Destiny 2‘s Heresy launch is proving to be big trouble for the looter shooter. Bungie took the game completely offline at around 2pm CT today following hours of server issues.
Guardians who have been around for a few Destiny 2 content drops know to expect trouble with the servers whenever a major update drops, but Episode Heresy might take the cake for the most difficult season launch in recent history.
The servers for Heresy were slated to come back online at 11pm CT today, alongside the daily reset and the launch of the new episode. Though Bungie didn’t have any issue pushing the update to multiple platforms, most players were met by a series of error codes—including Plum and Chicken—as soon as they could log into the game.
A few guardians could log in and enjoy the season as intended, but the lion’s share of the player base was staring at login screens and error messages. Even those lucky enough to make it through the story were eventually kicked out: Bungie said it would bring Destiny 2 completely offline to investigate. The “servers offline” messages started popping up en masse around 2pm CT, preventing all players from logging in.
The studio quickly brought Destiny 2 back online after around 15 minutes of downtime, but players were returning in a more rigid queue than usual. “A queue will be implemented to cap population as the team investigates,” community manager Dylan “dmg_04” Gafner wrote on social media before the incident. “Once we start letting more folks in, it’ll be slow and steady. This will help our investigations as we identify the cause of instability.” Players have also reported their queue numbers going up instead of down.
Destiny 2‘s connection problems are extremely disruptive during content launches, but they rarely get bad enough to the point of bringing the game offline. The Spire of the Watcher dungeon did take down the API (and popular companion app DIM) for a few days after its launch, but recent seasonal releases aren’t this severe.
Though there’s never a good time for server issues, having them on the Heresy launch might have been the worst scenario for Bungie. Its flagship live-service title was hemorrhaging players after two ill-received episodes, with December 2024 and January 2025 carving all-new low population records (according to data from SteamCharts.com).
Despite a wave of dissatisfaction, Bungie captured the attention of players again after the Heresy Act One devstream in January. A working launch could help curb the narrative that Destiny 2 is in shambles after the massive layoffs in July 2024, following another set of layoffs in 2023, and give fans more faith in the developer.
