Destiny 1 gets unexpected update with cancelled event from years ago and nobody’s sure why

Guardians still playing the original Destiny logged in to discover a surprise update – the first in over seven years.

While it was destroyed during the events of Destiny 2‘s Red War campaign, The Tower, central headquarters for the Vanguard and a social space for players, still stands in the original game.

Upon loading into the hub on January 5, players reported that the Tower had been decked out with immediately recognizable decorations.

The Dawning, an event that has appeared in both games as a parallel to Christmas, returned to Destiny’s Tower in the New Year, and nobody’s exactly sure why. Barring keeping the servers online, Bungie ceased support for the original Destiny in 2017 with the release of Destiny 2.

Better late than never

Why The Dawning would have returned to Destiny in 2025, of all years, isn’t clear, though the prevailing theory is that the surprise decorations are a result of an oversight.

YouTuber Breshi’s January 6 video suggests that Days of Dawning, a scrapped event originally scheduled for January 2016 during The Taken King, was given a faraway date to go live under the assumption that the game would no longer be available on the revised date, that being January 5, 2025.

Breshi showcased unused assets for the event, all of which line up exactly with the decorations Destiny players were presented with in the Tower.

The theory, while not confirmed, would explain why, besides the set dressing, nothing else appears to have changed in-game. No new items, missions, or activities have coincided with the festivities.

Whatever the reason, it’ll be interesting to see if Bungie will intervene to revert Destiny’s Tower to its usual state or if everything disappears automatically. Alongside the Sparrow Racing League and Festival of the Lost, The Dawning was one of several limited-time events held annually for Destiny.

With the exception of SRL, all of the above return annually in Destiny 2, with the latest iteration of The Dawning concluding on December 31, 2024.