Destiny Bungie
A screenshot from Destiny, Bungie's current ten-year project. Bungie

Activison has laid out its plans for the future of Destiny during a quarterly earnings call in which they revealed that this year will see the release of a "large new expansion" before a "full game sequel" is released in 2017.

A press release which coincided with the earnings call states (via Kotaku): "Activision Publishing, along with its partners at Bungie, expects to bring a large new expansion to Destiny in 2016 and to release a full game sequel in 2017."

The news comes after a period of uncertainty for fans of the online sci-fi shooter, who have been kept waiting for news on what this coming year - the game's second full year on release - has in store, in lieu of the regular expansions that were sold during Destiny Year One.

What Bungie had announced prior to this was a Spring update and a Valentine's Day-themed Crimson Days event, which is currently underway. In a blog post published to coincide with Activision's announcement, Bungie explained that the Spring update will include "a significant Light increase, a bunch of new gear to earn and equip, and new challenges for PvE players seeking some more fun experiences and replayability."

In January Kotaku reported that the previously unannounced full sequel to Destiny had been delayed from its planned launch in September until an unspecified date. This news confirms Kotaku's scoop (their second confirmed scoop of the day as it happens) and likely confirms the state of flux the ever-changing massively multiplayer online game is currently in.

Destiny's existence both pre and post-release has been plagued with problems and controversies, surrounding delays, the reported scrapping of the entire game's story, the price of its expansions, the content it has offered and its recently-introduced microtransactions. Despite this, the game remains beloved, and hugely popular.

In their earnings call Activision boasted that 25 million players have logged more than 3 billion hours of play-time in Destiny since its launch in September of 2014.

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