Destiny: Rise of Iron Skips 360/PS3, Here's What Happens to Those Players

Developer Bungie has announced the next expansion for Destiny, called Rise of Iron, and it features a new area, enemy faction, weapons, armor, and a social space. But it's only coming to PS4 and Xbox One, in spite of the fact that the base game and the first three expansions are all available on last-gen consoles.

In its weekly update, Bungie explained that the game experience would diverge between current-gen and last-gen players, with Rise of Iron only available to PS4 and Xbox One players. So far, playing Destiny has been essentially identical no matter which console you've played on. With Rise of Iron, however, the Xbox 360 and PS3 Destiny experience "will occur on a separate path," the update states.

The details of what exactly that "separate path" entails are vague, but the update makes it sound like, specifically, player progression--leveling, gear acquisition, etc--will be different between the console generations.

Although the studio has yet to clarify, this could mean that player progression is simply staying the same as what it is currently on last-gen platforms, with Bungie essentially stopping additional content drops for the consoles. Or, it could mean that Bungie has other, separate plans for 360 and PS3 players.

Notably, this divergence is coming in August, before Rise of Iron launches in September. Alongside this, to facilitate the transition, Bungie has emphasized players' ability to port last-gen characters over to current-gen consoles in the same family -- that is, Xbox 360 to Xbox One, or PS3 to PS4. Bungie will release more details in the coming weeks about this transition.

When asked for comment, a Bungie representative replied, "We are exploring potential options for players to upgrade Destiny from last-gen to next-gen and will have more to say about that with our hardware partners soon."

Rise of Iron was announced today and you can check out details of the expansion here. It'll launch on September 20 for the PS4 and Xbox One, and it'll cost $30. It's described as bigger than the first two expansions, The Dark Below and House of Wolves. If you preorder, you can snag an iron-skinned version of the infamous Gjallarhorn rocket launcher. Keep an eye on GameSpot next week during E3 2016 for more news and impressions about Rise of Iron.