With the vaulting of vast swaths of content, it’s confusing to figure out what the campaign order is in Destiny 2. Since most of the locations that made up the base game are now gone, players don’t have the option to play through a large chunk of the story. As such, those new to the series might feel a little lost when they’re forced to begin Destiny 2 in media res after the new (lackluster) introductory questline.
There’s no avoiding the fact that Destiny 2 is missing the majority of the content that made up the game on launch. However, we’ve got the Destiny 2 campaign play order for what’s left. We’ll also touch on the original Destiny, as its servers are still up and running. Almost all of the story content for it continues to be available.
Destiny Campaign Play Order
Unlike with Destiny 2, Bungie never has vaulted content from the original game. That means players can go back and enjoy all the story content, raids, and activities at their leisure. However, only the Xbox One and PS4 versions of Destiny received the Rise of Iron expansion, so players will need to play on one of those two platforms to access the full range of content.
Players should play the original Destiny‘s campaigns in the following order:
- Destiny (base game)
- Destiny Expansion I: The Dark Below
- Destiny Expansion II: House of Wolves
- Destiny: The Taken King
- Destiny: Rise of Iron
Do I need to play Destiny before Destiny 2?
Before the vaulting of content in Destiny 2, we’d have said that playing the original game isn’t required. The base Destiny 2 Red War campaign did an excellent job of easing players into the existing lore and primarily focused on telling a separate, new story. The first two Destiny 2 expansions, Curse of Osiris and Warmind, also filled in some blanks that players would have had if they had not played the original game.
Now, though, players are thrown into the game with relatively little priming. The non-vaulted campaigns remaining in Destiny 2 primarily deal with events and characters that were first seen in the original game. No one really cares what’s going on with Mara Sov when they’re trying to figure out what the Fallen, Vex, Traveler, Guardians, Ghosts, and a thousand other concepts are. So, for those who have never played Destiny 2 before, Destiny now makes an excellent primer.
Destiny 2 Campaign Play Order
Unfortunately, Destiny 2 is in shambles after Bungie’s content vaulting. The following three campaigns are no longer available:
- Destiny 2 Red War Campaign (base game)
- Destiny 2 Expansion I: Curse of Osiris
- Destiny 2 Expansion II: Warmind
As a result, players are forced to play in this order:
- Destiny 2 New Player Experience (Cosmodrome)
- Destiny 2: Forsaken
- Destiny 2: Shadowkeep
- Destiny 2: Beyond Light
After the vaulting, the free-to-play version of Destiny 2 is limited to the rather short New Player Experience campaign. To access any other campaign, players must purchase the Forsaken, Shadowkeep, or Beyond Light expansions.
Unfortunately, since Destiny 2 does little to catch new players up on what happened in the removed content, they’ll have to resort to watching YouTube videos to get a handle on what’s going on. It’s shocking, but someone completely new to the game would have no idea what the Cabal is, despite the faction being the focus of the base game’s campaign. It’s a shame that so much content has been vaulted. Even with the recommended Destiny 2 campaign order, playing through the story is not nearly as fulfilling. However, now’s the time to get in and play through Forsaken, Shadowkeep, and Beyond Light. Better hurry before they’re arbitrarily removed as well.
