Destiny 2 How to Preload Lightfall: Sizes and Release date

Lightfall, Destiny 2’s latest expansion, is almost upon us: The penultimate DLC of the Light and Dark saga is set to release on February 28, 2023.

In the meantime, the Destiny 2 community continues to eagerly prep for the expansion. That mainly includes hoarding bounties and farming weapon patterns, but preloading the game is also an essential part of the checklist.

This guide will tell you everything there is to know about preloading Lightfall, whether you’re on PC, Xbox, or Playstation.

How to Preload Lightfall: Step by Step

Preloading Lightfall is simple, regardless of what platform you’re using. To preload the Lightfall DLC, you simply need to update the game on February 27, 2023, during the scheduled 24-hour downtime. Just make sure you have enough free hard drive space available.

As announced on Bungie’s TWAB from February 16, 2023:

To prepare for the launch of Lightfall, Destiny 2 is scheduled for 24-hour downtime. Destiny 2 will be brought offline at 9 AM PST (-8 UTC), February 27, at which time:

• Ongoing activities will end.
• Players will be returned to the title screen.
• Pre-loading for Lightfall on all platforms will become available.

Players will be able to log back in once downtime concludes at 9 AM PST (-8 UTC):

Lightfall Playstation and PC Preload

Bungie did warn PS4 players about the hefty size of the preload files:

PS4 players who are looking to pre-load Lightfall should make sure that they have about ~80 GB of free space for an additional install package to be downloaded on top of the existing Destiny 2 ones.

Why so much free space will be required? Because both old and new versions of the game will have to co-exist:

The old packages will be removed once Lightfall launches, but during the 24-hour downtime, both versions will need to be in storage for the pre-load to succeed.

Based on the Preload requirements below, it seems like the PC version (Steam and Epic Games) will have to deal with the same issue of having both versions co-existing.

Destiny 2 Lightfall Preload sizes

Lightfall Preload Sizes on PC, Playstation and Xbox

While no specific warnings were raised for the PC and Xbox platforms, Bungie did warn that preload sizes will be large all around:

Be advised that the download file will be large, but this new installation will improve load times, and overall disk space usage will be smaller afterwards.

These are the latest storage requirements for the game, per platform:

Finally, do expect server issues and queue times once Lightfall becomes officially available:

Once the game is brought back online, and Lightfall has launched, sign-in queues are expected, especially during the first hours and peak play times.

As always, keep an eye on @BungieHelp for more information throughout the process.

Biggest changes coming with Lightfall

Are you excited about Lightfall yet? If not, just look at all the major changes and features planned for this expansion:

You can find more details about all the upcoming changes and features on our Lightfall Roadmap.