Bungie delays Destiny 2 shotgun nerf to reduce workload on dev team

Destiny 2's Lord of Wolves burst-fire shotgun is overpowered. A recent change to the gun means players can activate its signature perk at will, doubling the number of bullets in a burst—previously, it was a temporary boost after you killed an enemy. In PvP, that means repeatedly dying to the weapon, which can shut down super abilities in an instant. Bungie intend to nerf the gun, but not immediately, according to creative director Luke Smith, who says a quick fix would put too much strain on the dev team.

The nerf will likely happen in July, Smith said during a GuardianCon 2019 charity stream, giving the team plenty of time to work on it without having to put in "super long" hours. "We're having the conversation about, 'is it worth doing that or is it better to preserve the work-life balance and ship it later in July?'," he said.

He pointed out that the team had already pushed themselves to add in the recent Contest difficulty mode before the Crown of Sorrow raid. "To ask a team to do that back-to-back, full disclosure, is not a thing we want to do. We try to be really careful about stuff like that," he said. You can watch the full clip here.

In a later blog post, Smith said the weapon was particularly broken in PvP games on PC. The team debated simply preventing players equipping Lord of Wolves, but concluded that was "a blunt tool, and basically banning an item from being equipped isn't something we take lightly. 

"In this instance, Lord of Wolves dominance (and its really showing out on PC) didn't rise up to meet the bar of 'this is broken enough to turn it off in all activities'," he said. The team will "revisit" the idea if the gun's dominance becomes more apparent. "From our perspective, this feels like a week where the Wolves run wild and supers trample their way through Iron Banner a little less."

Thanks, Polygon.