Destiny 2 is getting a lot bigger with The Witch Queen expansion, which is a little over six weeks from release, but at the same time, the game is also losing part of its existing content to the Destiny Content Vault. This process has been started with the release of Beyond Light, and Bungie's reasoning behind this decision is that by removing old content that is hardly played anymore from the game, Destiny 2 can be more responsive and have shorter loading times. With The Witch Queen, it will be the turn of the Forsaken campaign and the Tangled Shore to be vaulted, but the list is longer than anticipated, and Bungie is also vaulting everything in Destiny 2's HELM.
The HELM itself is seemingly staying, but core functionalities provided by the seasonal vendors - Mithrax's Splicer Servitor and Mara Sov - will be removed, as well as the Umbral Decoder and the Prismatic Recaster. These two are primarily used to decrypt Umbral Engrams either with random results or with a controlled outcome in terms of what sort of weapons and armor pieces can drop, respectively. Because both the Umbral Decoder and the Prismatic Recaster are being vaulted, but Umbral Engrams are going to stay, this poses the question as to what the purpose of Umbral Engrams will be when Destiny 2's The Witch Queen expansion launches.
How Destiny 2's Umbral Engrams Could be Handled in The Witch Queen
Without the Umbral Decoder and the Prismatic Recaster, assuming they are going to be removed entirely from the game, rather than relocate from the HELM to somewhere else, players will no longer be able to use or decrypt Umbral Engrams. Yet, Bungie wouldn't leave Umbral Engrams in Destiny 2 with no reason to be there, and they might be used in a similar way as they are now, but this time, they're part of The Witch Queen's weapon crafting. There are not many details known about how weapon crafting will actually work or what it entails, exactly, but Umbral Engrams are likely retaining their ability to be focused on specific loot.
Bungie stated that Destiny 2's weapon crafting could also provide players with their exact preferred roll, at some point, and that's to reward dedication to crafting a specific weapon or archetype. Umbral Engrams have always worked in an analogous way, as the Prismatic Recaster allows players to choose which kind of loot players want - a weapon from a past or present Season, an armor piece with a specific stat that has a high roll, maybe even a weapon with more perks in its third or fourth column. Weapon crafting could work in a similar way, and require an Umbral Engram per attempt, alongside a new currency type.
Spending an Umbral Engram at the weapon crafting station might be the only way to reduce the weight of random options appearing as a result, and throwing more currency into the mix might further improve the outcome. Either way, it's possible that Umbral Engrams will be limited in usage when trying to craft specific weapons, both by the fact that they are a finite resource and the fact that crafting is likely to have a weekly cap, much like the Prismatic Recaster's high-rolled armor pieces. The other possibility is that one of Destiny 2's characters will once again be given more relevancy when it comes to the Umbral Engrams and the Prismatic Recaster, and that is the Drifter.
Originally, the Prismatic Recaster was located near the Drifter, and players had to go through a Gambit-like quest to gain access to the machine. Gambit is getting a rework with The Witch Queen expansion, and it's not impossible that it will be once more tied to Umbral Engrams, which could become an exclusive form of obtaining great loot by playing more Gambit. This would also be an incentive to try out the reworked game mode, as well as provide Destiny 2 players with a reason to farm Gambit over other activities. Overall, there are only a handful of ways for Bungie to handle Umbral Engrams moving forward, and it's likely that either weapon crafting or Gambit will be involved.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.