Destiny's latest expansion, Rise of Iron, rolled out recently and Bungie seems to be caught off-guard by the huge number of players.
A series of network issues caused the servers of the game to overflow, thus putting a swarm of players in what looks like a never-ending queue.
Rise of Iron is the fourth expansion of Destiny, after The Dark Below (December 2014), House of Wolves (May 2015) and The Taken King (September 2015). In the recent expansion, players will get to explore The Plaguelands, a new snow-covered region. New content for both campaign and multiplayer is in store as well.
Bungie addressed the network problem on Twitter, where the company promised it is taking care of the matter.
Destiny population is rising. We are continuing to investigate issues that may impact player ability to sign in to Destiny.
— Bungie Help (@BungieHelp) September 20, 2016
Some players are reporting that the game now shows a message stating that the servers are "temporarily at capacity." Gamers who want to hop in the online action are being placed in queues and have to wait unspecified times before joining the game.
Some players reacted in good humor to the servers' failure.
Javier Abergazo, for example, tweeted that a dangerous new raid boss in Rise of Iron is the "Sign-In Screen." Others posted ludicrous memes that depict people waiting in line for a really long time.
Meanwhile, Bungie urged gamers (who can log in to its servers) to report any issues they encounter at @BungieHelp, the official support feed for all things Destiny. There is also a forum dedicated to bugs and game errors, and unconnected players can go there to vent.
It is little surprise to see servers fail during the launch day of a game/expansion, but Twitter is on fire since the digital queues to enter Rise of Iron are amassing up to 220,000 players. Only console players from Xbox One and PlayStation 4 can play the game, which can be downloaded for $30 as a single purchase. Gamers who don't want to miss a thing can spend $60 to get the collection, which contains the recent expansion along with all previous add-ons.
The original reception of the game was lukewarm, but Bungie added enough quality content to sway the initially dissatisfied players into fans. Destiny banked north of $500 million during its first day and it counted 25 million active users at the end of last year.
Update: The latest Tweet from the BungieHelp seems to indicate that the servers are coming to terms with the huge popularity of the game.
We're seeing plenty of images from Felwinter Peak now. Player Support will continue to monitor game performance. Stay tuned to @BungieHelp. — Bungie (@Bungie) September 20, 2016
