The expansion follows the player's Guardian along with the Drifter, Eris Morn, Eido, and new Praxic Order member Aunor Mahal as they form an unlikely crew to fight the rising Barant Imperium, a new Cabal force led by the fallen Guardian-turned-villain Dredgen Bael, all while dealing with the fallout from The Edge of Fate prophecy and the mysterious plans of the Nine. The story sees the protagonists operating outside the Vanguard's direct support, establishing a base in Mars' Tharsis Cantina, and tackling bounties and major threats across Mars, Venus, and Europa, culminating in a battle against Bael's attempt to use a superweapon to reshape the galaxy.
The expansion is heavily inspired by Star Wars, with Bungie collaborating with Lucasfilm on the narrative and gear featured in the expansion, such as the Praxic Blade, Destiny 2's version of the lightsaber. It also added new content across the game, including new missions, Player versus Environment (PvE) locations, Player versus Player (PvP) maps, player gear, weaponry, and a new dungeon, "Equilibrium", which was released on December 13, 2025. Additionally, the expansion sees the return of missions on the planet Venus, not including the Vault of Glass raid that was ported from the original Destiny (2014) as an extra playable activity during Year 4's Season of the Splicer. Renegades began Season: Lawless for Year 8, with the season's major update, Shadow & Order, planned for March 2026.
Gameplay
Renegades, as a full expansion, features a full story. Once the player completes the story, they gain access to the Lawless Frontier, a set of maps located on Venus, Mars, and Europa, along with a social space called the Tharsis Outpost. Through the story, the player is introduced to three factions, Cabal, Fallen, and Vex, fighting over the Lawless Frontier, and after the story, the player can then complete bounties offered by each faction. In a bounty, a fireteam of up to three Guardians travel to one of locations and complete a set of missions within a limited time, either a bounty hunt, smuggling, or sabotage. Once complete, the team must then successfully exfiltrate ("exfil") to receive rewards from the mission, as well as improve the reputation with that faction that offered that bounty. Improving this reputation grants access to special abilities that can be used in the Lawless Frontier only, such as calling in an air strike, a protective shield, or an armored walker unit, and further reputation improvements can lead to more powerful versions of these. Reputation also improves the potential loot the player can earn from these factions. Activities on the Lawless Frontier can also be played as an Invasion, where one Guardian can temporarily appear within another fireteam's mission and attempt to kill the other Guardians before they are killed three times themselves or their time runs out. Rewards from Invasions are based on how successful the invader performs.[1]
Plot
At the end of The Edge of Fate, the Nine, fourth dimensional beings trapped within the gravity wells of each of the planets of the Solar System, react to the death of III (the member of the Nine tied to Earth) by naming Lodi their new Emissary, and reciting a prophecy through him to "bind the Nine", or the Solar System will be destroyed. The events are declared classified by the Vanguard, deeming that the people of the Last City on Earth do not need to worry about the prophecy as they are still recovering from the war against the Witness.
The Drifter, bitter that the events on Kepler cannot be discussed, patrols the system on his own and discovers that a faction of the Cabal, called the Barant Imperium, has established a base on Mars seemingly overnight. Believing the Nine to be behind it, and without Vanguard support, he recruits the Guardian, Eris Morn, Eido, and Praxic Order Warlock Aunor Mahal (last seen in Season of the Drifter in an unseen role), to steal a data disc from the Imperium, but as they flee, they are captured by Dredgen Bael, a member of the Shadows of Yor whom the Drifter had previously been a part of and seemingly a Guardian. Bael attempts to capture Drifter, but the Guardian helps free him, and Aunor uses her Praxic Blade to ward off Bael and allow them to flee.
Blue, Drifter's Ghost, analyzes the data disc but lacks the ability to communicate the information, so they travel to Tharsis Outpost on Mars, where Spider holds an uneasy truce between crime syndicates of the Cabal (led by Psions), atheistic Fallen, and independent Vex (freed from the Conductor). With Spider's help, the Guardian recovers parts to repair Blue, and learn the plans are for a new ship, but otherwise encrypted. Spider helps the Guardian introduce themself to the various syndicates and perform outlaw work for them across Mars, Venus, and Europa to improve the reputation with each group to help gain favors.
Before they fully decrypt the plans, the Drifter has a vision from the Nine that Eris and everyone else he cares for will die unless he joins with Bael, and takes off on his own. Before reaching there, Bael brings the Nightfall, a giant orbital superweapon, into the orbit of Mars and fires it at the Outpost, killing every Guardian and their Ghosts with a new power dubbed "Eclipse energy". Eido overhears Bael planning to turn the superweapon towards the Last City next, and Zavala instructs the Guardian to do what it takes to stop Bael.
Blue finally decrypts the plans, and the group realizes the weapon's core could have only come from the Nine. With Eris's help, Lodi contacts the Nine, and learns that VI (the member of the Nine associated with Saturn) helped rapidly create the Barant Imperium via time dilation and gave Bael the core for the Nightfall as to wipe out Lightbearers on Earth, using Bael's own hatred of the Vanguard's rule of the Last City to drive him, as this is necessary for the Outer Nine to be able to free themselves from the Solar System. Knowing this, Aunor helps the Guardian enter one of the Praxic Temples on Europa to secure their own Praxic Blade to use against Bael. Drifter, after gaining Bael's trust, secretly contacts the group, and devises a con to try to expose Bael's Ghost to destroy it and kill Bael. After fighting through the Imperium, the Guardian meets where Bael and Drifter are waiting. Bael orders Drifter to crush Blue, promising him leadership of the Imperium, but he uses the moment to turn on Bael and shoot off his right hand. No Ghost appears to tend to Bael before he teleports away, and they realize that Bael is not a Guardian after all, and that VI was the one who gave him his powers.
Knowing Bael is vulnerable, the Guardian boards the Nightfall to destroy it before it can fire on Earth. The Guardian faces against Premier Lume who commands the Nightfall, defeating him and forcing Lume to flee, after which the Guardian damages the power core of the ship and escapes before it blows up. The Drifter covers the Guardian's escape from Bael, damaging Bael's ship and forcing him away. Though the mission is a success, Drifter finds himself driven even further away from the Vanguard for his actions.
Development
After finishing development of The Final Shape campaign, Bungie opted by September 2024 to move away from annual expansions to shorter expansions. Game director Tyson Green said that "Expansions have started to feel too formulaic and are over too quickly with little replay value", and that "Seasons and Episodes keep getting bigger but can still feel like you are just going through the motions."[2] Instead, Bungie wanted to be able to offer more exploration experiences and try different approaches to gameplay, such as non-linear campaigns, and opted to make future expansions shorter to allow them to try these experiments. At that time, the first planned expansion after The Final Shape was given the codename "Apollo" with the second referred to as "Behemoth".[2]
While Bungie took influence from Star Wars when developing the original Destiny (2014),[3] both the narrative and design elements for Renegades were directly inspired by the space opera. In making Renegades, Bungie partnered with Lucasfilm, including licensing content; they previously collaborated on bringing Star Wars inspired cosmetic items to the game, such as armor ornaments. For Renegades, much of the gear is based on items from Star Wars, including weapons used by Han Solo, Boba Fett, Cassian Andor, Din Djarin, Clone Commandos, Princess Leia, and Chewbacca. There is also the Praxic Blade exotic sword, Destiny 2's version of the lightsaber, with the Praxic Order being a parallel to the Jedi Order. Europa features an icy battlefield reminiscent of Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back, while there is also a new enemy mecha weapon inspired by walkers. Additionally, the Barant Imperium is based on the Galactic Empire and its Stormtroopers while the main villain, Dredgen Bael, takes inspiration from Kylo Ren. The main hub for Renegades is the Tharsis Cantina at the Tharsis Outpost on Mars, based on the Mos Eisley Cantina from A New Hope. The Nightfall is inspired by the Death Star and Starkiller Base superweapons from the original and sequel trilogies, respectively.[4]
Release
Renegades was released on December 2, 2025, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It is available as paid downloadable content (DLC). In addition to the standard version, the expansion is also included in the "Year of Prophecy" pack, as well as the "Year of Prophecy – Ultimate Edition" pack. Pre-orders for any edition included immediate access to an exotic ghost shell and a legendary emblem (as early as the Rite of the Nine event in May 2025 during Episode: Heresy, or Season 26). The "Year of Prophecy" pack includes both Year 8 expansions, The Edge of Fate and Renegades; pre-orders for this version also included an exotic ship and another legendary emblem for the latter which was added to players' inventories with the Ash & Iron major update in September 2025. The "Year of Prophecy – Ultimate Edition" additionally includes an exotic emote, an exotic sparrow, the Dark Side Legends Bundle, which features Star Wars-based armor ornaments for the three character classes (General Grievous for Hunters, Darth Vader for Titans, and Kylo Ren for Warlocks), as well as the No Land Beyond exotic sniper rifle (including its exotic catalyst which became available with the launch of The Edge of Fate).[5]
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