One of the largest and most controversial systems Destiny 2 developer Bungie added to the live-service looter shooter was content vaulting — a process that's seen pieces of old content removed from the game as new releases come out since 2020's Beyond Light expansion.The studio said vaulting had to be done to keep the game stable, though fans ultimately still resent content vaulting and have pointed out no other long-running mass-multiplayer titles have had to introduce such a system. For many, it's considered an unacceptable removal of content they previously paid for, even as some vaulted content has been brought back over time.With Bungie's long-awaited extraction shooter reboot of Marathon now finally out, many have worried that the developer will eventually introduce a similar type of content vaulting system to its latest FPS. However, the studio has confirmed that there are no plans for one, and that it's aiming for the game's content to be "evergreen.""We want Marathon to be an additive experience in the sense that all priority contracts and story content aims to be evergreen, meaning that it doesn't matter when you join, you'll still be able to play through the established questlines and fill out your Codex with achievements and collections that allow you to uncover additional layers of the world," creative director Julia Nardin told Space.com."We'll be adding to this foundation over time in the live service environment, depending on our players' response and at a cadence we can support, but we know what direction we want to go in and what we want to create for the community to uncover next," she continued.
So, in other words, Bungie wants to avoid another content vaulting situation, and intends to keep all of Marathon's quests and story developments — and by extension, the maps their objectives are located on — available to new players for the duration of the game's lifespan, even as more are added over time.It's great news for fans worried that we'd see a repeat of Destiny's widely panned vaulting, though personally, I'm not surprised there aren't plans to bring it back for Marathon. Aside from the colossal damage that doing so would hit Bungie's goodwill with, Marathon is also a far smaller and less complex game than Destiny.Destiny has countless different maps, stages, missions, and modes, ranging from casual PvE patrol zones and three-player Strike activities to secret quest-driven missions, hardcore Dungeons and Raids, and a variety of PvP offerings. Marathon, in comparison, just has a handful of large map zones for its PvPvE extraction shooter gameplay, with a much smaller selection of weapons and other items.Content vaulting being necessary was understandable for a game that's now approaching a file size of almost 200 GB, but Marathon barely hits 25 GB. Content vaulting in Marathon would be ridiculous — which is why it's not in the game.With that said, Bungie didn't promise that it won't be a part of Marathon in the future; it just said it "aims" to make all of the game's content evergreen. Hopefully, though, the studio will never even get close to the point where it would begin considering content vaulting for its new extraction shooter.
🗨️ How do you feel about content vaulting?
How do you feel about Bungie's content vaulting system in Destiny 2? Do you hate it like many players do, or does it bother you less than most? Are you glad the developers are trying to avoid removing Marathon content over time? Let me know in the comments.
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