The announcement regarding the game’s lack of private matches upon release came during an interview on Kotaku’s E3 2017 podcast, with Destiny 2 director Luke Smith confirming as much. Of course, since Smith made sure to phrase it in a way to say that Guardians won’t be able to cobble together matches with their own rule sets “at launch,” it opens up the possibility of Bungie adding the feature later on down the line.
For those unaware, private matches were introduced into the original Destiny well into its lifespan, as the feature came about during the Rise of Iron expansion in September 2016 much to the joy of the game’s fan base. Without a doubt, it was one of the most-requested features to be added into the game, as Guardians were able to set up their own Crucible matches with friends and choose the mode, map, score limit, time limit, Light level, as well as the time of day.
As it so happens, private matches won’t be the only feature absent upon Destiny 2’s release, as ranked PvP won’t be available at launch either. However, Luke Smith did say during the podcast with Kotaku that the studio is currently working on “something” related to ranked play that may or may not “make September” when the game comes out on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, so multiplayer fans can at least hold out a little hope.
All things considered, with Destiny 2’s private matches and ranked play being absent at launch, it looks like Bungie is attempting to focus on making refinements that will cause PvP stand out from the original game before it adds more layers. After all, the studio has altered the Crucible a bit to have its competitive matches exist as 4v4, which will likely take some getting used to for the first month or so of the game’s availability.
Destiny 2 is set to launch on September 6, 2017 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, while its PC version releases on October 24, 2017.
Source: Kotaku
