Bungie loves to keep Destiny players guessing. The pre-Rise of Iron patch included plenty of secret details and even items that weren't present in Bungie's official patch notes, and now it seems a mysterious virus is infecting Destiny players ahead of the game's new expansion.
Certain players are finding themselves "infected" with one of five buffs: Brilliance 3.2, Glory 2.1, Splendor 2.6, Magnificence 2.0 or Fortitude 3.1. It's currently unclear exactly what the differences between the various infections are, but infected players appear to have gained an XP boost and boosts to reputation gains. Infected players can be spotted via the cloud of glowing "techmites" swarming around an infected player's head.
If you want to become infected yourself (according to Destiny redditors), you'll simply need to load up Crucible and collect orbs from an infected teammate. Then you'll need to kill an enemy. The infection is character-specific and not account-wide. Some players are reporting they've gained multiple buffs, while others say they are only able to have one. There doesn't appear to be a PvE way to gain the infection (at least that players have discovered as of yet).
So how did the infection begin in the first place? According to the Destiny subreddit, Bungie "seeded" various Destiny streamers with the infection, which then began to spread to other players. The spread of the infection has also unlocked chat logs via the Owl Sector website, a site by Bungie. The chat logs comment on the spread of the infection and what to do about it, and feature prominent Destiny characters like Cayde-6 and Ikora-Rey.
Judging from some of the chat logs, the story explanation for the infection is that it may have originated near the Dust Palace on Mars. Perhaps players should start exploring the area?
It appears all of this is building toward some kind of event. After all, Rise of Iron does release in a matter of days, and it does unlock a new area on Earth called the Plaguelands. No doubt Rise of Iron and these mysterious infections are somehow connected to one another, but fans will have to wait to learn more about exactly what it all means.
Destiny's Rise of Iron expansion arrives on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on Sept. 20. You can read more about some of the the game's pre-Rise of Iron changes here.
