Bungie has launched the annual Festival of the Lost event in its blockbuster game Destiny 2, this time welcomed by an all-new activity called Haunted Altars of Sorrow. The company has also revived the spooky Halloween atmosphere through this. Players are indeed very eager to battle against the candy-hungry rivals or Headless Ones, but on the other hand, it looks like the patch update has also opened the doors for a huge number of technical problems.
The new activity, which is available to all players between October 21 and November 11, calls upon the guardians to defend the fort and shoot down the invading forces in return for the best candy loot. In theory, it seems like a great seasonal fun—but in practice? It is hard to tell, but let’s say it like this: the community is currently sharing more tricks than treats.
Rather serious issues were reported by players from the beginning itself. One of the users, Relic2022, described the situation with his multiple soft locks during boss fights: “Soft locked on to the boss. Everyone jumps off and we were able to kill the boss. Soft locked on tier II, timer ran out and got just 2 drops. Soft locked on tier III, everyone jumps but no good. Timer runs out and got NOTHING.” Ouch! That is tough when you are grinding for seasonal loot.
Someone using the name Battousai102084 who was in the same position also shared a piece of advice: “Just don’t try to kill the boss in the first damage phase or it will soft lock.” So it means don’t be the best player in the game? Got it.
But wait, things have not yet come to a conclusion. A user named Hydorn went on about solo ops being “bugged or something since Tuesday.” He pointed out that the enemies were much stronger than the supposed -30 power delta. They depicted a scenario where “enemies take ages to spawn, between waves there are long pauses,” thus making it impossible to have even a minute to fight the final boss. Hydorn’s last message to Bungie was “Stop doing this stuff on the sly. Respect our time.” That is certainly a very powerful statement.
The user is clearly indicating crashing rather than bugs. The user Seraph20201 just wrote “Crash after crash,” while others reported general instability. Nonetheless, Cameron’s response was “no crash yet get a better rig😂”—that is so much like classic community banter!
In addition, these technical issues not only disrupt the new activity but also affect the existing ones. User Bzooted said “reclaim missions no ship spawns to go to next area,” and user finsdomgermany stated “Conducters keep is Bugged now too, congratulations Bungie!” They seem to be battling the bugs like whack-a-mole.
Not even minor issues related to appearance would be spared! User UnicornAttackForce was unable to wear their Ghost Writer title despite having owned it for years, while user Ashlyn_dreams complained that the masqueraders helm was not counting the iron panoply correctly. It sounds quite irritating; just think of it if we are given the chance to get rid of bugs but we have to do it while looking unpresentable?
However, the positive side is that not everything is gloomy. Some players are actually having fun with the content they are playing the most. User Raijinmeister labeled it the “Best Festival in years “but he also said “Too bad the game is in this state.” User James Walker hoped the wood shader would be available correctly, and user Shaga just said “I am enjoying it a ton so far!”
Community reactions range from Faris who supports the activity and weaponry to SlumpGodAspect who advises others to “go play your recycled content”. There has even been some drama involving former developers and threats of house firebombing?? Uh-oh, what was I saying? Oh right, Festival of the Lost.
So, the question that arises is what place that leaves us at? In theory, the new Haunted Altars event seems to be a winner—hold your position against the tides of foes, improve your gear, and fight the spectral bosses. But the implementation is quite different—Bungie might just have to do some crisis patching. Players are already losing their patience because of the soft locks, spawning issues, crashes, and all sorts of bugs, but they still want the festival atmosphere to last.
The event is scheduled to continue until November 11, which means that there is time for fixes. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that Bungie answers quickly because under all the technicalities there seems to be a fun Halloween event just waiting to be revealed. Maybe by the time you see this, some patches will have been released, and we can actually celebrate the festival without being concerned about the soft locks or the ships not arriving. Or we might just have to accept the chaos—it is Halloween time, after all. PlayStation and Xbox players are both experiencing these issues across platforms.
