‘Future 2’ Hits An Unlucky Content material Vault Milestone

This week, Future 2 hit a milestone that’s…not precisely one price celebrating. The sport has reached a degree the place the missions and expansions and DLCs Bungie put within the “content material vault” have been in there longer than they had been within the sport within the first place.

As in, there have been 1611 days the place the content material was out of the Future 2 vault to the Past Mild growth, which was now launched 1162 days in the past as of yesterday, as tallied by DestinyBulletin.

The elimination was really written into the story, with Pyramid ships arriving and erasing 4 planets/moons from existence. Although quickly in some instances, as Mars and Titan have each returned in bits and items as per the storyline, however not as full patrol areas. As a refresher, right here’s the grand whole of what was put into the content material vault throughout this time, because it’s excess of 4 Pyramid abductions:

• 4 Campaigns (base sport, DLC and expansions)
• 9 Strikes
• 5 Raids (and Lairs)
• 8 Crucible Maps
• 2 Gambit Maps
• 6 Locations
• 15 Seasonal Storylines
• 2 Occasions
• 17 Seasonal Actions
• 3 Unique Missions
• 27 Distinctive Unique Questlines
• 1 Tribute Corridor

A small handful of issues have returned, like a few the Crucible maps, however usually, the checklist stands. Bungie has indicated they are going to convey a number of different issues again like at the very least one of many Gambit maps and a few the unique missions for the rotator. There’s additionally some guessing about Bungie perhaps bringing again among the Future 2 raids as there’s only one extra Future 1 raid to place in Future 2 at this level, Wrath of the Machine. However we don’t know for certain if Bungie has plans to maintain reprising raids after that, and even after The Remaining Form interval.

I’ve beforehand mentioned that the content material vault was a turning level for the sport. Most likely its largest. The 2 essential points had been that it A) eliminated content material that gamers had explicitly paid for, together with once they purchased a field copy of the sport at launch and B) it erased the overwhelming majority of substantive content material that might onboard new gamers through the sport’s change to being free-to-play.

It’s true that technically in Bungie’s phrases of service they mentioned they will take away content material at any time, so there isn’t precisely some class motion lawsuit to file for this. However it’s additionally the case that it’s exhausting to consider some other sport that has carried out one thing like this, eradicating this a lot paid content material from the sport. Actually years price. Even in occasions like WoW’s Cataclysm, it’s not the identical state of affairs as much less was lower and far of it was simply reshuffled elsewhere. Right here in Future 2, these things was simply gone gone, and later they tried to separate the distinction by doing issues like solely deleting half the Forsaken growth (and persevering with to promote the opposite half). Now, they’ve promised they wouldn’t delete any extra growth content material from right here.

Bungie in fact has mentioned repeatedly that this was technically essential for the sport. That behind the scenes, managing this a lot content material whereas making an attempt to replace issues just like the engine and lighting and different adjustments was not sustainable. And gamers have mentioned that a lot of this content material wouldn’t be performed a lot now anyway.

However I simply suppose a variety of that is the precept. We all know Bungie can convey issues again. We’ve seen them reinstate items of Mars and Titan with previous belongings. They basically introduced again every bit of the unique Leviathan raid for content material in Season of the Haunted (which was then deleted once more).

I do perceive that certain, seasonal content material can in all probability be rotated out (although I believe among the greatest content material ought to keep, albeit Bungie has solely carried out that with Battlegrounds). However the base marketing campaign? The primary two DLCs? Forsaken? 5 raids and lairs? A number of the most basic unique missions within the sport’s historical past?

The purpose right here ought to have been that if there was a technical cause to take away these things, then there ought to have been some deal with bringing it again over time, even in bits and items. As a substitute, Bungie has targeted on both new content material or reprised Future 1 content material solely, which in some sense I perceive however once more, it’s the precept. Many gamers have by no means forgiven Bungie for deleting all this, and from the surface perspective, it’s a very weird flip of occasions that once more, has actually not been seen in some other sport like this.

Even when it is clearly true that it will have been a variety of work and maybe that content material wouldn’t be performed as a lot as newer choices, I might view this as a loyalty-building train the best way we’ve seen with different “redemption” tales throughout gaming, from FFXIV to No Man’s Sky to most not too long ago, Cyberpunk. It’s an altered state of affairs, certain, as Cyberpunk wasn’t…deleting its base marketing campaign, however fairly doing different fixes, however it’s the identical mission. Get gamers again in your facet. And I believe it’s fairly clear that has not occurred on the subject of the justification for the vault and the truth that all that content material stays rotting inside.

Comply with me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.

Choose up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller collection and The Earthborn Trilogy.