Between a systemic overhaul that the playerbase hates, and a list of bugs that frankly beggar belief, Destiny 2 is currently in perhaps the worst shape of its history. Which, if you’ve been paying attention to the game’s ability to self-immolate, is truly something. And yet Bungie still seems determined to find new ways to take Ls.
This time, it’s the greed again. The studio stands accused of taking a very cool new armor set, which had been intended to be a reward from the returning Iron Banner activity, and instead placing it inside the Eververse Store where it sells for 1,500 Silver per character—$15 in real money.
The shambles goes back to September 9, when the Destiny 2 team announced the return of the Iron Banner PvP mode, “with new weapons to earn and an incredibly cool new set of armor.” A couple days later, though, Bungie unveiled the new Iron Banner armor and it was in fact “reprised” armor, which is to say a reskin of old armor—and not an especially impressive one in the eyes of Destiny 2 fashionistas.
The disappointing walkback from “incredibly cool” to old hand-me-down was a bummer for players looking for new drip. The real trouble, though, began when concept artist Ben Low posted images of the Gladius Titan armor to his Art Station page. The concept art is basically identical to what ultimately ended up in the Eververse store, other than for the fact it has the Iron Banner’s signature tree symbol on the chest pieces.
This is Low’s work:
And this, courtesy of PC Gamer’s Tim Clark, is the Gladius Titan set:
(Ignore the glowing ass towel, Bungie had to disable the transmog because it was crashing Xbox systems, because of course it was.)
As you can see, the Iron Banner tree is visible across the midrif—as is the fiery glow effect, which is standard for Iron Banner sets. (It catches light when the event is happening.)
Here’s a closer look:
The obvious conclusion for a great many Destiny 2 players is that the Gladius Eververse-exclusive set was originally meant for Iron Banner, but was yoinked into the MTX Store and replaced with a reskin so Bungie could squeeze money out of it.
“Milking the cow dry before Marathon comes out,” redditor Venaixis94 wrote. “With our current trajectory, and it doesn’t seem like the path is changing anytime soon, I think this franchise is over by next summer. The writing is on the wall, and they don’t seem to have the appetite for a Forsaken turnaround (nor the community for that matter).”
“This is how you know the game is actively losing money hand over fist,” yesitmework added. “They’re essentially willing to burn every last ounce of good will they have just to keep the lights on a bit more until they can push Marathon out the door.”
“They purposely make the earnable armor in game less attractive than Eververse armor because the corporate stooges feel like it would deter from Eververse sales,” redditor Assassinite9 wrote, referring to a report from earlier this year claiming that Bungie leadership was worried that a set of Trials of Osiris armor, also earnable through gameplay, was “too good” and would cut into Eververse Store sales.
Others pointed out that this is bad PR at a time when Bungie desperately needs a win. Schallhorn16 wrote, “The worst part about this is the fact that community sentiment is so low, and they aren’t reacting … During previous lows, Bungie would overcorrect to generate some good will. Go fast update, forsaken silver bundle, free prophecy, etc. They prioritized the community over their immediate revenue stream. They acted like the game was on fire and were in trouble. I don’t get why they are not acting like the game is on fire now.”
And that’s really the major issue. Game studios squeezing players is nothing new, but Destiny 2 is absolutely on fire right now, and not in a cool cosmetic way. PC Gamer editor Phil Savage, who was none too hot on the Edge of Fate expansion, came down even harder on the Portal, the new hub for the seasonal power grind, calling it “a complete failure” and saying that “Bungie needs to take drastic action if it wants the game to survive.”
Phil’s not alone in worrying about the future of Destiny 2, which will no doubt be a determining factor in the fate of Bungie: PC Gamer’s Tim Clark, another long-time Destiny guy, said in July that Edge of Fate is such a mess, he’s “worried the game may not survive.”
So, to sum up: Destiny 2 is struggling badly, Bungie is in deep trouble, and instead of pulling out all the stops to reassure and reinforce the community while it figures out whether or not Marathon is ever going to see the light of day, it seems to be squeezing the monetization lemon harder than ever—”seems to be” because, for now, this is all technically speculation.
One caveat to the pile-on I can add is that when Tim attended an Edge of Fate preview event in the third week of May, the Gladius set was part of the in-game collection, and it wasn’t the Iron Banner version. So this seems like a decision that was taken well before the launch of Edge of Fate. Which makes it even more odd that the comms dept was promising a cool new armor set only last week.
Regardless, the whole thing is a horrendous look. And with the known issues page for Destiny 2 looking like War and Peace, and the player base in open revolt at a game that has simply become unfun to play, and that’s when its systems are working properly. Which they haven’t since the whole shambolic switchover happened. We’ll have to wait and see what Bungie has to say about the armor set issue, but so far the studio has stayed quiet—a silence that speaks volumes.
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