I have never known a Destiny 2 expansion with as many problems as Edge of Fate, and I'm worried the game may not survive them

I don't think it's remotely overstating things to say that Destiny 2 is currently in shambles. That much was clear from our review of the recently released Edge of Fate expansion, which scored 54%. "Somehow, Bungie has taken the worst elements of multiple live-service grinds and combined them into something nonsensical that feels terrible to interact with," wrote my colleague and fellow veteran player Phil Savage, who spent much of the review excoriating the wholesale systemic changes that have left the game feeling substantially worse than it did a couple of weeks ago.

What Phil didn't have the space to touch on is the sheer amount of bugs in Edge of Fate. We are talking biblical plague levels here, and frankly no one should be surprised. What is most baffling about the situation is the fact that Bungie hasn't shipped a seasonal update since last year's The Final Shape expansion that wasn't bedevilled by bugs. So, quite how the studio thought it could replace almost every major system in the game—weapons, armor, levelling, ammo economy—without breaking an enormous amount of that stuff is beyond me.

Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but frankly the idea of making this many changes simultaneously looks utterly reckless. When the 3.0 subclasses were introduced, beginning with Witch Queen, they did one at a time over a whole year. But with Edge of Fate It's like the game's skeleton has been ripped out and replaced by parboiled spaghetti.

I got 99 problems (and a soft lock is several of 'em)

If I sound annoyed it's because I am. This is a game I love and have spent many thousands of hours in, and given the recent mood music around Bungie—the layoffs, the poor reception to Marathon's beta, stolen art assets, and Destiny 2's own haemorrhaging playerbase—it feels like both game and studio are in a genuine moment of existential crisis.

Last night, I watched as my raid group fell apart after an hour on the final boss due to a desync issue that meant the glowing doohickeys crucial to the wipe mechanic appeared in completely the wrong place. I would love to tell you that anyone was shocked. As we logged off the mood was a mixture of frustration, sadness and anger.

Those emotions are being felt by people interacting with all elements of the game right now. The Known Issues page on Bungie's Help forum provides a 1,000-word list of problems under investigation, a huge number of which are non-trivial. Here are a few highlights, with my notes in parenthesis:

• Raid banners do not always function as expected. [This meant that during the recent 'Contest Mode' raid race, players could not reliably restore the ammunition prior to encounters.]
• Not all players are earning the expected Exotic armor reward for completing the Edge of Fate Legendary campaign.
• The Blackletter robes Warlock ornament appears invisible when previewed. [As a result, players could become invisible in PvP. Lol, lmao, etc.]
• Kepler Weekly missions are not rewarding loot as expected.
• High-tier Portal activity modifiers may not inform players to prepare for Champions when present. [Kind of important when your loadout depends on the ability to stun these enemies correctly.]
• Players can become soft-locked in the Encore Exotic mission's final boss fight. [One of many potential soft locks listed.]
• Vex Mythoclast's rate of fire is incorrect.

On and on it goes. Nor does this list seem remotely exhaustive. On the Destiny 2 Team official X account, other issues are being communicated. Like the fact that it's possible to lose the ability to sprint in PvP.

Or a problem on PlayStation whereby, if you bought Edge of Fate and then bought the Year of Prophecy Ultimate Edition, you would lose access to the new expansion. At least that one has been resolved quickly, as problems involving expenditure tend to be.

I say that cynically, because on log-in yesterday players received three different messages about new items being on sale in Eververse, the game's MTX store. Another bug, certainly, but not one that helps the current vibe.

Devs under duress

Also not on the known issues list is a bug with the new exotic scout rifle, Third Iteration. If you ADS for a second or so, the gun's triangular reticule shrinks to a single point, after which your next shot will do a chunk of extra damage and apply a debuff. However, if you select the 'No HUD' activity modifier, that shrinking effect is removed completely, despite the fact the modifier should only hide screen furniture like your health bar, not readouts on weapons. I know this is a bug because I noticed it when I saw the game at the preview stage at Bungie's office in Seattle, upon which a dev studiously noted the problem and told me it would be fixed.

And look, I have a substantial amount of sympathy for those working on Destiny 2, who have seen their colleagues let go in droves, and have then been tasked with refactoring almost every aspect of a notoriously complex 10 year-old game, with an increasingly abrasive playerbase, while said game is still in motion. I suppose what worries me most is that even if Bungie is able to fix all these bugs—and bear in mind we've had whole seasons pass with major bugs left unresolved recently—that still won't do anything to address the misguided systemic changes that Phil covered, none of which will be easy to reverse.

Simply put, Bungie isn't going to be able to bug fix or balance change its way out of the current crisis—though it still needs to do both of those things urgently. (Don't get me started on what's been done to the in-game economy. I have a stern hand-written letter for whoever invented Unstable Cores.) Not since the days of vanilla D2, which also saw a series of dire systems decisions—"double primaries and achingly long cooldowns for everyone!"—has the core of the game just seemed so wrong.

Right now, I am worried for both the future of the game and its studio. In the past, when attempting to right major missteps, I've always felt there was a path back. Though honestly, that path was hard to see after the disappointment of Lightfall, and the studio overdelivered against those fears with The Final Shape. But that was before the last swingeing round of staff cuts, and before Marathon's future became even less assured.

Today, the path is harder to see than ever before. Bungie and Destiny 2 are no strangers to crises, but the scale of the challenge looks less like an iceberg and more like an incoming asteroid.