Destiny 2 Exotic Weapon Disabled By Bungie Following Warmind Update

Destiny 2's new Warmind DLC and accompanying 1.2.0 update went live this week, and it apparently introduced a new way for Bungie to deal with problematic weapons. The Exotic hand cannon Rat King has been found to be bugged, and rather than deal with it as it has in the past, Bungie has outright disabled use of the weapon for the time being.

One of the key aspects of the 1.2.0 update was the revamp of Exotic weapons. A large number of the game's Exotics have been changed in some way with the overall goal of making them more distinct and satisfying to use. The Graviton Lance, for instance, was a neat idea--slain enemies would explode--but it was hard to use previously. Now, it's not only powerful and useful, it's just downright incredibly fun to use (so much so that I'm finding it hard to switch to anything else).

Rat King is another one of the many weapons that has been revamped, seeing more changes than most. The key aspect of this Exotic is that, as more members of your Fireteam have it equipped, the more powerful it becomes. Here's what update 1.2.0 changed, as detailed in Bungie's patch notes:

• Enhanced the total stat benefits of running with a pack
• Benefits are front-loaded; there are now larger damage benefits when two people equip the Exotic, with slight damage increases for each additional player
• The Rat Pack perk can now activate and stack while Rat King is stowed
• Added HUD notification text for when the Rat Pack perk is active
• Increased ammo inventory
• Added full auto

Through a process detailed on Reddit, it was possible to glitch your way into getting Rat King's buffs to apply to other weapons, even including rocket launchers. That was apparently deemed to be too much for Bungie to permit.

Although it didn't cite the exact bug, Bungie declared that it was temporarily disabling the weapon until it could address it. "Due to an issue impacting Rat King, we are temporarily disabling access to this weapon," it announced on Twitter. "Players may experience issues if they currently have the weapon equipped. Signing out and back in to Destiny 2 will resolve these issues." There's no in-game explanation of this; when trying to equip the weapon currently, players are directed to Bungie's website.

This is actually fairly unusual. After the Curse of Osiris DLC launched, another Exotic weapon, Prometheus Lens, was found to be far too powerful due to a bug. It arguably ruined Crucible for a period of time, as it could annihilate the competition. But Bungie didn't disable it, and actually went in the opposite direction--as it worked on a fix, Xur offered the weapon for sale, effectively letting everyone get their hands on one, even with Trials of Osiris about to get underway.

Bungie apparently is now able to disable a weapon outright. Whether that's the right approach is a matter of some debate. Whatever the case, there's currently no estimate for how soon players will be able to get Rat King back in their hands.