How To Use The Monument To Lost Lights Exotic Archive

With the arrival of Destiny 2’s Beyond Light expansion on November 10, entire planets' worth of content has been temporarily cycled out of the game into the Destiny Content Vault. The retired content includes many of the quests required to earn the most prized high-end weapons in the game. While some of the vaulted content may return in the future, there is no timetable for this yet, and it’s not clear if the activities in question will reappear as well. However, players can still acquire most of the Exotic and Pinnacle weapon from missing destinations through the Monument to Lost Lights Exotic Archive.

Exotic archive

The Monument to Lost Lights is a new terminal placed in the Tower courtyard. You can easily find it among the Vault terminals thanks to its distinctive ornamental design. It functions as a vendor that sells Exotic and Legendary weapons that can no longer be acquired in any other way. Each weapon commands a high price in several currencies, so as not to cheapen the accomplishments of those who earned them the hard way.

Resources and cost

For example, the Buzzard, once acquired by grinding sidearm kills in the Anything That Moves quest, now requires 75,000 Glimmer, 100 Legendary Shards, 2 Enhancement Prisms, and 1 Ascendant Shard. While Glimmer can be found anywhere and Legendary Shards can be acquired by dismantling any Legendary equipment, Enhancement Prisms and Ascendant Shards will normally have to be earned through Nightfall: the Ordeal strikes though they can also be purchased at a steep rate from Banshee-44, not far from the monument.

Some other Legendary weapons and all Exotic gear are still more costly. In addition to Glimmer and Ascendant Shards, each Exotic weapon requires an Exotic Cipher and some form of unique Redeemable connected to the original quest. The latter can be gained from different vendors or activities still in the game. Spoils of Conquest, required to buy old raid weapons, can be earned from the remaining raids. You can only hold one Exotic Cipher at a time, earning it from a weekend quest given by Xur or from a season pass once per season.

Conclusion

Thanks to the Monument to Lost Lights, newcomers and veterans alike will not have to miss out on classic Destiny 2 weapons – even if some of them have aged more poorly than others. While the Exotic weapons hold strong, most of the Legendary weapons in the Exotic Archive have been level-capped as part of the sunsetting process, effectively excluding them from the endgame. Still, they remain valuable as collectors’ items or for bringing their unique flair to lower-level content.

Future changes to the game may change the Monument’s inventory or functionality, but for now, it’s good to know that not everything is lost when worlds go to the Content Vault.