If Destiny 2 is going to survive, Bungie needs to finally start un-vaulting content

Bungie’s Destiny 2 is suffering. Following the release of The Final Shape, the free-to-play looter shooter has been met with plummeting player counts and disdain towards recent story decisions. While the game still has enough players to maintain a healthy playerbase before the arrival of Marathon.

Nevertheless, Destiny’s fanbase is failing to grow, and one reason is due to the game’s horrendous introduction for new players. In order to slim the game down, Bungie started removing older content from the game, stripping away old expansions and the original D2 story in the process.

Destiny 2 needs un-vault content

While the current version of Destiny 2 isn’t unfriendly towards new players, it is on the rough side. To on-board players, Bungie re-introduced the opening of the original Destiny while axing the entirety of Red War, the start of D2’s storyline before being thrust into the game’s New Light arc.

As it stands, there’s no feeling of a straight line within the game’s current form. While the vaulting of content was supposed to make the New Player Experience easier, it has only resulted in more confusion. You’re plopped into a confusing state of a universe you know nothing about. While Red War could be confusing for those who didn’t play the original game, it at least started you off with a strong introduction, motivation and enough on-boarding to keep new players invested.

The vaulting of content also means that key storylines and character development is completely locked away for the average player. While watching a “My name is Byf” video for ten hours can be an entertaining time, it’s not the best way to learn about a universe. The best way is by experiencing it, which new players can’t.

Live-service games that continue to grow do so because they make sure to keep themselves open to newcomers. For example, Elder Scrolls Online still has its original main quest despite years of additional expansions. While it’s not the most important content, and new players can skip it if they want, it allows them to experience the whole world, the whole story, the whole game they paid for.

As it stands, Destiny 2 is an outlier in its removal of content, and it’s proven to be a negative year-after-year. If Bungie wants D2 to grow instead of simply exist, it needs to radically improve its intro, re-introduce cut content and make the entire experience more open for every player.