Warframe devs on Destiny 2's end: "It's heartbreaking. It's earth-shattering"

Digital Extremes isn't popping champagne over Destiny 2's shutdown — the Warframe team is grieving it. Community director and live ops lead Megan Everett told Eurogamer the news hit hard, personally and professionally: "It's heartbreaking. It's earth-shattering. I never thought I'd ever see the day where I'd read an article from Bungie about Destiny 2 essentially shutting down."

Everett pushed back on any notion that Warframe benefits from a dead competitor. "No one is celebrating the fact that this has happened to Destiny, and its players and that story," she said, adding that healthy competition is what keeps a genre alive — and that Destiny was a big part of that. Creative director Rebecca Ford echoed the sentiment on X shortly after the May 20 announcement, writing "There is no Warframe without the legacy of Bungie games" and calling Destiny "the only lasting pillar I had to look up to." Ford also announced an in-game account title cosmetic — an honoria — that players can unlock as a direct tribute to Destiny.

Everett was also candid about the bittersweet wave of fan support that flooded in after Bungie's shutdown announcement. "They've been getting a lot of negativity for all this time, and it's like, where was all this love," she said. "People need to put the hate away and show the love, because they could have really used that." She framed it as a broader lesson for live-service communities — vocal negativity drowns out the goodwill that's actually there, and by the time people rally, it can be too late. Digital Extremes has had its own rough patches, and Everett didn't pretend otherwise: "We all have scary days."

For Everett, the loss is personal as much as professional — she has close friends who played Destiny over Warframe, and she's clear-eyed about what the genre loses. "Having Destiny was healthy for us," she said. "I never expect anyone to only play Warframe. Having other games that scratch a similar itch is healthy for our genre." With Warframe building toward its next major update and a wave of displaced Destiny players looking for a new home, Digital Extremes is in an awkward position — potential beneficiary of a loss it genuinely didn't want.