Hot on the heels of putting words in Neil Druckmann's mouth and causing a meltdown among Helldivers 2 players, Sony has now leaked Destiny 2: The Final Shape days ahead of release.
Don't worry, we won't be spoiling the contents of The Final Shape here, so you've nothing to fear if you're looking forward to Destiny 2's new expansion. That being said, it's probably best to know what exactly was leaked and, as far as we know, how.
As Bungie has now confirmed, Sony's game streaming service let some users access The Final Shape early. The expansion was evidently preloaded on PlayStation servers ahead of launch, but without the proper protections in place to stop players from accessing it now. Players jumping into the new expansion thankfully didn't get access to the entire Final Shape campaign, mercifully, or the leak could be a lot worse.
A Spoiler-Free Post on how the leak happened, what was leaked, and what you need to look out for before Final Shape. from r/DestinyTheGame
Instead, players got an overview of new gear and content, which includes the Echoes Season Pass and rewards, all Collections page items, and the Eververse storefront. So it's not actual gameplay that leaked, but rather loot and other aspects of Destiny 2 that are changing with The Final Shape.
Unfortunately, this does mean that Raid items, including weapons and armor as well as mods, were viewable. It also means Exotic items, cosmetics, and item and lore descriptions were visible and leaked online. Some claim that The Final Shape's entire storyline and all missions were leaked, but that currently doesn't seem to be the case – or if those leaks are out there, they don't seem to be the result of this streaming mishap.
At the worst, some of The Final Shape's first campaign mission may have leaked here. This appears to be the furthest into the expansion that players were able to progress before Sony and/or Bungie quickly realized what was going on and got the servers taken down. It's obviously a bad leak, but at the very least, Sony was able to stop the bleeding fairly quickly. The MMO's most important expansion was only leaked for, you know, four or five hours according to most accounts.
You've got to feel for the developers at Bungie. The pinnacle expansion packing the long-awaited climax to a 10-year narrative being leaked online ahead of launch by a platform server issue is a tough blow to take. The tweet below from Bungie IT lead Alan Thomas probably sums up how a lot of Bungie developers are feeling right now.
Fucking… how?May 30, 2024
Senior Bungie marketing director Gary Clay also weighed in:
pic.twitter.com/S0k5xBBvEyMay 30, 2024
"The joke inside Bungie before every big launch or reveal was, 'can’t wait for Sony to leak this,' adds former Bungie staffer Griffin Bennett, now senior community manager on Marvel Snap. "Not a dig," he clarified. "Just laughing through the pain I feel for my former colleagues."
This has not been a great spring for PlayStation coordination. Last month, Sony enforced a PSN account linking mandate for Helldivers 2 players, which was pretty swiftly canned when players overwhelmingly spoke out in rejection of the rule. Over the last few days, Sony has deleted an entire interview with Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann after the developer pointed out on Twitter that he straight-up hadn't said entire sentences attributed to him in the interview.
Destiny 2's The Final Shape expansion launches, for real, next week on June 4 across all platforms.
Read our full Destiny 2 The Final Shape preview for our hands-on experience with the campaign's opening hours.
