11 Surprising Things In Destiny 2’s New Content Vault Lists

 

Well, it was about time for a substantive TWAB, and Bungie went deep into discussion about the Destiny Content Vault this week. While some of it was stuff we knew, other parts of this were brand new information. The ultimate result? Even more is being vaulted than many people originally thought.


I was surprised at a few different points when reading through this very long list of vaulted items. I will go through the whole thing top to bottom to showcase what jumped out at me specifically.

Losing 7 Strikes, Gaining 2

While the strikes that we’re losing were not a surprise, seven across Io, Mercury, Mars and Titan, what we’re gaining was a little surprising. There is only a single strike listed as arriving with Europa, and we are getting one reprised Cosmodrome strike at the same time, Will of Crota. Two more reprised ones will arrive later in the year, Devil’s Lair and Fallen SABER, but yeah, we are trading a lot of strikes for not a lot of replacements, meaning that playlist is about to shrink even further. It’s kind of a bummer to compare this to Forsaken which gave us four brand new strikes (albeit one of them was PS exclusive), and I don’t love that we’re losing more than we’re gaining. But I suppose it will be built back up in the next few years.

Gambit is On Life Support

So, in the great Gambit versus Gambit Prime face-off, Gambit Prime “won” in that the new, condensed Gambit mode will be a single round, and incorporate stuff like mote draining into it. It is also using only the Gambit Prime maps, with the Dreaming City and Tangled Shore maps being vaulted (Gambit and Crucible maps are allowed to still exist from vaulted planets). This…does not strike me as ideal, considering Gambit only had six maps and now it’s down to four total? There is no indication that more are coming with the expansion.

But this is even less involved than Prime because Bungie is eliminating Prime armor and its effects, promising only that they may use those perks as mods again later. All in all, it really seems like Gambit is on life support and it’s tough to imagine when a significant amount of resources will be devoted to it in the future. It’s shrinking dramatically with this update.

Crucible Modes Cut

Scorched and Momentum Control are being cut, which bums me out. The Trials Lighthouse is still staying, regardless of what happens to Mercury, though. Again, the cut Crucible maps do not rely on the destinations they’re on to stay, but many of them have been out of rotation already, so I wasn’t surprised to see most of them on there.

Prophecy Is Staying, Sort Of

Originally Bungie said that Prophecy would have to take a full season off before it returned, but it seems perhaps the Beyond Light delay has changed that, as now they say that it will just need to be “temporarily unavailable for a brief period” which makes it seem like it will not be gone for very long in the end, which is a bit of good news. That sounds more like weeks than months, but we’ll see. I still don’t really understand how long this season is going to be with it now starting in November.

Vaulted Exotic Quests And Catalysts

Bungie made a list of quest exotics that will now be a part of some new “Memorial” kiosk system which is how you will acquire them once their initial quests are vaulted. Though they weren’t listed, Bungie later clarified this also applies to both Anarchy and Tarrabah, the raid exotics. This seems to exist outside of the current Rahool Cipher system.

There’s also a list of vaulted catalysts, where some appearing are a bit of a surprise. You will be able to get season pass catalysts like Witherhoard’s after the fact, for instance. But there’s a list of destination-tied catalysts that are going away and will not return this season, but Bungie will re-introduce them in the future. This includes destination tied ones like the Leviathan raid ones or Worldline tied to EP or the ones tied to the secret missions.






Zero Hour is Gone


This was an open question because Zero Hour is on Earth, which is not being sunset, but Bungie says that the old tower is part of the Red War campaign, and since that’s being vaulted, so is Zero Hour. I’m not sure I buy that justification, but it’s a big space and I’m guessing Bungie wanted to clear it out.

Red War Is Gone

Oh yeah, did I mention the entire Red War campaign is gone? Because Io and Titan are gone, rather than paper over those missing parts with cutscenes, the entire Red War campaign and all its missions are going away. Bungie says they will expand the Cosmodrome intro as what New Light players will encounter as they start playing, but I wasn’t expecting all the Red War missions to be cut. And yet, here we are.

The Farm Is Gone

And with no Red War campaign, there is quite literally zero reason for The Farm to exist, so it’s gone. No idea where Tyra Karn and Mithrax are going.

The Forges Are Gone

Even though the Forges are on Earth and Nessus, they are being cut, and all those exotics are being put into the Memorial system. Ada-1 will also be gone, and if there are ever reprised Black Armory weapons, we clearly will not be getting them from the Forges.



The Reckoning Is Gone


I do not mourn the passing of Reckoning, my most-hated Destiny activity in history, and yet I was surprised to see it go because it was not attached to any of the sunset areas. But with Prime armor being gone and Prime weapons dropping in the world, there’s literally no point to its existence. Burn in hell, Bridge of Folly. Never come out of that vault again.

The Tribute Hall is Gone

Tribute Hall was not mentioned by name in the TWAB, but when you look up the actual full list of what’s leaving, it is indeed on there. That was such a useful testing ground something almost has to replace it, but what that may be, we have no idea.

So, yeah, it’s a lot of stuff. Even more than we thought. I will say however, this update is focused only on what’s leaving, rather than what we’re gaining. Like for instance, I don’t think we can say with 100% certainty at this point that zero new Crucible or Gambit maps are coming. I mean maybe not, but those might just not be listed yet. We don’t know what new activities Beyond Light and Season of the Whatever might bring, and new activities now last at least a year rather than disappearing immediately, so there may be things to replace Forges, Reckoning, Menagarie, EP and so on to some extent.

But yeah, some new answers, but a ton of questions remain. It’s…a lot of cutting.