Destiny 2: Ash & Iron

General Information

Role: Senior Activity Designer

Genre: MMO, FPS, Live Service

Engine: Proprietary Bungie Engine

Platforms: PC, PS4, Xbox One, PS5, Xbox Series X/S

Developer: Bungie, Inc.

Release Date: September 9, 2025

Tools

Overview

Destiny 2: Ash & Iron was the first Major Update style release in the new Destiny 2 roadmap. I rolled onto the team part of the way through production after working on the Rite of the Nine event. I served as an activity designer on Reclaim, a new activity type, and created the process for as well as set up three Dungeon Lairs.

Responsibilities

Served as an activity designer:

  • Created and pitched encounter concepts
  • Wrote and maintained detailed documentation
  • Designed, scripted, and iterated on combat encounters
  • Polished features and fixed bugs

Collaborated with other disciplines:

  • Worked with the World Art team to modify existing spaces to best fit the combat and gameplay present
  • Coordinated with Tech Design, VFX, and Audio to request assets necessary to create the intended experience
  • Worked closely with the Test team to ensure a high level of quality
  • Collaborated with Production to plan features, cost tasks, and identify risks

My Work

During the production of Destiny 2: Ash & Iron I worked on two brand new activity types: Reclaim and Dungeon Lairs. In Reclaim players explore reprised areas from the Plaguelands and fight off the Conductor's forces to recover golden age technology for the Vanguard. There are three versions of the activity, each featuring a different path through the Plaguelands and a unique boss. While different paths share spaces, each area has at least one unique encounter present and contains different encounters compared to the other versions of that space. Additionally, each boss has two versions of the featured mechanic, one with a moderate complexity and a second, simpler version for players who prefer a more casual experience.

Reclaim: Conductor's Keep

In Reclaim: Conductor's Keep I served as the primary designer on the Lord's Watch and The Divide spaces as well as the boss encounter. I also helped iterate on and close out the Bunker Triglav space. The boss encounter focuses on a "cypher" mechanic where players must destroy Vex themed targets with different shapes in an order specified by a central "key" object. Each round increases the complexity with an incorrect order resetting and rerandomizing that round. The lower difficulty version of the mechanic specifies a single target shape and requires players to destroy all instances of that shape without a penalty for destroying the wrong one.

Reclaim: Fallen Bunker

For Reclaim: Fallen Bunker I served as the primary designer on The Divide and Rocketyard spaces and helped iterate on and close out the Giant's Husk space.

Reclaim: Cabal's Watch

I served as the primary designer on the boss encounter for Reclaim: Cabal's Watch and helped iterate on and close out all three spaces. The boss encounter for Cabal's Watch features a time mechanic combined with shielded psions. Players must capture a Vex pylon to reveal two shielded psions and kill them within a short timeframe. After time has expired the psions will disappear and players must recapture the pylon if they have not killed both psions. This encounter encourages players to coordinate through the psion placement and the simultaneous availability of multiple capture areas. The lower difficulty version of the encounter simply requires players to locate and kill all shielded psions.

Dungeon Lairs

With progression in Destiny 2 being mostly confined to the new portal feature in this release, Dungeon Lairs provided players with a way to engage in end-game content to gain power. Each Dungeon Lair takes a small, curated section of a dungeon and makes it available in the portal. I developed comprehensive documentation, explaining the metrics-based process for selection and changes necessary to make these activities possible without altering the experience of legacy dungeons or introducing new bugs to shipped content. I created three Dungeon Lairs, each drawing from a different dungeon: Pit of Heresy, Duality, and Warlord's Ruin.