Over the weekend, Bungie disabled Destiny 2âs in-game text chat across all platforms after trolls discovered a way to use it to crash other playersâ games. Now, the chat still remains off and Bungie hasnât provided an ETA for when it will return.
On Saturday, I hopped online to play some Destiny 2 and was hit with a small message telling me in-game text chat had been temporarily disabled across all platforms. I didnât think much of it as I primarily play on Xbox Series X and donât really use text chat. But it turns out that a nasty and simple exploit had been discovered in Bungieâs online sci-fi shooter and to avoid players abusing it, Bungie disabled text chat completely.
The exploit, if done properly, allows a troll to crash someone elseâs game (or their own game) by simply entering a specific string of text. An example of this can be seenin a video clip uploaded on July 30 by Destiny 2 player ritz. (It should be noted the text seen in the video isnât the entirety of whatâs needed to cause the exploit to trigger.)
why does this exist pic.twitter.com/mra9ByPW6c
â ritz (@ritzzcar) July 30, 2022
According to some reports, players were experiencing crashes when playing online in multiplayer, as those areas have public text chat and were vulnerable to this particular exploit. Shortly after its discovery, players began sharing clips of the exploit and reporting it online, leading to Bungie swiftly disabling all text chat in Destiny 2 on all platforms. Bungie confirmed this on its Twitter account on July 30.
âWe have temporarily disabled text chat on all platforms in Destiny 2 while we investigate an issue causing Weasel errors,â tweeted Bungie. âStay tuned for updates.â
Bungie has a hotfix planned to go live tomorrow following some maintenance today, but thereâs been no confirmation from the devs on if this exploit is being fixed in this upcoming patch. Kotaku has reached out to Bungie about the exploit and if it has any updates on when players can expect a fix and for text chat to be turned back on.
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