Bungie has confirmed that Destiny 2’s next major update, Shadow and Order, won’t hit its planned date: it’s now set for June 9, and it’s being renamed as player numbers on Steam keep sliding.

With less than two weeks left before the planned release of Destiny 2’s next major update, it was already raising eyebrows that nobody outside Bungie seemed to have seen or heard anything about it. That silence – and the fact that it was landing uncomfortably close to Marathon (scheduled to launch just two days later) – led many fans to assume a delay was coming. Now it’s official: Bungie says Shadow and Order has been pushed to June 9, and it’s also getting a new name.

“Our next Major Update, Destiny 2: Shadow and Order, is undergoing large revisions and will be delayed. This update is being changed and expanded to include sizable quality-of-life updates and as a result, will also be renamed. This update will now launch on June 9, 2026.”

Bungie says more specifics will come closer to release, but it reiterated previously announced Weapon Tier Upgrading and also pointed to additions like expanding Tiered Gear across all Raid and Dungeon activities, Pantheon 2.0, Tier 5 stats for Exotic armor pieces, and more. The rationale for a name change isn’t obvious – the update appears to build on December’s Renegades release – but the practical result is a longer content gap, even if the studio is promising smaller adjustments in the interim.

Through June, Bungie says it will continue routine bug fixes and stability improvements, continued portal modifiers, Guardian Games in March, and a return to a more frequent Iron Banner cadence in April. On communications, it says updates on live content, community activations, and general upkeep will be pushed through TWID and Destiny social channels.

Why The Delay Matters More Than Usual

A delay itself wasn’t shocking to many observers, but the length of it was. Shadow and Order had been targeting March 3, and the question of whether it would hold that date intensified in January after Bungie said Marathon would launch on March 5. Even so, the studio stayed quiet until the last moment, confirming the push less than two weeks before the original release window.

The problem is that June is a long way off, and the game’s situation doesn’t leave much room for extended dead air. The article points to how the community’s appetite for features like expanded Tiered Gear and Pantheon 2.0 is real, but it also underscores that Destiny 2 needs momentum now. It references prior commentary about an expansion being unusually troubled, and notes that Steam concurrency has continued to trend downward. At the time of writing, SteamDB showed a little over 11,000 players in-game on Steam – far below the audience the shooter once drew.

There’s also pressure on the business side: the piece cites Sony CFO Lin Tao saying in November 2025 that Destiny 2 sales and user engagement “have not reached the expectations” that existed at the time Sony acquired Bungie, leading to revised projections and a recorded loss on the deal. The conclusion is blunt: if Destiny 2 keeps struggling and Marathon doesn’t launch hard and sustain that pace, Bungie could be facing serious trouble.

Source: PC Gamer, Bluesky, SteamDB