This didn’t go well: A few minutes after the PC launch of Destiny 2, the good mood collapsed. Surprising bans kicked players from the game. The community suspects that overlays from Discord, MSI Afterburner, or other software are to blame. But according to Bungie, that cannot be the case.
On October 24 around 7:00 PM German time, the gates to Destiny 2 on PC opened. Now the popular MMO shooter is officially available on the PC platform, and new players are experiencing its atmosphere for the first time.
At least that was the plan for the many players who, unfortunately, can no longer enter the game. They were banned. An anti-cheat measure roughly sorted the gamers. Too roughly? Many feel unjustly banned and are aware of no wrongdoing.
Update on October 26: Bungie now explains that a few of the bans happened by mistake.
Update: The support page of Battle.net has been updated on this issue. “All account suspensions and restrictions in Destiny 2 are determined and enforced by Bungie and cannot be contested.” It subsequently refers to the Bungie article on policies and account suspensions. You can find it here.
Bans due to Afterburner or Discord? Bungie says ‘Bullshit!’
After many players were banned yesterday following the Destiny 2 launch on PC, they shared their problems on Reddit and in the official Bungie forum. The community’s theory is that players are banned from Destiny 2 because they used game capture software (like OBS) or overlays (like from Discord).
Bungie officially stated back in September that some streaming programs like OBS or XSplit are incompatible with Destiny 2 in their game capture modes. Overlays for voice chats like Mumble or Discord are also blocked. Even FPS and stats displays like through MSI Afterburner or Fraps are not compatible with the game.
These programs are not allowed because they could insert code into the game client. Out of fear of cheating, the overlay functions and hardware monitoring do not work in Destiny 2.
Could this perhaps be the reason for the many bans? Players’ carelessness in having this software activated in the background?
Community is angry!
In the forums, complaints about bans have been increasing since the launch. More and more threads are appearing in which players accuse Bungie of banning them for carelessly using software.
The problem is that there is no reason given in the emails that notify players about their ban. Even Blizzard support has no insight into the ban reason and can only refer to Bungie’s support, as player Shugazer writes in the forum.
In the forum, mentor “Kellogs” addresses the issues and explains that third-party software that is incompatible with Destiny 2 is blocked. This could simply prevent the game from running. However, there should not be a ban for that.
Bungie says ‘That’s Internet Bullshit!’
In response to the question of whether there are still restrictions for overlays after the beta, project lead David Shaw writes on Twitter: We block programs that want to infiltrate our game with their code. That’s how most overlays work. However, we do not issue bans for that. That’s internet bullshit.
Why then the bans?
If it’s not the overlays or game captures that are causing the bans, then what is? This question is now on the minds of many players in the community.
On Reddit, user Deomicanth writes that he bought a new gaming laptop for Destiny 2. The laptop only had Windows (+ updates), the Battle.net software, and Destiny 2. His ban came five minutes after he created his first character. He received no explanation for the ban in the forum.
We are curious whether there will soon be an official explanation from Bungie regarding these issues. Did the ban hammer catch you too?
Update: There is an official statement from Bungie regarding this story:
Destiny 2 crashes or doesn’t run properly on your PC? Known issues are displayed here
