Destiny fans recall the game's biggest controversies ahead of 10 year anniversary
It's been a long road for Bungie's loot-shooter MMO, but it's not been without a fair few bumps. Here are some of Destiny's biggest controversies.
29th Jul 2024 15:10
Images via Bungie
Destiny fans recall the game's biggest controversies ahead of 10 year anniversary
It's been a long road for Bungie's loot-shooter MMO, but it's not been without a fair few bumps. Here are some of Destiny's biggest controversies.
29th Jul 2024 15:10
Images via Bungie
Destiny will celebrate its tenth anniversary this year, and it's in a pretty good place. While some aren't sure about the story cadence from its episodic narrative drops, The Final Shape is now revered as one of the franchise's finest moments.
Bungie's loot-shooter has become that rare "game as a service" that's remained consistently successful, but it's not been without its missteps, and ahead of the big tenth birthday celebrations in September, fans have taken to Reddit to discuss what constitutes the worst "Destiny drama" since we took our first steps into the Cosmodrome in 2014.
Destiny fans recount the game's biggest missteps
Kicking things off, one commenter recalled when shaders (Destiny's way of swapping the colour of your armour) were revealed to me consumables ahead of the second game's launch.
That meant players would need to get multiple copies of shaders to be able to switch out their look. To make things worse, it took forever to delete copies of shaders you didn't want, too. Thankfully, Bungie walked that change back and shaders are infinite now.
Others pointed to the "XP scandal" where players crunched the numbers and realised XP gains were being throttled so that players were getting less XP than Bungie was letting on to nudge them toward cosmetic purchases. Bungie came clean in the end but also removed some of the best items from Bright Engrams earned through playing the game.
"35 comments & no one jumped on with ‘SUNSETTING!?" one commenter mentioned, referring to Bungie's plans to 'sunset' weapons so they could get players earning fresh gear instead, as well as the Destiny Content Vault that led to activities and even whole locations being removed from the game.
"The big issue is taking away content you paid for and saying “You can’t play this anymore”. Yeah I totally get WHY it happened and I’m still here despite it. But that’s an understandably tough pill to swallow. Makes it really hard to get new folks into it when the whole start of the game is missing, and the new “start” is jank as sh*t too," another user added, pointing to Destiny's difficulty attracting new players.
A few fans pointed to the "Twilight Garrison drama" which saw a Bungie developer hounded off of X (formerly Twitter) due to reactions to changes made in the game.
There are plenty of other lows in Destiny's ten years, but it's also been a fantastic experience for many players, including myself. In fact, I'm not sure I'd be in the job I'm in without it.
About The Author
Lloyd Coombes
Lloyd is GGRecon's Editor-in-Chief, having previously worked at Dexerto and Gfinity, and occasionally appears in The Daily Star newspaper. A big fan of loot-based games including Destiny 2 and Diablo 4, when he's not working you'll find him at the gym or trying to play Magic The Gathering.
