Bungie releases a new update for Destiny 2, making key adjustments to the core game, removing the Unstable Cores resource, while further improving the much maligned Portal. There's no denying that Destiny 2 is in a tough spot, with player counts dropping and player frustration seemingly at an all-time high.
Still, no matter how bad things get with Destiny 2, Bungie continues to plug away at making improvements. The studio continues to take player feedback and the last few updates have seemingly been in response to certain pain points or frustrations from the community. The Portal continues to be in the spotlight, and while it's still a massive part of the Edge of Fate version of Destiny 2, Bungie is trying a few new things with it in this latest update.
Destiny 2 Player With Over 2,000 Hours Gets Refund from Steam
A Destiny 2 player that's racked up over 2,000 hours in the game gets a refund from Steam despite it usually limiting refunds to two hours maximum.
Following in the footsteps of the previous Destiny 2 update, Bungie has made additional changes to the Portal in an effort to improve the overall experience. The patch notes reveal that Bungie has removed a number of challenge modifiers from matchmaking through the Portal, reducing some of the randomness that can happen. In fact, many of the modifiers that have been removed were some of the least popular ones, like Match Game, Antisurge, Volatile Shields, and more.
Not only that, Bungie has made good on its promise to remove Unstable Cores from Destiny 2, a new resource added inside of the Edge of Fate expansion intended to be used to infuse gear beyond power level 200. Ultimately, the mechanic proved to be more frustrating than fun for players, ultimately being replaced by Glimmer and Enhancement Cores for infusing gear.
The update also gives players a small refund on Bright Dust for those who ultimately purchased armor ornaments during the first week of Ash & Iron, due to prices being higher than intended. Finally, the update also made a few tweaks, including a big buff to the Hunter Gunslinger's On Your Mark aspect, fixing the Warlock's Vortex grenade, which was previously pushing enemies rather than pulling them, and making the Stronghold exotic work with Ergo Sum.
The update also launched alongside Destiny 2's annual Festival of the Lost, a Halloween-inspired event that makes a few key changes to the 2025 version. Haunted Lost Sectors have finally been replaced by a new 6-player activity called Haunted Altars, which takes inspiration from the Moon's Altars of Sorrows activity. Crucible fans can also take part in the Red Rum(ble) mode, and there are new weapons and cosmetics to earn as well.
Destiny 2 Update 9.1.5.2 Patch Notes
Power and Progression
Infusion Costs
-
Unstable Cores have been deprecated as the currency used for Infusion. They have been replaced with a flat cost of one Enhancement Core and 5,000 Glimmer across all Power levels.
- Additionally, Unstable Cores will no longer be granted when dismantling gear.
Exotic Armor
Stronghold
- Fixed an issue where Stronghold wasn't providing Ergo Sum with infinite guard and max Guard Resistance.
Weapons
Weapon perks
- Fixed an issue where enhanced Controlled Burst wasn't gaining improved duration over the base perk.
Abilities
Titan
Prismatic
-
Shiver Strike Melee
- Prismatic Shiver Strike now refunds 80% when not hitting a target in PvE and 40% in PvP as intended.
Hunter
Solar
-
On Your Mark Aspect
- Removed cooldown on building On Your Mark stacks in PvE.
- Precision Hand Cannon hits now grant two stacks of On Your Mark.
- Precision hits and final blows at ten stacks now refresh On Your Mark.
Warlock
Void
-
Vortex Grenades
- Fixed an issue where Vortex Grenade was pushing some larger enemy types instead of pulling them.
Activities
Portal
-
Removed challenge modifiers from matchmaking.
- Elemental Hungers
- Volatile Shields
- Match Game
- Lightning Crystals
- Cosmic Super Conductors
- Ashes to Ashes
- Slow and Small
- Energy Drain
- Haste
- Antisurge
- The Heliostat Pinnacle Op now properly shows that Barrier Champions will be in the activity at higher difficulties.
- Fixed an issue where breaking Vex crystals in the Heliostat mission would not grant Wolfsbane intrinsics to all players in the fireteam.
- Fixed an issue where some Dungeon Lairs may have multiple options for limited revive token skulls.
- Fixed an issue where loot from the Contest of Elders Pinnacle Op would go directly to the Postmaster.
The Desert Perpetual
- Updated the Network Technician Triumph to accurately reflect the completed state of the Atlas & Almanac quest.
- In The Desert Perpetual base and epic versions of Agraios, prevented timing cases where alignment could cause multiple bosses to target the fireteam with Variable Elimination.
General
- A refund of 300 or 600 Bright Dust is now available on Special Deliveries for players who overpaid when acquiring one or two pieces of Bright Dust armor ornaments, respectively, during Week 1 of Ash & Iron. Players who purchased three or more ornaments will also receive an additional, separate refund directly to their Bright Dust balance for the remaining Bright Dust owed.
- Fixed an issue where the new competitive emblem for reaching Ascendant III was not visible in Collections.
- Fixed an issue where the Featherfine shader was using the same visuals as the Iron Valus shader.
- The Rewards Pass ship's name has now been updated for all supported languages.
WHERE TO PLAY
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Engine
- Tiger Engine
- Franchise
- Destiny
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PC
