Bungie is finally addressing one of the biggest fan complaints about Destiny 2 on consoles – the incredibly long wait times.
Since the release of Destiny 2, long loading times on the PS4 and Xbox One have been a sore point for many Guardians – even on the top models PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. But as Bungie stated in its latest “This Week at Bungie” blog, the studio is working to significantly reduce the annoying wait times for Guardians.
Soon you should spend significantly less time in loading screens in Destiny 2
What is the problem with loading times on consoles? Even at launch, the wait times in Destiny 2 were comparatively long. Especially when loading the initial character selection screen, it could take what felt like an eternity.
With each update, the wait times have continued to increase. Since the release of the Forsaken expansion, they have become particularly annoying. In some cases, it can take more than three minutes for the game to load the character selection or to arrive in the Tower.
But even when “approaching” various activities and using the fast travel function at a location, one often sits annoyed in front of the screen due to the sometimes enormous loading times.
So far, according to numerous fan reports, only switching from a hard drive to an SSD has been able to reduce these times.
This is the reason for the problem: Bungie stated that recently they have released many new content, bug fixes, and patches – and that at much shorter intervals than originally planned.
These shorter intervals have led to the code responsible for loading the respective data into the game being unexpectedly heavily burdened. This ultimately results in the longer wait times.
What is Bungie doing about it? This situation is not new and is one of the most annoying problems on consoles, but only now has Bungie officially addressed these complaints for the first time.
In the latest “This Week at Bungie” blog, the studio announced that they are closely monitoring reports of long loading times on the PS4 and Xbox One. Additionally, the developers are already working on improvements to shorten these loading times, according to Bungie.
Currently, the developers are primarily focused on the following performance issues:
- Long loading times when starting the game, logging in, and character selection
- Long loading times when loading activities and fast traveling within a destination
- Long loading times when opening the inventory and switching between the individual pages (tabs) of the user interface
Each of these problems is influenced by different additional factors.
When can we expect an improvement in performance? Bungie has surprisingly announced that players will already notice significant improvements in loading times with the upcoming update for Destiny 2 for Season 5. For example, instead of taking over two minutes, it should only take about one minute to travel from the Orbit to the EDZ.
When this update will be released is still unknown. However, the Season 4 ends in less than 3 weeks, on November 27, 2018. If the start of Season 5 does not take place immediately after Season 4, it should at least not take long – just like the corresponding update.
