Do you need to buy all the Destiny 2 expansions?
No — the base game is free forever as New Light, but the story campaigns, the current raid, and most dungeons sit behind paid expansions and separately-sold Dungeon Keys; as of August 2026, Bungie has already shipped its last content update, so that paid lineup is now fixed rather than growing.
New Light is free for good; campaigns, raids and dungeons are where the paywalls are.
No. New Light, the base version of Destiny 2, is free forever and stays that way: you get the Portal, Crucible, Gambit, a large slice of weapons and armor, and a rotating set of older activities. What's locked is the story: campaigns, the current raid, and most dungeons ship as paid content, either inside an expansion or as a standalone purchase.
As of August 2026, the current paid tier is The Edge of Fate, sold on its own or bundled with the follow-up expansion Renegades as the Year of Prophecy edition, which also covers that cycle's raid and dungeon. Older campaigns from Forsaken through The Final Shape are sold together in the Legacy Collection rather than one at a time. This matters more than usual right now: Bungie shipped Monument of Triumph on June 9, 2026 as the last content update for Destiny 2 and has ended active development, so this lineup of paid editions isn't going to grow with a new season — what's for sale today is close to what will be for sale from here on.
Dungeons are their own line item. Beyond the couple of dungeons handed to New Light players for free, the rest are sold as Dungeon Keys — a separate pack from the expansions, not included with them. As of mid-2026 a single key pack unlocks six dungeons (Duality, Spire of the Watcher, Ghosts of the Deep, Warlord's Ruin, Vesper's Host, Sundered Doctrine), so raiding or running dungeons at the current endgame level almost always means buying keys on top of whatever expansion you already own.
PS Plus and Xbox Live: despite being free-to-play, Destiny 2 is one of the few exceptions where PlayStation still requires an active PlayStation Plus subscription to play matchmade activities like Crucible, Gambit or the Portal. On Xbox, that requirement was dropped — free-to-play titles including Destiny 2 no longer need Xbox Live Gold for online play.