Deleting a Destiny 2 character permanently removes that character and its character-specific progress, but most account-wide items and currencies stay on your account.

What you lose

  • The character itself, along with its individual level, quest progress, campaign progress, and story progress.
  • Any gear, weapons, ships, sparrows, ghosts, and other items left on that character when it is deleted.
  • Character-specific unlocks, including some subclass or campaign unlock steps that may need to be redone on a new character.

What you keep

  • Shared account items, materials, currencies, and other account-wide unlocks stay available.
  • Collections and transmog-related unlocks remain account-based, so you can usually pull or remake many things later.
  • Your other characters are not deleted, and their progress remains intact.

Before you delete

  • Move everything important into the vault first, especially weapons, armor, ships, sparrows, ghosts, and exotics.
  • Expect to redo some intro quests and campaign steps on the new character.
  • If you want a true fresh start on everything, a new account is the only way to reset account-wide progress completely.

Simple example

If you delete a Warlock but your Hunter and Titan are still there, your Hunter and Titan stay fine, your shared currencies stay, but anything left on the Warlock is gone for good.

TL;DR: deleting a character wipes that character’s progress and anything stored on it, but most account-wide stuff survives.