All Destiny 2 Seasons & Expansions: Dates (2017–2026)

Destiny 2 has shipped 30 content cycles since Red War launched on September 6, 2017 — three Year 1 expansions, twenty numbered Seasons, three Episodes, and the Year-of-Prophecy cycles that frame 2025–2026. The average cycle runs 110 days, but Bungie’s pre-expansion extensions have stretched as long as 189 days (Season of the Wish and Renegades) while the shortest sat at 56 days (The Edge of Fate’s pre-update window). This is the complete record of every Destiny 2 season and expansion, with exact dates, durations, and the structural shifts the other lists tend to gloss over.

Total Cycles

30 (29 completed + 1 open)

Shortest

The Edge of Fate · 56 days

Longest

Season of the Wish / Renegades · 189 days

Average Length

~110 days

Current

Monument of Triumph · timer →

Quick answer: Destiny 2 has run for 30 content cycles across eight Years — Red War (Year 1, September 2017) launched the game; the modern seasonal model began with Forsaken in September 2018; The Final Shape swapped Seasons for Episodes in June 2024; and Year 8: The Year of Prophecy introduced the two-large-seasons-per-year cadence. The current Destiny 2 season timer carries the live estimate and confirmation status; this article keeps the completed-season record stable.

How Destiny 2 Seasons Work

Destiny 2’s content model has been rewritten four times since the 2017 launch, and each rewrite changed what a “season” actually means.

Year 1 (Sep 2017 – Sep 2018) shipped as a traditional MMO expansion model: the base game Red War plus two paid DLCs, Curse of Osiris and Warmind, with no seasonal Battle Pass.

Forsaken to Lightfall (Sep 2018 – Jun 2024) introduced the seasonal cadence Destiny 2 became known for. Each Year contained one paid annual expansion and four numbered Seasons of roughly 90 days each, plus a Season Pass (1,000 Silver, ~$10) with 100 ranks of unlockable rewards. Bungie occasionally extended the final season of a Year to bridge the gap to the next expansion — that is why Season of the Lost (Beyond Light → Witch Queen) ran 182 days and Season of the Wish (Lightfall → The Final Shape) ran 189.

Year 7 (Jun 2024 – Jul 2025) retired Seasons. The Final Shape launched alongside the first Episode, a three-act content drop of roughly four months. Three Episodes — Echoes, Revenant, and Heresy — covered the gap between The Final Shape and Year 8.

Year 8 (Jul 2025 onward) — Bungie’s Year of Prophecy — collapsed the model into two large seasons per year, each beginning with a mid-sized expansion and a paid Season Pass, then continuing for a few months until a free Major Update ships mid-cycle. Year 8’s first season, Reclamation, was kicked off by The Edge of Fate in July 2025 and updated by Ash & Iron in September; Year 8’s second, Lawless, launched with Renegades in December 2025 and continues with the Monument of Triumph update from June 9, 2026. The current Destiny 2 season timer tracks the open cycle’s status.

All Destiny 2 Seasons & Expansions — Complete Timeline

Every cycle since the September 2017 launch is below, sorted newest to oldest and grouped by Year. Dates are the official launch and reset timestamps from Bungie, normalized to UTC.

Year 8 — Year of Prophecy (2025–2026)

Year 8 subtotal: 3 completed entries across 329 days, plus the open Monument of Triumph update. Year 8 is the first Destiny 2 year with only two paid Battle Passes instead of four — the Edge of Fate pass covered the entire Reclamation season (TEoF + Ash & Iron) and the Renegades pass covers all of Lawless, including the Monument of Triumph update. The 56-day Edge of Fate window is the shortest cycle on record because Bungie split it from the Ash & Iron update inside the same Battle Pass.

Year 7 — Episodes Era (2024–2025)

Year 7 subtotal: 3 Episodes across 399 days. Episode 3: Heresy ran 155 days — the longest single-Episode cycle — because it bridged the Episodes model to the Year 8 launch in July 2025. Each Episode shipped as three Acts of roughly six weeks, with story missions, exotic quests, and Battle Pass tiers staggered across them.

Year 6 — Lightfall Era (2023)

Year 6 subtotal: 4 seasons across 462 days. Lightfall launched February 28, 2023 alongside Season of Defiance. Season of the Wish at 189 days is tied with Renegades as the longest cycle Bungie has ever shipped — it was the deliberate “limbo” stretch holding fans through The Final Shape’s delayed June 2024 launch.

Year 5 — Witch Queen Era (2022)

Year 5 subtotal: 4 seasons across 371 days. The Witch Queen launched February 22, 2022 with Season of the Risen — widely cited as the high point of Destiny 2’s seasonal model. Season of Plunder ran 105 days because Bungie shifted the Year-end cycle to land Season of the Seraph inside the December holiday window.

Year 4 — Beyond Light Era (2020–2021)

Year 4 subtotal: 4 seasons across 469 days. Beyond Light launched November 10, 2020 with Season of the Hunt — the first Year to begin in November instead of September after the COVID-era delay. Season of the Lost at 182 days was the first of Bungie’s extra-long pre-expansion seasons, six months bridging to The Witch Queen.

Year 3 — Shadowkeep Era (2019–2020)

Year 3 subtotal: 4 seasons across 406 days. Shadowkeep launched October 1, 2019 with Season of the Undying, the shortest numbered Destiny 2 season at 70 days — Bungie compressed it to hit the new quarterly cadence after Year 2’s irregular pacing. Season of Arrivals at 154 days bridged to Beyond Light’s COVID-delayed November launch.

Year 2 — Forsaken Era (2018–2019)

Year 2 subtotal: 4 seasons across 392 days. Forsaken launched September 4, 2018 with Season of the Outlaw — the patch that introduced the Annual Pass and turned the post-launch DLC schedule into the “Season” structure Destiny 2 used for the next six years. Season of Opulence ran long at 119 days to bridge to Shadowkeep’s October release.

Year 1 — Pre-Season Era (2017–2018)

Year 1 subtotal: 3 expansions across 363 days. Year 1 predates the seasonal model — there was no Battle Pass, no Season Pass, and no 90-day reward track. Red War is the base-game campaign that shipped at Destiny 2’s PC and console launch on September 6, 2017. Curse of Osiris and Warmind were paid mini-expansions of roughly 4–5 hours each, retired from the live game in November 2020 as part of the Beyond Light content vault.

Records & Stats

Longest Destiny 2 cycles

1. Season of the Wish / Renegades (tie) — 189 days (Nov 28, 2023 → Jun 4, 2024 / Dec 2, 2025 → Jun 9, 2026)
2. Season of the Lost — 182 days (Aug 24, 2021 → Feb 22, 2022)
3. Episode 3: Heresy — 155 days (Feb 10, 2025 → Jul 15, 2025)
4. Curse of Osiris / Season of Arrivals (tie) — 154 days

All three top spots are pre-expansion bridges. Bungie consistently extends the final cycle of a Year by 60–90 days when the next expansion slips — Season of the Lost held the line until The Witch Queen, Season of the Wish held it until The Final Shape, and Renegades did the same job ahead of Year 8’s Monument of Triumph update.

Shortest Destiny 2 cycles

1. The Edge of Fate — 56 days (Jul 15, 2025 → Sep 9, 2025)
2. Season of the Undying — 70 days (Oct 1, 2019 → Dec 10, 2019)
3. Season of Defiance — 83 days (Feb 28, 2023 → May 22, 2023)
4. Season of the Seraph / Ash & Iron (tie) — 84 days

The Edge of Fate is the shortest cycle on record by a wide margin, but it is structurally different from the others — it is the first half of Year 8’s Reclamation season, with Ash & Iron continuing it as a free mid-cycle update on the same Battle Pass. Counted as a single Reclamation season, the cycle is 140 days.

Average season length by era

Across the 29 completed cycles the mean duration is 110 days. If you strip the four pre-expansion bridge cycles (Curse of Osiris, Arrivals, Lost, Wish), the average pulls down to a familiar 94 days — almost exactly the quarterly cadence Bungie publicly targeted from Forsaken through Lightfall.

Are Destiny 2 seasons getting longer?

Yes, structurally. Year 5 averaged 93 days per cycle (close to a true quarterly model). Year 7 averaged 133, and Year 8 has averaged 110 across its three entries to date. The pivot to Episodes in 2024 and to two-large-seasons in 2025 reflects Bungie’s decision to slow the content cadence and ship larger mid-cycle updates instead of the old four-season-per-year rhythm. The base-game Renegades cycle at 189 days is now tied for the longest cycle Bungie has ever shipped in Destiny 2.

What Happens When a Destiny 2 Cycle Ends

Every Destiny 2 cycle transition triggers deadlines across three reward tracks — the Renegades → Monument of Triumph transition on June 9, 2026 followed this same pattern.

Season Pass cutoff. The 100-rank Season Pass for the closing cycle stops accepting progress at the reset. Unlocked rewards — armor sets, exotic ornaments, ghost shells, ships and Sparrows — stay on your account permanently, but any rank you have not claimed is gone. Bungie does not retroactively grant unclaimed tiers when the next pass goes live.

Seasonal currencies and quests. Seasonal currencies and consumables are typically deprecated when a new cycle goes live. Pinnacle and Exotic quests tied to the closing campaign remain accessible from the Director, but any expiring seasonal challenge disappears at the reset. Exotic Ciphers carry over between cycles, but the Cipher quest itself does not — finish it before the reset if it is open.

Crucible and Trials of Osiris. Crucible ranks soft-reset at every chapter transition — your rank rolls back to base and the streak bonus is re-earned for the new chapter. Trials adept weapons and any season-locked Lighthouse cosmetics stop dropping once the next cycle goes live.

For the current cycle’s status, see the Destiny 2 countdown. For a comparable looter-shooter cadence breakdown, the Overwatch 2 season history tracks Blizzard’s tight nine-week rhythm, and the Call of Duty season timeline shows how Activision’s near-identical model has played out across seven game eras. More breakdowns live on the SeasonTimer blog.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many Destiny 2 seasons have there been?

Destiny 2 has shipped 30 content cycles since launch — 3 Year 1 expansions (Red War, Curse of Osiris, Warmind), 20 numbered Seasons (Outlaw through Wish), 3 Episodes (Echoes, Revenant, Heresy), and 4 Year 8 entries (The Edge of Fate, Ash & Iron, Renegades, and the open Monument of Triumph). The open interval is shown in the table and tracked on the Destiny 2 timer.

How long do Destiny 2 seasons last?

The average Destiny 2 cycle runs 110 days, but the answer depends on which model you mean. Numbered Seasons (Outlaw through Wish) averaged 104 days. Episodes (Year 7) averaged 133 days. Year 8 large seasons average 110 days including their mid-cycle updates. Pre-expansion bridge seasons stretch to 180+ days.

What was the longest Destiny 2 season ever?

Two cycles are tied at 189 days: Season of the Wish (November 28, 2023 → June 4, 2024) and Renegades (December 2, 2025 → June 9, 2026). Both bridged to a major next chapter — The Final Shape in 2024 and Destiny 2’s Year 8 Monument of Triumph update in 2026. Season of the Lost at 182 days, which bridged Beyond Light to The Witch Queen, is the third-longest.

What was the shortest Destiny 2 season ever?

The Edge of Fate at 56 days (July 15, 2025 → September 9, 2025) — though it is structurally the first half of Year 8’s Reclamation season, continued by the free Ash & Iron update on the same Battle Pass. Counted as one season (TEoF + Ash & Iron), Reclamation ran 140 days. The shortest standalone numbered season is Season of the Undying at 70 days.

How many Destiny 2 expansions are there?

Counting paid annual expansions only, Bungie has shipped nine major expansions: Curse of Osiris (2017), Warmind (2018), Forsaken (2018), Shadowkeep (2019), Beyond Light (2020), The Witch Queen (2022), Lightfall (2023), The Final Shape (2024), and the Year 8 expansion pair The Edge of Fate (2025) and Renegades (2025). The base game Red War (2017) is sometimes counted as a tenth.

Data sourced from Bungie’s official patch notes, Destiny 2 content calendars, and season launch announcements, cross-referenced with our season records. Last updated July 17, 2026.