A bug is causing Destiny 2: Forsaken items to drop before the expansion is out
Dataminers have also unearthed many of the new Exotic items coming as part of next week's big DLC release.
The Destiny 2: Forsaken pre-week festivities kicked off yesterday, and in predictably fine form it has not gone entirely smoothly. As noted in this Reddit thread, weapons and armor from the expansion have already begun to drop, almost a full week before they were supposed to.
It's apparently quite easy to get your hands on Forsaken equipment: According to this Houndish video, the stuff is dropping as a reward for completing the Flashpoint milestone reward on Mars. Whether you'll actually be able to equip it is dependent on your character level—you might have to do a little item-and-character juggling if you want to get on the new triggers right away—but the stats and perks are all intact and functioning.
Interestingly, there's also some debate over whether this is actually a bug at all, or if it's a sly bit of promotion: Bungie lists "Forsaken Item Drops" in its Vital Information and Known Issues update, but several redditors pointed out that similar premature item drops have occurred previously, and all that swanky new kit certainly seems to be driving excitement among the fan base.
[Spoiler warning]
Predictably, dataminers have also dug out details about some of the new items coming in the expansion, including some—The Queensbreaker's Bow, Lord of Wolves, and The Chaperone—that are actually making a return from the original Destiny. The list is by no means comprehensive—there are various "classified" items, and the database itself is apparently not complete—and Bungie also alluded to keeping some secrets in its recent post-launch content roadmap. There's also information on how some of the items will be acquired in the comments.
The full list of known issues introduced with the 2.0.0 update, including disabled Nightfall scoring, inability to progress in Heroic Strikes, and an issue that prevents the XP bar from advancing (although XP and levels are still being gained at a normal rate), is up at bungie.net. Destiny 2: Forsaken goes properly live on September 4.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.