Destiny 2 Shadowkeep Changes The Moon -- Here's How

Destiny 2's next big expansion, Shadowkeep, brings players back to a major location from the first game--the Moon--which has been inaccessible in the sequel up until now. But Bungie isn't just porting over the space players remember from the original Destiny and calling it a day; the Moon will be fairly different from the one that players remember. That's according to a recent dev diary video from Bungie, which explains that while you'll notice similar landmarks and structures to what was seen in Destiny 1, the Moon in Shadowkeep will be roughly twice the size of the original location.

"In Shadowkeep, the Moon is entirely changed," Destiny 2 art lead Mike Poe said in the video, which you can watch below. "It's completely remastered. There have been a bunch of changes, both large and small, for players to experience and find." Destiny 2 design lead Ben Wommack added, "We have about double the amount of space. There's more than twice as many places you can go."

Most of the changes are the result of a new Hive castle on the surface of the Moon, which acts as a stronghold for the enemy faction. The Fallen have also created a new base for themselves on the Moon by utilizing the remains of a destroyed starship. Poe added that several structures that were previously inaccessible on Destiny's Moon will be explorable in Destiny 2: Shadowkeep.

The lighting used in the different locations on the Moon has been adjusted as well. "In [Destiny 1], the lighting is a little more clean-cut," Poe said. "We went with a lot more saturated colors in some spaces. But in [Destiny 2], we were trying to give this feeling of desaturation and general spookiness. We wanted it to feel a little more mysterious."

It's this theme of mystery and discovery that lies at the heart of players' return to the Moon in Shadowkeep. "There's so much we don't know about the Moon," Destiny 2 senior writer Adam Miller said. "I think a lot of [Shadowkeep] is about mystery." Poe added, "One of the things we really liked about the Moon in Destiny 1 was that it brought in this element of spacefaring and the height of humanity, the height of where we landed as humans before the Collapse. So there's a lot of stories that we're telling about the history of humanity here. The people that built the Accelerator. The people that built all these structures on the Moon. Like what happened to them, where did they go?"

Destiny 2's creepy Shadowkeep expansion launches on September 17, coming to Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Among many other things, it revamps the game's armor set, and you can earn the first of these Armor 2.0 sets by partaking in the upcoming Solstice of Heroes event, which starts very soon.