Destiny 2 will neither be peer-to-peer or use dedicated servers

Every activity in Destiny 2 is hosted by one of our servers. That means you will never again suffer a host migration during your Raid attempt or Trials match. This differs from Destiny 1, where these hosting duties were performed by player consoles and only script and mission logic ran in the data center. To understand the foundation on which we’re building, check out this Destiny 1 presentation from GDC. Using the terms from this talk, in Destiny 2, both the Mission Host and Physics Host will run in our data centers.

We don’t use that term, because in the gaming community, “dedicated servers” refers to pure client-server networking models. Destiny 2 uses a hybrid of client-server and peer-to-peer technology, just like Destiny 1. The server is authoritative over how the game progresses, and each player is authoritative over their own movement and abilities. This allows us to give players the feeling of immediacy in all their moving and shooting – no matter where they live and no matter whom they choose to play with.

 

Many will call the lack of full dedicated Destiny 2 servers as a cost-saving measure for Activision/Bungie, it must be remembered that this is a huge improvement over Destiny 1 and that Bungie is investing a lot more into Destiny 2’s infrastructure.

It remains to be seen how well Destiny 2’s online services function, though we will no doubt find out when the game enters its beta phase during the summer. 

Nope! We’ve invested heavily in new server infrastructure for Destiny 2, including using cloud servers for gameplay for the first time. We really believe this is the best model for all of Destiny 2’s varied cooperative and competitive experiences. Engineering will always involve trade-offs and cost-benefit analysis, but as a team, we’ve got no regrets about the unique technology we’ve built for Destiny 2.

To make a long story short, Bungie are moving a lot more of Destiny 2 onto cloud servers, preventing many of the host migration issues, lap problems and balance issues that are caused by original game’s online systems.

While Destiny 2 will not use “dedicated servers” in the traditional sense, it will still be a huge improvement for fans of the series, though we will have to wait until the game’s open beta to see exactly how well this new “hybrid” system functions. 

You can join the discussion on Destiny 2’s hybrid online systems on the OC3D Forums.