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Destiny 2 leak a hoax, dataminer apologies for subscription scare

A recent Destiny 2 leak insinuated that a giant change was coming to Bungie's free game, but now the leaker has admitted it was all a hoax and has apologised

Destiny 2 subscription rumours were a hoax, dataminer admits: a warrior in ivory and gold space armour, with bright purple lights on their helment and antlers and spikes with purple lights at the end

Video game leaks are everywhere. They’re so prevalent in fact that it can often be difficult to tell what’s a convincing lie and what’s actually true, and it looks like a recent Destiny 2 leak managed to spread like wildfire, despite the fact it was completely fake, getting the ire of many of the FPS game’s players.

Destiny 2 is a free game that offers paid expansions, so the idea of a rolling paid subscription service might not actually sound all that farfetched – the only issue is this recent rumour was a complete fabrication.

Emerging in the D2 Datamines Discord, which collects datamined data like images of weapons and event information, the idea of a Destiny 2 subscription was initially ‘discovered’ in fake Destiny 2 banner files, but was merely a fiction. The fake leak suggests that a subscription would pay for expansions and new exotic weapon missions, but after the leak spread like wildfire, the truth came out.

A now-deleted statement was posted to the Discord server by users Elliott and Bruders, who said they “trolled everyone” and wanted to “formally apologise.” The Destiny 2 subscription leak was supposed to be a joke according to the now-deleted post, with the two saying it was done “non-maliciously.”

Elliott has now deleted the original post and taken full responsibility for the fake leak and apologised on Discord, saying this will “be the last of it.”

This appears to have taken off because it was believable – after all, rival MMORPGs World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV Online both make use of a subscription-based service. While touted as a joke at the time, it was clearly presented as fact.

While frustrating, the incident hammers home one thing: you absolutely shouldn’t believe everything you read. In every corner of the web (not just games) people just make up stuff, and even those that often tell the truth or get things right can do it, so it’s better to be suspicious of something if it even has a whiff of illegitimacy.

If you want to see the initial apology, DestinyTracker managed to get a screenshot and post it to Twitter, otherwise, you can check out the D2 Datamines Discord for the new one.

While you wait for Destiny 2: Lightfall, which is set to release soon, you might want to check out some of our other Destiny 2 content and guides in the meantime. We’ve got a breakdown of the Destiny 2 Trials of Osiris for this week, and a Destiny 2 classes and subclasses guide if you’re just getting started or need a refresher.