Telesto's antics aside, Destiny 2 hasn't had a lot of deep secrets for fans to discover since the release of The Witch Queen. There have been the usual assortment of collectibles and hard-to-reach areas that might feature easter eggs or notes on Destiny 2's expansive lore, but nothing like the missions that gave us Whisper of the Worm or Outbreak Perfected. Those two missions, which arrived without warning and weren't even known until players accidentally tripped over them in out-of-the-way places, are remembered quite fondly by Destiny 2 veterans and have set the bar for what Guardians define as "secret missions."
Last month, engineering head David Aldridge disappointed Guardians by saying Bungie considered such secret missions "just [too] expensive" to encrypt such content in order to actually keep it secret, with the Destiny developer instead diverting resources to other activities. This caused an uproar from fans, many of which noted how secret missions helped stave off seasonal burnout.
For Guardians tired of the same old, same old, assistant game director Robbie Stevens had some good news to share in today's TWAB. "The people working on Destiny 2 believe that secrets are an important part of this franchise," he said, "and we’re dedicated to delivering secret experiences, both small and large, throughout the coming year."
Stevens expanded on Aldridge's previous comments on the difficulty of encrypting data for live service games in order to keep content under wraps, calling it "one of the most challenging engineering problems in games today. That said, our communication was misinterpreted to mean that we were no longer building secret experiences, which is false."
While there hasn't been a secret mission like Zero Hour, Presage, or The Whisper in the months since The Witch Queen was released, Stevens said that's just because such missions are "some of the most challenging content for our teams to build." That said, he's heard feedback "loud and clear" from fans to put more missions like those in Destiny 2. Just don't expect to see them too often.
"Some secrets will be small, some will be large, some will come next year, and some are right around the corner, but I promise you that we’ve got a talented group of people who love this type of content and who know what it means for the community to discover and experience it."
Destiny 2’s next expansion, Lightfall, arrives on February 28.