While Destiny 2 is in dire need of a shakeup, delaying a major update doesn’t pose a good short-term scenario for its dwindling player counts. Here’s why Shadow & Order was delayed and Bungie’s ambitious promises for when it drops in June.

Shadow & Order delay, explained

This might not be the only quagmire we’ll see. Image via Bungie

Marathon is often mentioned as one of the reasons behind the Shadow & Order delay. The major update was slated to release on March 3—just two days before the controversial extraction shooter’s debut on March 5. Forbes’ Paul Tassi reported this would be the reason, and it seems to be among the top drivers behind the delay. The new June 9 release date is ways off, giving Marathon enough time to settle.

That said, it’s also likely Shadow & Order was simply not up to the standards of what the game needed right now. Destiny 2 has been bleeding players for years, with The Edge of Fate accelerating the vertiginous downfall in its user base. Far from being a necessary revolution, the Ash & Iron update halfway through The Edge of Fate was largely a lackluster, more-of-the-same piece of content—down to the reissue of weapons such as Drang and the MIDA Mini-Tool.

Pushing another lukewarm update as Destiny 2 faces its biggest player crisis in history would likely would only make it worse. Given Bungie’s recent track record, there might not have been enough time to concoct anything above mediocrity, so putting it back in the oven might be the right move.

This reaction seems inevitable. Image via Bungie

The next major update (which we’re still unofficially calling Shadow & Order until an actual title comes along) is bringing a slew of much-needed, long-requested improvements to the game—though one can easily argue The Edge of Fate should never have launched without them in the first place.

The announcement promises “sizable quality-of-life updates,” including a few hot topics. As its release draws closer, Bungie will inform players of items like tier upgrading, Exotic armor pieces being tier five, reissued gear for raids and dungeons, and a “Pantheon 2.0.” The wording here is telling: “We will provide exact details closer to release,” the announcement reads, so temper your expectations.

“Shadow & Order” also needs to bring in more content. This is theoretically implicit in Bungie’s wording, but it’s still worth highlighting. The Portal is already a syncretism of reused, worn-out activities, so all these changes are borderline meaningless without new missions to put them to use. Bungie’s initial vision for The Edge of Fate—a grueling, resetting slogfest—is more than enough to make fans wary about how the studio will handle content after the next major update, too.