The stakes surrounding the release of Destiny 2: The Final Shape are remarkably high due to the DLC's status in the game's overall lifecycle. Namely, The Final Shape is supposed to be the last chapter in the Light and Dark saga, concluding Destiny's main narrative threads and setting the franchise up for an entirely different story arc, according to what Bungie has been saying.
Though it seems that Destiny 2: The Final Shape will intentionally not reveal everything, franchise fans are still a bit worried about the DLC following the issues that plagued Lightfall almost immediately upon its release. With just a few seasons of content to go before The Final Shape comes out, many players aren't confident that Bungie can deliver, with some claiming that this particular ship may have already sailed.
Even though Destiny 2 is supposed to continue after the release of The Final Shape sometime in 2024, it's likely that the game will undergo serious structural changes in how its ongoing content works. While this isn't necessarily a problem on its own, the issues with the Lightfall DLC have caused a growing amount of unrest in the community, with many fans now agreeing that the upcoming expansion pack needs to "over-deliver" for them to consider it a success. A thread posted by Reddit user fsdogdad explained that The Final Shape should be "at least" comparable to the Forsaken and The Taken King expansion packs, though most users don't seem to think this is likely to happen.
Bungie managed to fix Destiny 2: Lightfall's narrative problems through subsequent seasonal quests and story beats, but the community is clearly still unhappy with the state of the game. The recent increases to season pass prices didn't help smooth things out either, and if the popularity of fsdogdad's Reddit thread is anything to go by, Bungie has a long road ahead if it wishes to correct how unhappy some players seem to be.
Now that Marathon is due to launch sometime in the future as Bungie's own take on the PvPvE extraction shooter niche, it's clear that there are big changes ahead for Destiny. If The Final Shape doesn't stick the landing, the game may well find itself in a similar pickle as it was during the period ahead of Forsaken's launch back in 2018. Should that happen, it might not be good news for Destiny as a whole.
It's not all bad news, however. Bungie delivered many improvements to Destiny 2 after Lightfall came out, with plenty more to come. If the studio can successfully provide two more seasons comparable to the Season of the Deep, the community may be more receptive to The Final Shape on its launch day. However, nobody can currently know whether that ends up being the case or not.
Destiny 2 is currently available for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.