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Bungie will remove huge chunks of Destiny 2’s Forsaken expansion when Destiny 2: The Witch Queen arrives on February 22, 2022.
The studio confirmed (opens in new tab) these impending cuts as part of the next update to the Destiny Content Vault. This system was added alongside the Beyond Light expansion last year, and its release saw several planets from Destiny 2’s launch and early DLCs, not to mention the entire Red War campaign, removed from the game.
In Destiny 2 Year 5, the DCV will gobble up the Forsaken campaign, the Tangled Shore destination, the Presage and Harbinger Exotic missions, and the majority of Year 4 seasonal content.
“Vaulting this content will allow us the space to launch The Witch Queen expansion and its new Throne World destination,” Bungie says, “as well as new features like weapon crafting, the new Legendary difficulty campaign option, the new Glaive weapon archetype, plus all the additional content we have planned for the four new Seasons to come starting in February.”
The Dreaming City destination, the Last Wish raid, and the Shattered Throne dungeon from Forsaken will remain playable. Bungie says it’s also looking into alternative sources for Hawkmoon and Dead Man’s Tale, which drop from the Exotic missions being removed. Meanwhile, the currency conversion previously available at the Tangled Shore vendor Spider will be moved to the Tower Cryptarch Rahool. The Tangled Shore Strike Warden of Nothing will remain in the game as well, and it will be joined by the Year 4 Battlegrounds activity and combined with existing Strikes in a new playlist dubbed Vanguard Operations, which will be free to all players.
Compared to the first round of vaulting, which basically just gave players a stick to bite down on, the Year 5 vaulting will be cushioned slightly. For starters, the Forsaken campaign will be available for free to all players from December 7, 2021 through February 22, 2022.
December 7 will also see the release of a new Forsaken Pack which is essentially a trimmed version of the expansion. It will let players access the Last Wish and Shattered Throne as well as all of the Forsaken Exotics. It also comes with three Exotic Forsaken Ciphers which can be redeemed for any Forsaken Exotics excluding pinnacle Exotics like One Thousand Voices. If you already own Forsaken, you’ll receive this pack automatically and these Forsaken Ciphers will become Ascendant Shards instead.
It’s worth noting that at the time of writing, the Forsaken expansion itself is still available for purchase at its updated price of $25. It’s unclear if Bungie will adjust its price or add any sort of DCV disclaimer before December 7, but for all intents and purposes, new players are better off waiting for the free campaign and discounted pack if they want to play Forsaken.
Seemingly to salve the loss of more content, Bungie affirmed the benefits of the DCV in its post. “The DCV has provided a great deal of technical ‘breathing room’ that the team has devoted to important improvements to the Destiny experience,” the studio affirmed. “Upgrades such as drastically reducing our patch response times, improving loading times, offering quicker access to UI such as your inventory or the map, and others link directly to the opportunities that the DCV created for the team.”
In addition to The Witch Queen’s content, Year 5 will also see some old DCV content added into Destiny 2. This includes another Destiny 1 raid (following up on the Destiny 2 release of the Vault of Glass), one PvP map from Destiny 1, and two Destiny 2 PvP maps which were previously cut. Bungie always suggested that cut Destiny 2 content could one day be polished and revived via the DCV, and these two returning PvP maps will technically be the first example of this for Destiny 2 content specifically.
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