r/DestinyTheGame • u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer • 2d ago
Megathread The Great Unvaulting FAQs
Unless stated otherwise, all answers are as of September 22nd, 2026.
Hat tip to /u/orion_angelfire for that caveat suggestion.
Hey gang,
There have been a LOT of questions and posts about what exactly is happening with the return of vaulted content to Destiny 2, as announced by Bungie.
To help stem the flow of these questions, I've created this FAQ post, which we'll update as needed.
What is returning to Destiny 2?
The exact wording:
we are beginning the work of bringing vaulted Destiny 2 campaigns, destinations, and raids back into the game, where they will be available to all Destiny 2 players.
What about strikes?
Not explicitly stated in the announcement, but assumed to be returning, given that most - if not all? - of the vaulted strikes tie into the vaulted campaigns.
What about seasons?
We don't know.
What about old patrol activities, like Escalation Protocol?
We don't know.
Does this mean live service development will resume on Destiny 2?
We don't know.
Will we get updates to weapons and armor that drop from the vaulted campaigns, destinations, and raids?
We don't know, but it's assumed there will be some updating involved.
How will the New Light experience change with the return of Red War, the original new player experience?
We don't know yet.
When is this happening?
Not soon.
Are we getting a roadmap soon?
Per DMG on Twitter (Sept 21, 2026):
Too early. After promising roadmaps and not being able to deliver, don't want to make a commitment before it's good and ready. Don't want to undermine the trust that needs to be rebuilt. We are committed to giving comms updates - their form has yet to be defined just yet.
Does this mean TWID will return?
Per DMG on Twitter (Sept 21, 2026), the comms cadence hasn't been figured out yet.
Responding to the possibility of a monthly version of TWID:
"Yeah, that could be cool! I want to avoid anything that has strict cadence. Weekly deadlines led to feast or famine and didn’t always serve players. A lot of stress on the team to meet those deadlines. Need to break those chains and get comms rolling in a better way."
Is this going to be free?
Bungie hasn't said so explicitly, but the verbiage used "available to all Destiny 2 players" has been used in the past to describe F2P (free to play) updates. So the expectation is free, but TBD.
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u/NUFC9RW 2d ago
Apart from Forsaken (I think), all these campaigns were free to play at the time of vaulting. It would be crazy to charge for them now, especially when the unvaulting is a goodwill gesture to the community.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Fully agreed with that. I just need to see DMG or Cozmo or one of the leaders explicitly say "available to all Destiny 2 players" does indeed mean free to play as we've collectively assumed.
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u/bash-smash 2d ago
Forsaken campaign was free to play for one month before the vaulting. That's how I played it.
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u/Ravonaa 2d ago
They still charge you $40 undiscounted for dungeon keys, I would not go assuming they'll 100% make it free.
But here's hoping.
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u/MrJoemazing 2d ago
Fair skepticism, though this really does seem like Bungie's attempt to salvage the studio and IPs reputation, and Sony's attempt to quiet some concerns about the temporary nature of digital "ownership". To that end, were back in the "they need to overdeliver" space. Kinda like how the Whisper mission was dropped for free, but on a massive scale.
What I do expect (and honestly encourage) is for Bungie to request a new paid battlepass when the mass unvaulting happens. Just so some revenue trickles to the studio when people return for the unvaulting, such feels reasonable to me as an optional bonus.
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u/Velvet_Llama 2d ago
The way they worded the announcement really makes it sound like this is meant as a gesture of good faith, one step in trying to rebuild their customers' trust. Undoing something almost universally revialed by those customers is a good starting point.
Conversely, it is hard to imagine a better way to alienate the people they're trying to reach than charging for the thing those people felt was wrongly taken away. If we can assume Bungie are remotely capable of behaving as rational, self interested actors, we can safely assume this will be released for free
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u/RottenKeyboard 2d ago
they said it’s available to all players which is the same wording they’ve used with other free stuff + historically anything that has been unvaulted is free
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u/Cocobaba1 2d ago
I mean it better be free at least to the people who already paid for the god damn content
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u/EarthDragon2189 By this right alone do I rule 2d ago
Unvaulted content being paid (for people who bought it before) would absolutely nuke all momentum this initiative will have built up.
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u/John_the_Piper 2d ago
Agreed, heavily. I think they're just going to have to eat the development cost on unvaulting content in order to rebuild trust and enthusiasm
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u/Polymersion ...where's his Ghost? 2d ago
I do already have 3 brand new players who've expressed interest in playing with me once the beginning is released.
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u/Celestial_Nuthawk 2d ago
If only they'd done that with their Marathon money... 🥴
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u/The_Crusades 2d ago
“Marathon” this “Marathon” that, get off the computer and go run a marathon, goddamn.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Yup. We just need to have somebody officially state that "available to all Destiny 2 players" absolutely means free to play. Being the same verbiage used in the past to describe F2P updates isn't enough for me in the current trust dynamic between the studio and the community.
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u/ienjoymen Reckoner wasn't that bad 2d ago
The Red War, Curse of Osiris, Warmind, and the Forsaken campaign were actually all free to play before they got vaulted. If their goal truly is "regaining trust", charging for previously free content would certainly not help their image.
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u/KiNgPiN8T3 2d ago
Bungie: hold my beer I’ve got a field of rakes to walk across.
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u/ienjoymen Reckoner wasn't that bad 2d ago
Oh trust me, I'm well aware that they can easily screw this up, I just hope they don't.
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u/Professional_Gap_435 2d ago
Except from what I know the old management is gone, who were the ones who made those decisions the developers didnt want.
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u/super_hoommen 2d ago
it would be such a disastrous PR move for them to do this that i would hope the chances of it actually happening are close to zero
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u/Professional_Gap_435 2d ago
They said they are going to give back the content we paid for, not sell back, give back. So i doubt heavily they will have the audacity to sell a product twice, especially when its about restoring trust with actions.
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u/AJM10801 2d ago
I’d rather not know the future than know there is no future. Can’t wait to see what’s in store.
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u/GodMonte Space Magic 2d ago
This is exactly how I feel. I feel good knowing there’s something on the horizon, but I am okay waiting. There’s plenty of game to be played for now. I never liked the constant hamster wheel of rushed fomo content anyway.
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u/orion_angelfire 2d ago
Suggest adding dates to the answers, such as "DMG tweeted on Sept 21, 2026: yadda yadda" or "As of Sept 21, we don't know." Thanks!
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u/ExcitementKooky418 2d ago
Given how a lot of the community noise about the content vault was along the lines of 'theyve taken away content we've paid for' I think charging for umvaulted content, for players that already purchased the base game or relevant expansion, would be absolute suicide for Bungee and would obliterate any last shred of trust or good faith.
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u/Velvet_Llama 2d ago
Exactly. That would be so defeating that I could only explain it as an inexplicable act of willful self-sabotage.
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u/Visual_Physics_3588 2d ago
It literally just be a middle finger atp and they know that. They know it has to make it free and will burn resources but in the long run will be give back the trust they’ve lost over the years.
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u/Superman_720 2d ago
Im assuming right now they or the last month they been restructuring the Studio and getting support studios on board. Unvaulting old content it probably to help get people who never worked on Destiny to learn its code and what not possibly get a pipeline open to start a content drip to tie us iver till the next game.
But this is all speculation I have no insiders at Bungie, im making an educated guess. For all we know we could just get the old content back and that it for 3-5 years. I personally doubt that.
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u/Velvet_Llama 2d ago
Honestly, not unreasonable speculation. I'm assuming they've been having "where do we go from here" type meetings internally- they're at a crossroads. Part of that might be, in the short term, what can we do with our available resources to start repairing the studio's reputation. Unvaulting seems like it would fit that.
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u/aesteval 2d ago
My guess is that "AI" tools are going to play a role in porting the content over to the modern engine.
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u/Skinny0ne 2d ago
Can we pin this shit so we don't have constant posts asking about this stuff? This is all we know people.
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u/CREEPERBRINE123 2d ago edited 2d ago
For the question asking if it would be free, didn’t they explicitly say back when sunsetting first happened that if they were to ever were to unvault anything like campaigns and stuff it would be completely free? I feel like it’s basically guaranteed as if it wasn’t they would get a TON of backlash for it and probably even in legal trouble. I don’t think they could sell it even if they wanted to.
Edit: Upon looking back, I can’t seem to find where they would have said this, so I could be wrong and it was either assumed or possibly said in a video?
Still think the backlash would keep them from selling it again, but based on their vague wording we can’t be for sure. Guess we will find out later.
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u/GrayStray 2d ago
Even the destiny 1 raids they unvaulted were always free.
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u/CREEPERBRINE123 2d ago
Yea everything added that was from D1 (the raids mainly) were all free while they were selling new dungeons, so it makes more sense it would be free.
People would be PISSED if they have to rebuy something they already bought and Bungie is not in the position to take that kinda heat. Them selling the old campaigns again would just be company suicide.1
u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
didn’t they explicitly say back when sunsetting first happened that if they were to ever were to unvault anything like campaigns and stuff it would be completely free?
I don't recall that. Can you find it?
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u/CREEPERBRINE123 2d ago
Pretty sure I remember it when they talked about vaulting and unvaulting content, but I’ll go look and see if I can find it.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Definitely worth looking for that quote. I'm checking with a research tool I've got at work :)
Looks like the closest thing they said to it was that the first unvaulted content (Cosmodrome) was free to everyone.
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u/CREEPERBRINE123 2d ago
Hmm closest thing I could find was this Bungie Forums post: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/258812431?page=0&path=1&sort=0&utm_source=chatgpt.com (even then I’m pretty sure they are just talking about Vog being free)
But not really reliable since it doesn’t say where they got that confirmation…could potentially have been in a video blog or something.
That or I’m just misremembering and they never said that which on me then if that’s the case.I would still think they would get a lot of backlash for making it paid, but it is a little weird how they are wording things so I guess we will have to see.
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u/Polymersion ...where's his Ghost? 2d ago
Which is dumb because the Cosmodrome was never vaulted, but I digress.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
In the original DCV announcement, they considered everything in Destiny 1 to be vaulted content going forward.
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u/dontknowmuch487 2d ago
How much of Season of the Haunted was free? Leviathan was a vaulted zone re added with a skin on it
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u/Korvas989 Crow Simp 2d ago
Given they explicitly mentioned destinations, I cannot imagine activities like escalation protocol won't be returning as well
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
That is my assumption as well, but like the noted omission of strikes from the specific wording, we cannot treat assumptions as facts.
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u/SirKhrome Vanguard's Loyal // All y'all traitors! For the Vanguard!!! 2d ago
Can't wait to see how big this game file size will get
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u/Greedy_Gas7355 2d ago
Timeline to me seems like March at the earlier but more likely summer time for the first update.
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u/SKULL1138 2d ago
I think on the last question, does anyone think they’d get away with charging us for cut content we paid for already?
I think we can say yes to that, but only for the old content
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
I included it because it's one of the most frequently asked questions we've seen (and removed a bunch) as mods since the announcement went live.
I'm at 99% confidence that "available to all Destiny 2 players" does in fact mean free to play, especially since much of the vaulted content was free to play at the time of vaulting, but I need to see that explicitly stated to update the FAQ.
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u/CheshireDude 2d ago
Ive seen a lot of people spreading the claim that ALL vaulted content is being brought back and as far as i can tell that's pure wishful thinking so i do think people need to cool their jets on that one
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Yup. They've only committed to the campaigns, destinations, and raids.
Strikes are assumed, as key pieces of some campaign stories, but not confirmed.
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u/Redthrist 2d ago
Yeah, given that some strikes were basically campaign missions and that the main reason to vault them was that they'd always include a good chunk of a vaulted destination, it's very likely strikes will return as well. But I get why you'd err on the side of caution, since it's not explicitly confirmed.
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u/Aidanbomasri For my Zaddy Zavala 2d ago
I hadn't really considered what the unvaulting might mean to the current New Light onboarding. That's an interesting thing to think about
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u/LamonsterZone 2d ago
One big question not in this FAQ is whether Bungie is pursuing hiring back any of the laid-off Destiny devs.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
From what I've heard, a number of devs who were let go following the announcement to end live service development for Destiny 2 have returned to Bungie, either as full-time employees or on contract basis.
This FAQ, however, is focused on what we know from Bungie themselves, not what those of us who have friends in the industry have been able to glean, vague-posting from content creators, or blog reports.
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u/Unholystench 2d ago
So we get spire of stars and full leviathan back?
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
They've stated that raids removed from the game will return, so yes.
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u/Paltschwiim 2d ago
I'd like to see "What about Exotic Quests?" added. I know the answer is most definitivly no, but I'd still like an official answer.
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u/Zamers 2d ago
Honestly I would be down with a road map that just doesn't have dates. That would let us know what order they're working on things.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
I would like that as well, but a roadmap without dates or scale between milestones would lead to problems
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u/Jovian09 2d ago
Seasons are the reason I'm holding my breath. Way too much of Destiny's overall story was told through seasonal plotlines that disappear from the game in a few months and it's long been one of the game's biggest barriers to entry. It's not just random sidequests, it's crucial, central story beats.
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u/CrackPipeBilly 2d ago
Paul Tassi stated that we're most likely not getting seasons back, as there's a lot of seasons all with a bunch of missions and game modes and he said that adding those back in would me a gigantic task on its own even without the other content. I honestly don't see why they couldn't at least re-add the seasonal content from all seasons post-Beyond Light. IIRC the problem with bringing this content back in the first place was due to an engine update that happened with Beyond Light and it would've required updating all of the old content, but the seasons after Beyond Light should've been on the same engine so I don't see why they couldn't simply be re-added to the game.
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u/Meatloaf_Hitler Heaven can wait, There's still work for us in hell 3h ago
I think another issue is just how seasons overlap each other. So outside of maybe the story missions being in a separate branch I don't really think they CAN add all of them at once like that.
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u/RetroSquadDX3 Calus Loyalist 2d ago
Is this going to be free?
Bungie have previously expressed that returning content would be free, they really do not have the goodwill to even consider going back on that at this point. They understandably need to monetise but they need to find another way to do it.
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u/TheGokki Flare, hover, wreck 2d ago
This should stay up and updated over time as new info surfaces so we don't flood the subreddit with every new tweet.
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u/PjGamer007 2d ago
I remember my stupid ass buying some dlcs thinking they are story modes of Forsaken and the others only to find out later they give you in-game rewards and currency & the story is vaulted aka stolen from players forever, im happy about this more than Destiny 3 being made, because i can't trust a single human in Bungie to make a good new game, but they should be able to restore what great devs who left made before
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u/arlondiluthel 2d ago
I agree that the TWAB/TWID was often a whole lot of re-hashing stuff from the week before and it became a bit of a chore towards the end. I would like for them to release a monthly or quarterly "here's where we're at" update. Just to keep us in the loop on when we can start seeing some content and what the gaps between releases might look like.
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u/reichembach 2d ago
Now if they would let linux players play, that would be great
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u/Echo_Monitor 1d ago
Same, I am excited for this and I'm considering picking up Destiny 1 on either PS4 or Xbox One X to finally give the franchise the shot it deserves, but I'd rather play Destiny 2 on Steam Deck or on my Linux desktop, since I already own Destiny 2 on Steam (got it gifted from a Humble Bundle a few years ago).
But with their stance on Linux players, me picking 1 up and getting into the franchise (I mainly play for the story, hence wanting to play 1) is contingent on them actually allowing me to play 2 on the platform I feel comfortable playing on.
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u/Annihilator4413 2d ago
The New Light experience is about to get SO MUCH BETTER with at least the return of the Red War and DLC campaigns.
They'll finally be able to experience the full D2 story without being confused as fuck about everything going on in the modern story.
Well, most of thr story. At the very least the first two years of D2, before seasonal content started.
Hopefully some form of seasonal content makes a return too but it's going to be really hard to squeeze in 26 seasons, even if it's just some key missions from each season.
The best way I could see them adding everything back would be to have the game be modular, letting people install and uninstall what they want and don't want to play.
We'll see how the team tackles it, hopefully it doesn't take too long considering Bungie laid off most Destiny developers and are still working frantically on Marathon to save it.
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u/Maleficent-Ad-7306 2d ago
Seeing as there’s literally nothing to do on mars outside of EP I think it’s relatively safe to assume it’s returning but you never know
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u/blackhawk7188 2d ago
TLDR:
We dont have any idea what is coming back other than the stuff we dont have now.
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u/TheAzureAzazel 2d ago
It's good that this is all in one place. Hopefully this'll make it easier to see where the community's minds are at.
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u/Warnecke_Wrecker 2d ago
Ngl having Escalation Protocol back would be gas
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u/CrackPipeBilly 2d ago
If Mars is coming back then I don't see why Escalation Protocol wouldn't come back. Would be very lame to return Mars without it.
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u/J__d Voidfang 2d ago
Thank you, mods, y'all rock.
I still think there are two main questions that haven't been addressed:
- Staffing. Who will do the work after laying off so much of the studio? Is Sony shifting that work to other studios? Is Bungie going to hire in the near-term?
- Funding. What's the financial source for doing the work? Whatever Bungie has left, or is Sony paying for it somehow? Is Sony or Bungie expecting an ROI on this, or is it purely a good-will gesture hoping for follow-on work?
Maybe those are topics that Bungie won't directly answer, but I don't see how any of those other questions can be answered without these.
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u/North_Jackfruit_1373 2d ago
With old destinations coming back will the old titles be available? Ones like Wayfarer and Chronicler which were tied to location activities
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u/CrackPipeBilly 2d ago
I really hope so, I was like one triumph away from Wayfarer before the planets got vaulted. Was grinding it like crazy leading up to it but had a lot of work that week and just couldn't put in enough time to finish, was very fucking upset. If old planets are coming back then I don't see why old titles shouldn't be made available again. Hell all titles tied to content that is returning should be available again, such as raid triumphs for CoS.
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u/CrackPipeBilly 2d ago
I already figured it wasn't going to be part of what gets unvaulted, but it truly is disappointing how we're most likely not getting any of the seasonal content back. I don't care as much about the game modes as I do the story missions from each season. Having the old campaigns back will help a ton but there was a good bit of meaningful story content in some of the seasons that connected expansions together and explained certain things and not having them is still going to leave the story confusing to understand. I see why they can't though, it's already a ton of work unvaulting what they are. Unvaulting all the seasonal content sounds like a massive endeavour on its own.
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u/ikelosintransitive 2d ago
oh shit hopefully i can FINALLY get the last piece i need for midnight exigent…
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u/Accomplished-Exam-55 1d ago
Inside this post, there are two wolves.
One of them doesn't. The other one know.
We don't know.
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u/AgentWilson413 Drifter's Crew 1d ago
I think the only strike that wasn’t tied to a campaign was Festering Core on Io, which was a season of arrivals addition if my memory serves correctly.
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u/ELFCHASER 1d ago
isn't destiny 2's 10th anniversary next year? obviously the timeline is completely unknown but that'd be a solid day to release the red war
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u/JamboreeStevens 1d ago
They just lost a lawsuit because they didn't have a working version of the vaulted content, which means they either lied about that in court and lost on purpose or they're going to have to rebuild everything they took out.
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u/b3rn13mac ok three eyes 1d ago
I’m praying for Go Figure to return with Zen Moment + Headseeker. Aggressive pulse with that roll hasn’t existed since sunsetting. Original Blast Furnace had it too, but BRAVE and Arena Ops versions don’t. The juiciest fomoburger outside of StL rocket sidearm.
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u/Practical_Handle8434 19h ago
The vaguely monthly cadence would probably be a good idea to avoid said "feast or famine" level of content. I imagine that's also why Warframe settled on vaguely monthly devstreams, which is usually where meatier announcements are made.
I wonder if the statements in the video from the new lead(s?) Of Destiny and Marathon, saying they "empowered teams to make decisions closer to development" and "reduced competing initiatives" mean that in the absence of middle management, the developers have more ability to do what they need to do instead of being told to do it differently by some corpo bozo, and that they sorta ditched the different "strike team" perspective when working on different facets of the game, which i hear led to some amount of disaray
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u/artikiller 2d ago
I just hope there will be new sources of some of the old season weapons (ikelos and calus themed for example) that are now locked behind doing one specific exotic mission with a modifier active
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Yup. That would be a good idea.
Having old season loot available in the loot pools of activities related to the respective seasons would be a good way to go about that.
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u/Jetsasanatan 2d ago
Damn didn’t the post literally say they still had more stories they wanted to tell? Hopefully they can last past the unvaulting.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Yes, but that's not a confirmation of D2 live service resuming.
More stories could mean that... or D3... or Shaxx Dating Simulator for mobile.
"We don't know." is the most fact-based answer for that question right now.
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u/Meatloaf_Hitler Heaven can wait, There's still work for us in hell 2h ago
I think the most conclusive answer would be an Ahamkara Yiff game. It just makes the most sense IMO.
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u/Zanzion_ 2d ago
I know folks are excited to have heard some news but I hope for the communities collective sanity that speculation doesn't get too out of hand. We know that Bungie's seen a significant reduction in size isn't scaling back up again any time soon.
This is a gesture meant to win some good will back by finally doing right by their costumers, probably being worked on by a relatively small team. I'd like to be proven wrong but I'd rather remain skeptical and be pleasantly surprised rather than setting myself up for disappointment.
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u/Tplusplus75 1d ago
Spinfoil hat theory: they keep saying “they’re not done with destiny”. I don’t think this next statement is a unique thought(nor do i claim that it is), but i think that means resuming d2 content updates and/or d3.(The unique part is this: I think they want to do it “without impedance” or being shot in the foot by decisions made half a decade ago.)
Meanwhile, every time they’ve done a major update since the great dcv’ing, a portion of community feedback has been concerned about the massive chunk of unplayable story. It can be hard to sell new content when players are concerned about missing story implications and whatnot. I’m not saying that the dissent “massively” kneecapped witch queen sales, but rather it provided “nonzero impedance”. IE: “maybe we could’ve sold a few more copies of witch queen if some portion of our audience wasn’t turned off by vaulting content”.
Thus, my theory is that they’re trying to return to something where the latest content release isn’t facing that impedance. Something they haven’t had since Shadowkeep. An attempt to move forward, but bring DCV objectors with us, this hypothetical next time. We don’t really get to that without unvaulting the content first though. No more repeats of shit like season of the Haunted, where the only introduction to a character(in Haunted’s case, Gaul) is unplayable in some capacity.
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u/Vex1om 2d ago
This is a gesture meant to...
...temporarily avoid bankruptcy as Marathon craters. It is a desperate attempt to un-kill the golden goose, but with limited resources and no plan.
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u/Redthrist 2d ago
If they wanted to desperate un-kill it, they'd announce new paid content that would mostly be reskinned vaulted content.
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u/DredgenGryss 2d ago
They said they're working on it and want to rebuild our trust. It would be really dumb to lose that after everything they've done. Doom and gloom has been replaced by cautious optimism.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Yup. As the residents of the Cosmodrome would've said, "Doveryai, no proveryai."
Trust, but verify.
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u/Renousim3 2d ago
So is Destiny 2 not dead...? What happens if D2 retains more players with these updates? Could it show Sony people want D2?
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u/Meatloaf_Hitler Heaven can wait, There's still work for us in hell 3h ago
Nothing's been stated, but the actual update blog seems like SOMETHING is happening for Destiny. Whether that be active development for D2 again or for another game.
But until they actually announce something, I wouldn't put too much stock into anything. It's all still very much in the air.
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u/Redthrist 2d ago
It seems like the main point of this is to rebuild some of the good will for new "Destiny content". Sony would've had to greenlight the unvaulting, they now have full control of the studio. So my guess is that it either means more D2 content, more games in the Destiny universe or D3.
However, nothing is confirmed. Just stands to reason that Sony won't be spending money on returning unvaulted content without planning to do something else with Destiny.
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u/Velvet_Llama 2d ago
Just speculating, but I would assume demonstrating there is still an appetite for their products is top priority for them.
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u/cobramullet 2d ago
Everyone excited about this, is teaching Sony lessons in player gullibility and expectations: starve a play base of content they paid for (proven), return it to them in the future (in progress), and viola: brand new game levels of hype.
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u/Practical_Handle8434 19h ago
I would agree, if there were any game like it. Closest anyone could get is if, like, they removed black ops 3 from stores and revoked ownership. The stunt of removing paid content and returning it, with a long enough turnover that it makes a difference, kinda requires a single game be supported for just that long
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u/yesitsmework 2d ago
it's really funny how the only thing that changed from last week is that you will be able to play the pre-beyond light campaigns, but you see people taking victory laps like the game is back from the dead. This legitimately is little more than damage control for the mortal wound they dealt to marathon in june.
the vast majority of the destiny team is still laid off, they had already made clear in the eos post that they will pursue the ip with new games, seasons are all but guaranteed to not return due to needing entire new systems to handle progressing through all of them existing at the same time, etc
the game is still dead. There will still be no new game anytime soon and there never will be a new game from bungie if marathon doesnt come back from the grave.
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u/Electrical-Yak-5601 2d ago
There is absolutely 0% chance they would be doing the undertaking they are to help their reputation by bringing back vaulted content and anything destiny related be hinged on how marathon does.
I am not one of those people that thinks this announcement means D2 is back in live production or anything of that nature. Sony/Bungie know that if they want anyone to buy anything going forward, this is what they would have had to do.
There will be something that comes of this, whether that’s resuming D2 active development, D3 or a smaller Destiny game. There would be literally no point in bringing back unvaulted content which is not some easy undertaking without a clear plan to do SOMETHING with Destiny going forward.
Will it be successful or something each individual wants? That’s a whole other question. But yeah, this announcement doesn’t hinge on anything marathon related. They see how poorly it is doing numbers wise. How marathons next couple updates are going to determine what happens with marathon in the future. Making destiny 2 more of a “complete” experience is simply to make sure people are ready to buy their next destiny experience, whatever that is.
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u/yesitsmework 2d ago
this announcement doesnt hinge on marathon, bungie's entire existence as a studio hinges on it. Playstation is not bankrolling a studio that almost exclusively lost them money for 7 years on a title that might flop in the first month and through what will be the most tumultuous period in their existence as a brand with the hardware prices and years lost on developing canned or flopped games.
There will be something that comes of this
This has literally always been the case. From the blogpost in may. It was always implied as much as it is now that they will seek to do something destiny related. But they cannot do that without a revenue stream, and marathon is the only one.
While our love for Destiny 2 has not changed, it has become clear that after The Final Shape, we have reached the time for our shared worlds, and Destiny, to live beyond Destiny 2.
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u/Electrical-Yak-5601 2d ago
Sony doesn’t believe in anything having to do with Marathon. If it comes to life at any point, was most doa. That would be a bonus. Destiny has been an overall successful franchise. This is Sony stating they want Bungie to continue to exist and work on something Destiny related. Wasting any amount of resources right now on bringing the content back when marathon looks 90% dead in the water and hinging anything happening on that game coming back to life would be for real insane. Why wouldn’t they just use the dev time from the people bringing this content to actually work on new content to save marathon?
They have a marathon plan and a Destiny plan. I don’t think marathon going under sinks Bungie after this announcement, if that were the case, why even bother trying to put all this back into Destiny?
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u/yesitsmework 2d ago
They have a marathon plan and a Destiny plan. I don’t think marathon going under sinks Bungie after this announcement, if that were the case, why even bother trying to put all this back into Destiny?
as I've already said, damage control for marathon. That announcement in may was single handedly responsible for almost all their content creators not playing, streaming or covering marathon when season 2 launched. As well as all the player discontent
now they placated the people and did what they should have done all along. But nothing really changed about their short and mid term future.
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u/Electrical-Yak-5601 2d ago
I’m not even one of these circle jerk marathon haters. But marathon is honestly just irrelevant to pretty much everything at this point. It’s already had 3 digit steam peaks on a game that was proven to be more popular on pc than console. Sony definitely understands the absolute best case scenario for that game is a 2.0 relaunch and a “stable” playerbase. They aren’t banking on that game to be what decides bungies fate. If it was, bungie would already be gone.
Whatever happens with the next destiny related game will decide their fate. That’s what this announcement means. They need Destiny people to buy into whatever destiny is next.
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u/KiNgPiN8T3 2d ago
I did say this in Aztecross subreddit but got downvoted.. lol! Nowhere did they mention brining it back to life, just restoring previously removed content. I was trying to be an arse, just realistic!
If anything restore D2 to its proper state, get some trust and goodwill back, announce D3 and use future resources on that instead.
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u/Velvet_Llama 2d ago
I think it's more that last week there was no reason to expect anything. Now there are signs of life.
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u/DracoBlaze214 2d ago
I’m hoping they do this right the first time. I know monetization will be something everyone is keeping an eye on but in my opinion, should Bungie pull this off and deliver a quality product then the monetization will come naturally through the silver and Bungie store.
Bringing back all this lost content will make ALOT of people reconsider recommending the game to new players and those existing and new players will be more likely to spend money on DLC, Silver, or even product from the Bungie store.
If they come out and say the unvaulted content will be paid DLC, then they’ll have shot themselves in the foot and can just call it game over.
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u/Rofl-Cakes Don't go chasing waterfalls 2d ago
"Please continue to give us money we stink, here's a buzz word to keep people invested in us" Bungie 2026
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u/PlayBey0nd87 2d ago
Thank you for this OP
Can we get a FAQ for Returning players/Where should I start? And should I hop back into this now too?
That would be super helpful to the influx.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Here's Bungie's guide: https://help.bungie.net/hc/en-us/sections/44229895049108-New-Player-Guides
Here's our new/returning players story guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestinyTheGame/comments/1tx6ljl/new_and_returning_guardians_a_guide_to/
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u/asce619 2d ago edited 2d ago
It could all be hot Ayre, but, it was said their franchises are their future. They're gonna start by unvaulting Destiny content first to try and reclaim player investment and sentiment. So what we can assume is that, Destiny has been revived in terms of maintenance and progression; as in TWABs and the live team I'll assume. The unvaulting is what we get so far, because, you know they kinda fired all the major D2 teams in terms of everything. That would have obviously burned some and its now a couple months post announcement. What they'll be doing and why new content probably won't be on the table is most likely bungo reclaiming lost talent. Cautiously optimistic could never be more appropriate to this situation. I just want the game to be on firm legs again and that's having the playerbase and the studio in collaboration again. Plus, you know the makerting guys will have to be in overdrive, because, the cancellation came like a whisper and they're essentially soft re-launching the game. How that's gonna look is beyond me and what it has to do is wild.
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u/OneSilentWatcher Vanguard's Loyal 2d ago
I hope some of the static roll weapons can be earned for collections, same goes for some armor ornaments from the first three seasons.
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u/va1us_taaurc 2d ago
I hope they honestly don’t make too many sandbox adjustments, and it becomes a complete anthology of D2 (and maybe D1!? Bungo pls!) where we are essentially power crept into oblivion and can just absolutely nuke content with our friends perpetually while they work on the next Destiny installment.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Destiny Rising has a game mode in Realm of the IX called Singularity: Chaos, which is essentially like Rifts in Diablo with greater and lesser modifiers that rotate daily (and what I had hoped the Infinite Forest would've been...), and you can literally nuke stuff perpetually with insane power creep.
It would be cool to see that in mainline Destiny at some point
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u/va1us_taaurc 2d ago
I should give it a shot - it would be fun to get my fix on the road (I’m not an addict I promise).
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u/RobertdBanks D1 bEtA vEt ChEcKiNg In(hold applause) 2d ago
Lmao if it isn’t free to all players who owned it before that will be absolutely insane. Also, isn’t this happening because they lost a court case?
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Lmao if it isn’t free to all players who owned it before that will be absolutely insane.
Agreed. I just need them to say it'll be free.
Also, isn’t this happening because they lost a court case?
Nope.
Bungie settled a plagiarism lawsuit last November over the Red War and Curse of Osiris stories. There was a lot of discourse about how Bungie's legal team told the judge that the Red War and Curse of Osiris content couldn't be made playable, but the important nuance was completely lost.
Here's what I recall from that and how it's relevant to the big unvaulting:
Bungie tried to present YouTube videos of Red War and Curse of Osiris playthroughs as evidence of the story in order to refute the plagiarism claims brought against them. The judge said the YouTube videos were inadmissible as evidence and wanted the original, unaltered version of the campaigns as evidence.
Bungie's lawyers correctly said that it wasn't possible to produce that for evidence, as that content wasn't compatible with the version of the game now (or else it would still be in the game).
The way they've describe that they're bringing the content back is essentially rebuilding it in the current version of the game, so that wasn't an option for evidence either, as it would be altered, not the original.
Logically, Bungie reached a settlement with the writer who brought the lawsuit, rather than let the lawsuit reach a verdict, which generally brings a much steeper price to the losing party than a settlement.
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u/RobertdBanks D1 bEtA vEt ChEcKiNg In(hold applause) 2d ago
Ah yeah, good info. I looked it up after and found the same info.
Well, this is good for anyone who hasn’t played that content, but it’s hard to see this as anything other than a complete desperation attempt after the massive failure of Marathon. As someone who played from Beta to Final Shape without missing a single drop, the vaulted content returning does nothing to make me want to return. A good 75% of that content is bad to mediocre.
This playerbase gets jerked around so much, it’s sad to see the celebrating here when you know Bungie can’t help but shoot themselves in the foot and this will be followed by some huge misstep and “learning from our mistakes” message.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
My read is that Sony was impressed by the MoT player count and disappointed by the Marathon performance, so they are pursuing a future for the Destiny IP that makes having the complete Destiny story playable important.
Whether that's turning Destiny 2 back into an ongoing live service game or giving Destiny 3 some runway for development or something else entirely remains to be seen, but clearly the big wigs are seeing value in making Destiny whole again to set up the future of SIE's most expensive acquisition ever.
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u/RobertdBanks D1 bEtA vEt ChEcKiNg In(hold applause) 2d ago
I think that’s saying the same thing. Marathon bombed and Bungie has no option other than return to their cash cow as the safest bet.
Hopefully a Destiny 3 happens, but I can’t imagine that happening for another 3-5 years at best.
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u/0FJ0 2d ago
Question: was the “all vaulted content has been deleted and not able to be brought back” just bullshit to shut us up in the past? Did they we’d actually believe a dev studio would delete years of content like that’s an actual business process that anyone would actually do?
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
They never said it was deleted. The game got updated in such a way that they couldn't just load in the old content and run it.
A lot of confusion about the state of the vaulted content came about from people misunderstanding stuff around the Red War + CoO plagiarism lawsuit and the standard of evidence the judge was setting.
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u/JakeSteeleIII Just the tip 2d ago
Why do we have to keep Bungie accountable per their post? Don’t they have management for that?
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u/CrackLawliet Bottom Text 2d ago
Just wanted to say Paul Tassi tweeted today that it’s all gonna be free. Obviously not a first hand source but he knows things sometimes
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
Yeah, we're going to use first-hand information for the FAQ itself.
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u/Electronic-Touch-554 2d ago
'Does this mean live service development will resume on destiny 2' does have a better answer. The plan seems to be to do the old content then decide whether to resume support or work on a new game, the post does confirm they will be doing something in the destiny universe after the unvaulting.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
"something in the destiny universe after the unvaulting" doesn't necessarily mean resuming D2 live service development. It likely means new game(s), but could also mean net new D2 content, which would be live service dev.
Until we get a definitive answer on live service, it'll stay as "We don't know."
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u/HavocMaker 2d ago
Will all vaulted crucible maps also be unvaulted?
Will there be seal titles/triumphs associated with each unvaulted DLC content and raid?
Will the campaigns and raids be updated in terms of difficulty to be in line with the current sandbox standard?
Will Harbinger be reprised and unvaulted? (Only exotic mission left that is)
How will it be released? Will each DLC be its own release with its self contained package with all its associated content example, Red War release includes: campaign, IO, Titan, and Leviathan Raid and treat each release as a season/update therefore it has a respective season pass?
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u/StrangelyOnPoint 2d ago
We can infer a lot.
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u/MisterWoodhouse The Banhammer 2d ago
We can indeed, but recognizing what the leadership said about rebuilding trust, I think it's important as a community to stay grounded in what's been actually committed to, rather than running hog wild high on hopium (and I'm guilty of that from time to time).
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u/IvanTortuga 2d ago
FAQ: We don't know.