Destiny 2 patches out Xur hostage exploit - and kills a community of 1700 players in the process

For those Guardians out there tuned into Destiny 2, you’ll be aware of the This Week at Bungie news posts that offer a constant update on what’s up and coming in the popular sci-fi MMOFPS. However they don’t always bring good news, as within the May 19 issue of TWAB it was announced that Xur, the NPC that offers exotics and other valuable weaponry, is undergoing some changes that while small, have essentially killed a passionate sub-community of Destiny players.

But first, an explainer on how these players were messing with the game. Xur, the squid-faced NPC that has long been a beloved figure in the Destiny series, works on a weekly cycle. He disappears for a few days between Tuesday and Thursday, before showing up in a random spot on the weekend in one of the game’s open world maps with a fresh inventory of exotic weapons, armour, and legendary equipment for sale.

As you may imagine, he’s always worth a visit for every player! Newer Guardians can often grab a new exotic to play around with while the more hardcore, stat-focused community can occasionally grab an especially great piece once in a while. But what if Xur doesn’t have something you need? Well, enter the Xur Instances Discord community.

This community would set up shop right next to Xur as he was due to depart and not leave, keeping him in an instance and open for business when he should have peaced out for some much needed R&R. From there, players who waited next past the daily reset to them will see a fresh set of items in Xur’s inventory. The weapons you would see will be the same as what would show up normally on the weekend, but with a different stat role. This essentially doubles your chances of getting a “god roll” - an excellent piece of gear.

This practice, known colloquially in Destiny 2 circles as holding Xur hostage, is clearly not an intended feature and something that has been written on the walls for some time. Banshee - the gunsmith vendor in The Tower - used to have a similar exploit that was removed from the game some time ago. Nonetheless, the news remained saddening for Xur Instance Discord admin and established Xur hostage taker Ozberix.

“My reaction was a little bit of sadness as it's something that I have looked forward to attempting to do every week” writes Ozberix over Discord. “I am active in other servers where I post my Xur instances. [When] I shared the news with those servers, most people would reply with variations of "F" from members to fellow mods or admins. In this particular Xur server, the owner made an announcement and decided to let the server implode on each other and had a server party. I guess in summary, most of us are disheartened but we expected bungie to patch it at some point.”

“Ever since Witch Queen released we had the bug where most of the drops [stat scores] were in the total of 40's and with maintenance nearly every week the demand and availability had slowed down. A few months back as well we noticed that Banshee rolls were patched and we all figured that the time would come where this would be patched permanently.”

This sentiment was shared by the owner of the server Eyelivia, who came to the decision to start this Discord send-off party. “It's a bit sad I think, waiting at Xur every weekly reset was like a small event in it's own way, but I guess it was inevitable that Bungie stopped it.”

This party, which kicked off with an announcement in the Xur Instances Discord gave every member admin privileges. Almost immediately, the Discord lit up with pings, memes, copypasta and fond farewells. From there, members including Ozberix and Eyelivia have began posting alternative servers where those looking to maintain contact with the friends made in Xur Instances can gather. The server currently has been left in the hands of Ozberix, who is still figuring out what to do with it moving forward.

“I love this game and I love the community that has been built and I love helping people with GM's and other PvE activities every season. I would like to keep the community that has gathered up in the Xur server, and either merge or make it into another Destiny 2 server, although those are still discussions that are still being had internally as the servers future is unknown overall.”

For more Destiny 2 content, check out our guide on the Shoot to Score guide for the 2022 Guardian Games, as well as this report on the Federal Trade Commission investigating Sony's acquisition of Bungie.