The feisty Iron Banner was officially announced by Bungie. All guardians have been called to bring glory under the gaze of Lord Saladin. However, if hype means popularity among the community, then the saying goes that the UI icon for the victory dance emote was never even used.
The official Destiny Twitter account went with the announcement of: “Valus Forge seeks the strongest and best-equipped Guardians to fight beneath the Iron Banner. Begin your fight for glory in the Tower.” Standard stuff. Now, the replies? That is just clase-comic for anyone want to learn about gamer rage. It is like opening those gates to salt mines.
First and foremost, players are NOT happy with the loot. Like, at all. loca says freely: “to bad i cannot hoard engrams like earlier to quick decrypt hoping for new armor… for my titan the class item doesnt exist in loot pool.” Ouch. Really bad. And then Samson said they have only seen “2 decent class items but tier 4 đŸ’”đŸ’”” – which will only add to their saltiness.
But wait, wait, wait! Or wait a bit more, depending on where you’re standing. There’s more irony and anger beyond Iron Banner. Alas, it seems Xur – the weekend exotic vendor – DID NOT bring forth the very sword that everyone wanted? User 666718 went all caps: “BUNGIE YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE AND YOU FAILED! No broken swords…” And TylerIsHere3 simply said: “No sword at xur… ggs.” sLyPo1 shared that because of this, they will be playing another game this weekend. Yikes.
Apparently, this clearly gives way to an unhappy drizzle that has passed from before. SnowballTheFur kept going: “Haven’t played since August 20 and uninstalled last week. Y’all have no idea what you’re doing and all you’ve done is piss us off.” Damn. And theJthatmatters called D2 a “miserable slog of a game” and said there were way too many other fun games to play instead. Ouch.
But not all, there are those who appreciate this Iron Banner armor. KermitDerFrosc3 said: “not having xur sell quickfang is a missed opp. otherwise i like this set.” There you go. QueensHunchback actually thanked Bungie for their effort, which was… surprising given the state of affairs.
But then the complaints kept coming – CoreyLahey60 wants to know how many Iron Banner weapons are in the tier system, CapBailey says they’ve played well over 200 matches and still haven’t seen Iron Banner weapons, and SirCosta11 just flat-out asked where the new strikes and PvP maps are. Real content drought there.
Now for the Trials of Osiris- EmmyCastile asked if this is the weekend, to which EmperorAzazel responded, “Never Trials on Iron Banner week.” So, that’s apparently a thing? The more you know.
What is really interesting is in how this rolls out into the larger Destiny 2 experience at present. Looting systems, vendor offerings, perceived lack of content – player frustration had been steadily growing, but Iron Banner week seems to have sharpened all these issues into one. What a kind of perfect storm for player unrest.
The Owl Bard was pretty much on point with a suggestion: It would be awesome to see Crucible weapons as focus drops alongside armor during Iron Banner. That actually sounds pretty cool, huh? Like, Mida shotgun alongside Iron Banner gear? That’d be sick.
But overall, the vibe is just… bad. From armor drop rates to Xur’s inventory to general fatiguing of the game, the Destiny community is pretty sure that Bungie has now heard the voice of discontent. And when gamers are threatening each other with playing other games? That’s when you know it’s really serious.
It’s wild how a simple “hey come play Iron Banner” tweet ends up turning into a comprehensive list of grievances from a community. Probably Bungie really wanted to announce the event only to get a full state-of-the-game address from their player base. Now that’s some unusual feedback.
So, good luck with those class item drops and welcoming low expectations for Xur’s inventory if you’re jumping into Iron Banner this week. The struggle is real out there in the Tower.
At the end of the day, what is also fairly clear is that Destiny 2 players are passionate—sometimes in excitement sometimes in frustration. But on the passion side, they care about the game. Here’s hoping Bungie is listening to all this feedback and has something cooking as an improvement. Because no one wants to see Guardians leaving the Tower for any other game—that just hurts.
