Destiny 2: New Light

On Destiny 2: New Light, my final role was Quality Assurance Engineer.

What is Destiny 2: New Light?

Destiny 2: New Light was a significant re-factoring of the Bungie-developed first-person shooter video game Destiny 2. Destiny 2: New Light was developed with the intention of lowering the barrier for entry required to play Destiny 2, as well as make the player experience more cohesive and smoother without the need to play the original Destiny and Destiny 2 storylines (as well as any associated expansions) in linear order. With the release of Destiny 2: New Light, Destiny 2 also became a free-to-play experience, and the intro of the game was significantly altered to incorporate elements of the original Destiny game’s introductory sequence.

Key features of Destiny 2: New Light include:

  • New Destiny 2 Free-To-Play Experience

  • Updated Destiny 2 Introductory Sequence

My work as Quality Assurance Engineer on Destiny 2: New Light

  • Co-owned the testing and validation deliverables required for shipping exceptional and intuitive UI/UX elements to Destiny 2: New Light.

  • Co-owned testing and validation of essential Systems-focused game mechanics and back-end functionality pointed at enriching gameplay and encouraging consistent active user satisfaction and engagement with Destiny 2: New Light.

  • Created a multitude of complex test passes and validation plans and processes for various supported feature teams, along with heavy contributions to bug and work item filing, triaging, and tracking.

  • Coordinated both feature team and cross-team playtesting to investigate and research various different in-progress product iterations and small team focuses.

  • Collaborated with 3rd-party digital store ownership teams to attain signoff for product distribution (I.e., Xbox & PlayStation).

  • Regularly contributed to daily stand-ups, feature team sprint planning, milestone post-mortems, and other various development rituals and meetings.

Challenges & Learnings: Working on Destiny 2: New Light

My involvment with the development on Destiny 2: New Light began in parallel to the development of both the last expansion included in the Destiny 2: Forsaken Annual Pass (I.e., “Season 7: Season of Opulence“) and the next major expansion, Destiny 2: Shadowkeep. With Bungie’s focus on revenue generation moving from physical boxed and digital unit sales of Destiny 2 over to the major expansion and seasonal content pass model, the team decided to refactor the experience for new users who were getting started in Destiny 2 for the first time. The outlined changes leadership elected to make presented the largest challenge for this chapter of my time at Bungie. The effort to re-factor Destiny 2 into the version of the game it would become with Destiny 2: New Light was punctuated by a large volume of testing and prototyping, an effort which was primarily focused on determining what changes were required in order to improve the new user experience by fostering a more cohesive intro that excluded the need to play key elements from the original Destiny and Destiny 2 story mode’s in order to understand the world of Destiny 2: New Light and the player’s role in it.

Where to get Destiny 2: New Light

Destiny 2 was updated to Destiny 2: New Light on all major digital video game platforms in October 2019 (current experience may vary).

Destiny 2: New Light - Links & Media