Destiny 2 Vaulted Areas Mod: What It Really Does
The Red War, Io, Titan, Mars and the Leviathan have been out of reach for close to six years. Now that Destiny 2's development has ended, no patch is bringing them back. A fan project, searched for as the Destiny 2 vaulted areas mod, is close to release and promises to let you walk through them again. The coverage so far has been vague about what that actually means, so here is the specific version.
What the Destiny 2 vaulted areas mod actually is
The Destiny 2 vaulted areas mod is a free, unreleased fan tool that loads a 2020 build of the game and lets you walk around destinations Bungie removed from the live game, with no enemies, NPCs or working activity mechanics.
Its actual name, as written on the project's own GitHub page, is Destiny 2 Shadowkeep Single Player Exploration Mode. The repository is d2-prebl-explorer-info, hosted under the account stanuwu, and the repository slug reads as pre-Beyond Light. That matters more than it sounds, because pre-Beyond Light is the real scope boundary, not "vaulted content" as people use the phrase now.
The build it runs on is Season of Arrivals, the last version of Destiny 2 that shipped before the Destiny Content Vault took effect. Bungie's own year-by-year content breakdown places Season of Arrivals as the final season of Year 3, the Shadowkeep year, which lines up with the project's name. If you want the wider chronology, our Destiny 2 release timeline covers where each year sits.
The README describes it as free and open source on release, and states plainly that it is still in development. It also carries an explicit disclosure that AI was used somewhere in the project, with details promised at release.
Why the coverage disagrees about who made it
If you have read more than one article about this, you have probably seen more than one name attached to it.
PC Gamer and Kotaku credit a developer called stanuwu. Game Rant and EGW credit a modder called Jesus MC. Forbes refers to "the group" and links to two separate X accounts. Three of them quote the project's GitHub documentation by name, a fourth reproduces the same details, and Forbes points to posts on X instead.
We are not going to pick one and assert it. What we can say is that the repository every outlet is quoting sits under a single account, and that its credits section thanks several named people for help with code and mechanics, for suggesting destinations worth visiting, and for feedback. A project with acknowledged helpers and a public Discord can easily end up reported under whichever name a given outlet encountered first.
The practical takeaway: treat the repository as the reference for anything about this project, and treat secondary write-ups as a starting point. That applies to this article too, and to every write-up of the third-party Destiny 2 tools this community keeps producing.
Every vaulted area the mod can reach
None of the coverage we reviewed published the actual list. It is not hard to build, because Bungie published both halves of it.
Cross-reference what shipped in Years 1 through 3 against Bungie's Destiny Content Vault manifest, and you get a specific answer for what a Season of Arrivals client contains that the live game no longer does.
Destinations: Mercury, Mars, Titan, Io, The Farm and The Leviathan, all removed on November 10, 2020. Tangled Shore, removed on February 22, 2022.
Campaigns: The Red War, Curse of Osiris and Warmind, all removed in 2020. Forsaken, removed in 2022.
Raids: Leviathan, Eater of Worlds, Spire of Stars, Scourge of the Past and Crown of Sorrow.
Strikes: A Garden World and Tree of Probabilities on Mercury, Savathûn's Song on Titan, The Pyramidion and The Festering Core on Io, Strange Terrain and Will of the Thousands on Mars.
Activities: Escalation Protocol, The Reckoning, The Menagerie, the Tribute Hall, Niobe Labs, all four Black Armory forges, Zero Hour and The Whisper.
Crucible and Gambit maps: the thirteen Bungie listed as vaulted at the start of Year 4, including Emperor's Respite, Legion's Gulch, The Citadel, Vostok, Cathedral of Stars and Kell's Grave.
In the build but never vaulted: Last Wish, Garden of Salvation, the Shattered Throne, Pit of Heresy, the Dreaming City and the Shadowkeep version of the Moon. None of these appear anywhere on Bungie's vault manifest.
In the build, vaulted, then returned: the Prophecy dungeon, which Bungie removed in November 2020 and later added back. It exists in this client and in the live game.
That last group matters more than it looks. A Season of Arrivals client is a snapshot of the whole game as it stood in 2020, not a vaulted-content package, so plenty of what it contains never went into the vault at all.
One correction worth making to the general framing: almost every article describes this as access to what Beyond Light removed. Tangled Shore and the Forsaken campaign were not vaulted until February 2022, fifteen months later, and they are in this build. The reach is wider than the coverage suggests.
The Leviathan raid was removed in November 2020. The mod loads its architecture, but Calus and every encounter are absent.
What it can't reach, no matter what "vaulted" now means
Here is where expectations need managing, because "vaulted content" has become a much bigger category than it was in 2020.
Bungie has run five separate vaulting events, at the starts of Years 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. The first two removed material that was in the game during Season of Arrivals.
The three that followed almost entirely removed content added after this build shipped, which means it was never in it and cannot be pulled out of it. The one exception is The Farm, which Bungie vaulted in 2020, brought back, then vaulted again in Year 7. It is already on the list above.
So the following are absent, despite being genuinely vaulted:
The Derelict Leviathan and the Sever missions from Season of the Haunted
The H.E.L.M. and its various seasonal wings
The Last City's Eliksni Quarter
Ketchcrash, Expeditions, Vox Obscura and Operation: Seraph's Shield
Salvage, The Coil, Riven's Lair and the Imbaru Engine
The Nether, Court of Blades, Kell's Vengeance and Breach Executable
Every seasonal narrative from Season of the Hunt onward
Also missing, for the same reason, is a long list of content Bungie never vaulted at all. Europa, the Cosmodrome as Destiny 2 rebuilt it, Savathûn's Throne World, Neomuna, the Pale Heart and Kepler's Exotic mission chain all postdate this client.
So does every raid and dungeon from Deep Stone Crypt onward. That run continues right through to Year 8's additions, including the Equilibrium dungeon.
If your specific nostalgia is for a Season of the Haunted mission or a Beyond Light location, this project does not cover it, and nothing about how it works suggests it ever will.
The same applies to the modern Exotic missions. The Derealize mission shipped in Year 7, years after this client stopped being current.
What works and what doesn't once you're in
The shorthand across most coverage is that this is exploration only. That is close, but it undersells the feature list the README actually publishes.
Works: loading into any destination or activity, moving across the whole map through load zones, noclip, flight, hiding your weapon for screenshots, riding a sparrow, firing weapons and using abilities. There is also a load-in override for bubbles, slices and spawn points.
Doesn't work: enemies, NPCs, quests, and any activity or encounter mechanic. The README's wording leaves no room here: no mechanics exist, none are planned, and the maps are empty.
Fixed and not configurable: you get three preset characters, one Hunter, one Titan and one Warlock, with hardcoded equipment. There is no character creation, no weapon selection and no subclass selection.
Not supported: any version of the game other than Season of Arrivals.
Worth noting for anyone picturing a modern build on old maps: a Season of Arrivals client predates Stasis, which arrived with Beyond Light, so the subclass roster is the Year 3 roster. Whatever you can do with the preset characters, you are doing it with 2020 abilities.
The realistic description is a walkable museum with a sparrow and a working trigger, not a raid you can run.
Io was one of six destinations vaulted at the start of Year 4. In the mod, its patrol zones load with nothing living in them.
How to get it, and the part nobody mentions
As of August 11, 2026, it is not out. The repository lists no releases and is still marked as work in progress, and the README states a planned release window of two weeks. That line was already in place when the story broke in the first week of August, which points to late August. A two-week estimate on an in-development project is an estimate.
When it does land, it will be free and distributed through GitHub. The README is unambiguous that no game data ships with it.
That last sentence is doing a lot of work, and every article we read glosses over it. The mod is a loader, not a copy of the game. You supply the Season of Arrivals client yourself, and the README's only guidance is that you need to own Destiny 2 and obtain the build through Steam. It does not explain how, and current Destiny 2 on Steam is not Season of Arrivals.
This is the practical blocker, not the mod. The project has said more details will come at release, and until they do, anyone telling you exactly how the acquisition step works is guessing.
The README is also specific about what the project claims not to be: not a crack, not a cheat, and not a custom server, with a parenthetical noting that nothing beyond exploration is functional. It also states the project is not for profit. That last set of claims is worth reading directly, because at least one outlet has described the setup as running on private servers, and the project's own documentation says otherwise. On a question about its own architecture, the repository is the better authority.
Will Bungie shut it down?
Nobody knows, including everyone who has written about it.
Bungie has published no statement on the project. That is not a signal in either direction, and silence this early should not be read as approval, particularly with the live game still holding a measurable daily population.
The project's README argues its own case at length. It asserts fair use, states the work is for educational and research purposes, and warns that filing a copyright claim against it would be an abuse of the system. Read that as the developer's position rather than as a settled legal question, because that is what it is. We are not lawyers, and neither is a README.
The wider context is more useful than speculation. In October 2024, the US Copyright Office declined to expand the DMCA exemption that would have allowed libraries and archives to share preserved games remotely for research. The Video Game History Foundation, which spent three years on the petition alongside the Software Preservation Network, published its response noting that anti-circumvention rules under Section 1201 still prevent archives from breaking copy protection for that purpose.
That is the structural reason work like this happens in personal GitHub repositories rather than in institutions. The formal preservation route stayed closed, so the informal one is the one that exists.
One more thing belongs in this section rather than buried in a footnote: the README's AI disclosure. The project states AI was used in its creation and tells anyone uncomfortable with that to be aware before downloading. Details are promised at release. For some readers that is a non-issue and for others it is the whole question, so it is better to know now.
The mod's noclip and flight controls allow overhead angles that were never reachable during normal play.
Why this is happening now
Destiny 2's development ended in June 2026 with the Monument of Triumph update. There is no team positioned to rebuild vaulted content, and no schedule for it to ship into.
The Destiny Content Vault was introduced in Year 4, and Bungie's stated reasoning was sustainability: cycling destinations and activities out to make room for new ones and to keep the game updatable. Bungie announced in August 2022 that expansions would no longer be vaulted, and seasonal content would instead move to the vault at the end of its expansion year.
The vault's official description still says removed content has the potential to return. Some has, in pieces. The Prophecy dungeon came back, sections of the Leviathan returned in a different form for Season of the Haunted, and Zero Hour and The Whisper returned during Into the Light.
What never returned is the shape of the game people are actually nostalgic for: the full destinations, the Red War, the raids as they were.
That gap is what a fan tool is now filling, close to six years later, with no enemies in it.
It is also why the loudest community response to the end of development has not been about the vault at all. It has been the petition for a sequel.
Whether that goes anywhere is a separate argument, and one worth having on its own terms rather than through a mod that was never built to carry it. Our breakdown of what a Destiny 3 would need to fix covers that ground.
Social spaces load without vendors or other players. The architecture survives; everything that made it a gathering place does not.
Key Takeaways
The mod is a free, unreleased tool that loads a Season of Arrivals build so you can walk through removed destinations.
Its actual name is Destiny 2 Shadowkeep Single Player Exploration Mode, and its GitHub repository is the authoritative source on it.
In scope: Mercury, Mars, Titan, Io, The Farm, The Leviathan and Tangled Shore, plus four vaulted campaigns and five vaulted raids.
Out of scope: anything added after November 2020, including most content vaulted in Years 6, 7 and 8.
You can move, fly, noclip, ride a sparrow and shoot. You cannot fight anything, talk to anyone or finish an encounter.
You supply the old build yourself. The project ships no game data and does not explain that step.
Bungie has said nothing, and the README's legal arguments are the developer's position rather than a ruling.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Destiny 2 vaulted areas mod?
It is a free fan-made tool, formally called Destiny 2 Shadowkeep Single Player Exploration Mode, that loads a 2020 build of Destiny 2 and lets you explore destinations Bungie later removed. It covers areas like the Leviathan, Io, Titan, Mars and Mercury. Enemies, NPCs and activity mechanics are not present and the developer has said they will not be added.
Is the Destiny 2 vaulted areas mod free?
Yes. The project's README states it will be free and open source when it releases. The cost sits elsewhere: you need to own Destiny 2 and supply the old game build yourself, because the project distributes no game data.
When does the Destiny 2 vaulted areas mod release?
It had not released as of August 11, 2026. The README lists a planned release window of two weeks, and that line was already in place when the story broke in the first week of August, which points to late August. Treat it as an estimate from a project still marked as in development.
Can you play the Red War campaign with the mod?
No. You can load into Red War locations, but the campaign itself does not function. There are no enemies, no NPCs and no mission scripting, so the missions cannot be played through in any meaningful sense. It is a walkthrough of the spaces, not the story.
Does the mod let you clear the Leviathan raid?
No. The Leviathan map loads, but raid mechanics are not implemented and the developer has stated none will be. Calus is not there and neither are the encounters. What you get is the ability to walk, fly and noclip through the raid's architecture.
Do you need to own Destiny 2 to use the mod?
Yes. The README is explicit that you must own a copy of Destiny 2 and that you provide the required build yourself. The mod is a loader for a game you already own, not a redistribution of it.
Does the vaulted areas mod work on console?
No. The README describes obtaining the game build through Steam, which makes this a PC project, and it states that no other versions of the game are supported. Nothing in the project's documentation mentions console support.
Is the Destiny 2 vaulted areas mod safe to use?
It has not released, so nobody has tested a public build. The project states it does not affect live servers or newer versions of the game, and that it is not a cheat. It also discloses that AI was used in its creation, which is worth factoring in before you download anything.
Can Bungie ban you for using the vaulted areas mod?
Nothing has released yet, so there are no reported cases either way, and Bungie has issued no statement about the project. The project's documentation states it does not touch live servers, which is the mechanism by which most bans would arise. That is the developer's description of its own tool rather than a guarantee from Bungie, so anyone using it is accepting an unquantified risk.
Will Tangled Shore and Forsaken be in the mod?
They should be, and this is a point most coverage misses. Tangled Shore and the Forsaken campaign were not vaulted until February 2022, well after the Season of Arrivals build, so they exist in the client the mod runs on. Bungie's own vault manifest confirms both were removed at the start of Year 5.