Destiny 2 players can finally take advantage of their favorite apps again.
Bungie reenabled the Destiny 2 API today, meaning the official companion app and other third-party tools that are nearly essential to the game are operational once more. The outage lasted just two days, from Dec. 28 to 30, after Bungie disabled the API due to connection issues. This is earlier than the previous timeline Bungie gave, which pointed to a fix targeted for “early next week.”
Throughout this week, players started reporting serious issues with connectivity to the Destiny 2 servers, including cases where progress—such as accomplishments and Exotic drops—was rolling back due to these issues. Bungie severed connectivity to the API on Dec. 28 to see if it would help with a fix.
On Dec. 28, senior community manager Dylan “dmg_04” Gafner explained the reason behind the issues: the new Revision Zero Exotic pulse rifle.
“A bug deep in the way that the new exotic was set up is causing some pretty gnarly game/API issues, resulting in full server crashes (which boots hundreds of people at a given time),” he said on Twitter.
Bungie grappled with different ideas for the fix, including disabling Revision Zero—which may not have avoided the issue, according to Gafner. “While we understand the inconvenience, this not only lets players continue to engage with the new mission and exotic, but also prevents the continued onslaught of errors and missing item reports,” he explained.
This isn’t the first time this month that Bungie has disabled the API. The company took the same measure on Dec. 9, after the release of the Spire of the Watcher dungeon also caused rampant server issues that marred the launch of the new dungeon.
With the API down, players are essentially cut off from vital services. Apps such as the Destiny Item Manager (DIM) make transferring gear seamless and borderline instant, while tools such as the Destiny 2 Armor Picker can be essential to making builds and choosing gear. Even the companion app relied on the API to pick up bounties and display triumphs, meaning Destiny 2 players couldn’t even use the official out-of-game channels to grab bounties or check vendors.
API outages shine a light on how integral these third-party tools have become to Destiny 2. DIM, for instance, allows players to transfer weapons between their characters and the vault seamlessly, while tools such as DestinyRecipes can help track players’ Power Level, letting them see which drops they have already obtained and which ones they should chase next. Though these tools aren’t official or built into Destiny 2, they have become as essential to the game’s experience as some of its actual features—if not even more important.
