Destiny 2's next expansion, The Witch Queen, won't unvault any destinations

The Dreadnaught from Destiny 1 won't be returning in The Witch Queen.

(Image credit: Bungie)

Destiny 2's Beyond Light expansion launches today, and with it a whole bunch of changes. Four of Destiny's planets are being 'Vaulted'—essentially removed from the game. In their place, not only are we getting Beyond Light's new zone, Europa, but also the Cosmodrome—marking the return of the first location players visited in the first Destiny.

When the Content Vault was announced, part of Bungie's sell was that things wouldn't just be removed, but also be re-added—including content from Destiny 1. This, and the announcement of the Cosmodrome's return, has led to speculation that each of the three upcoming expansions—Beyond Light, The Witch Queen and Lightfall—would also unvault an older destination. However, in his recent interview, Destiny 2 creative director Luke Smith told PC Gamer that this won't necessarily be the case.

"Each expansion is going to include a brand-new destination," says Smith, "so The Witch Queen is not going to unvault one."

Smith goes on to explain that Bungie doesn't want to bring back destinations unchanged. Instead, they should reflect the current state of the game. "For a destination to be unvaulted, it has to be updated to the latest context for the universe, so even with Cosmodrome, we updated a bunch of it to the latest context."

Bungie is also repackaging and modernising the Will of Crota strike from Destiny 1, which takes place in the Cosmodrome, although Smith notes he sees a difference between the two types of content: "The destinations are part of the ongoing narrative of Destiny and Strikes are more of a gamey-game element, if you will. Bringing back a really popular Destiny 1 Strike is about putting an awesome, fun replayable thing back in the game. Bringing back a destination is about looking at its context in the Destiny 2 storylines."

I'll admit: I had hoped we'd be revisiting the Dreadnaught for The Witch Queen. The expansion focuses on Savathûn, one of the three main Hive leaders, so a return to her brother's ship seemed like a solid bet. Alas, that won't be the case. Nevertheless, we do know that more than just Strikes will be leaving the vault in future. At some point in year four—before the release of The Witch Queen—the Vault of Glass raid will be making a return.

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.