Last night, a Reddit user by the name of GodsofMarsLeak posted some interesting information about the next major expansion for Destiny 2. The poster alleged that the Japanese PSN had briefly made the store page for Expansion 2 public, and that they had grabbed screenshots and details from there. At first glance, the details regarding Destiny 2 Expansion 2–titled “Gods of Mars”–seem to be exciting, but on closer inspection, there’s a lot of fishy stuff going on here that leads me to believe this leak is more or less fake.
First, let’s take a look at the supposed details posted.
Destiny 2 Expansion II: Gods of Mars sends your Guardian on a long journey to a brand new destination – the Frigid Vale of Mars, with an array of new missions, adventures, and enemies to fight. Charlemagne has reawoken on Mars and has imprisoned Rasputin within an ancient vault. Work with the elusive Ana Bray – long thought to be dead, in order to combat Charlemagne’s Remnants, free Rasputin, and uncover the secrets of Clovis Bray.
Features:
- Explore the Frigid Vale, a new destination that conceals the mysterious Clovis Grove and Charlemagne’s Vault beneath its surface
- New story missions and adventures
- New themed weapons, armor, and gear to earn
- New cooperative activities
- New competitive multiplayer arenas
- New enemy faction & bosses
68GB minimum save size
Online Play (Required)
Why it’s a Fake
Reddit user GodsofMarsLeak has only been active since yesterday, posting their find to five of the major Destiny subreddits. At first, this was a low key post, with screen grabs allegedly captured from the Japanese PSN. The user was quickly called out by Japanese speaking readers that indicated his post was a low quality Google translated version of the text, and did not match the traditional formatting or translation quality found on the PSN (or even just on Destiny 2’s first expansion, Curse of Osiris). Redditor ZOZOT3 had the following to say:
I’m a Japanese and I would like to point out that those texts don’t make sense because they are translated by such as google translate. PSN store never released an official description which is done by the translation software. I highly doubt this information.
Also, in the Japanese version, SIVA is called ZIVA, but the description said it’s SIVA. Another suspicious.
Third, you can see the word “アクティビジョン”, this is Activision in Japanese. The funny thing is Destiny 1 and 2 are sold by Sony in Japan. Not by Activision. Check other Destiny’s descriptions on the PlayStation Store Japan, then you see “株式会社ソニー・インタラクティブエンタテインメント”. This is SIE in Japanese. Why all of the sudden SIE stepped down and let Activision stands?
Last, why Japanese PlayStation Store uses US PlayStation Store’s policy? JP store never used that.
I bet this is a fake news.
The page format is wrong as well. You see “2018年5月” on top of the page, right? They don’t use 年&月 on the page. The format won’t be bothered by Bungie.
Bungie has an official Japanese translator in the house and he or she never used an automatic translation. The leak can be true, but I highly doubt the source you posted.
Soon after being called out, GodsofMarsLeak suddenly had screenshots from the North American PSN Store, claiming that it too suddenly slipped up and showed the expansion details, and that somehow they were the only ones to see it (yet again). With the thumbnail now visible in the NA screenshots, users were quick to point out that this used an existing promotional image from Expansion 2, that it was squished to fit in the square, and that it didn’t say the name of the expansion on it (unlike the Curse of Osiris thumbnail, which does). I also noticed that it appears to be slightly misaligned, jutting out a few pixels too far on the right side. The new NA PSN screenshots also changed the date from May 2018 to March 2018, and the 68 GB required matches exactly Curse of Osiris, which is an unlikely coincidence.
On the NA Store, you’ll notice that it says “Level” next to the release date, referring to designations for different content on the PSN. According to user megamanexe4, that specific designation does not exist on the Japanese PSN, yet the initial leaked screenshots have that item translated:
Prior to that, there is no item called Level(レベル) in the PS Store in Japan. This part is not an area that can be changed by Bungie’s will.
megamanexe4 is known among the Destiny community members as someone who has correctly data-mined and leaked things in the past, so being called out by them highlights the obvious flaws in GodsofMarsLeak’s post regarding Destiny 2 Expansion 2. It’s highly, highly unlikely that a random new user managed to see this slip up randomly on both the Japanese and NA PSN stores when no one else can corroborate the info. In fact, the mods of the two biggest Destiny subreddits removed the posts as confirmed fakes, which pretty much says it all.
What Could Still Be Real
The leak itself is clearly the latest in 2017’s long standing battle with fake news, but there’s a chance much of this could end up being real. The details posted are essentially a conglomerate of fan theories that have been floating around for ages. It’s clear that the second expansion will focus on the warminds, as the warmind symbol is the main icon featured on the expansion pass. It’s also obvious from the promo screenshot that Bungie has officially released that we’ll be working with an unknown female Guardian and we’ll be headed somewhere cold and icy. Even the polar caps of Mars were hinted at in the final cutscene of Destiny 2 (check out Unknown Player’s video for more on how the lore lines up). The rest of the details have been cobbled together based on lore hints and and long standing wishes from the players (new enemy faction, anyone?).
There’s a very good chance that Destiny 2 Expansion 2 will be called Gods of Mars (in fact, that name leaked when Destiny 2 first launched, and was corroborated in a different leak a few days before Christmas). Many of the details will likely line up based on a number of hints actually inside of Destiny 2 and the lore itself. While the community is getting closer to crowdsourcing this information, I don’t think that GodsofMarsLeak’s fake screenshot–which has been shared by many major and reputable gaming news outlets–is a legitimate part of this discussion. When Bungie officially announces something regarding the next expansion for Destiny 2, we’ll let you know.
