Destiny 2 fans slam Iron Banner Rift mode: “It’s not fun to play”

January 06, 2023

It’s Iron Banner time for Destiny 2 players as the limited-time mode is back, with the returning Rift game mode at the heart of it. Still, the changes haven’t gone down well with fans.

Outside of traditional Destiny activities such as Raids, Nightfalls, Trials of Osiris, etc, Iron Banner is something that players eagerly look forward to. Coming around every once in a while, Iron Banner presents its player base with a special Crucible game mode to compete in and earn special rewards.

It shakes up the Destiny 2 community and keeps players fully engaged throughout the course of its week-long stay, and Bungie made the hotly debated decision to only have Iron Banner events twice per season, starting in Season of the Haunted.

The biggest issue, though, is that fans are not impressed with the new focus on Rift as the seasonal mode for Iron Banner this time around.

Safe to say that the return of Rift wasn’t what players had hoped for.

Destiny 2 Rift mode is “a complete joke” in Iron Banner

Rift debuted back during Destiny 1 and was a fast-paced, action-packed scramble between two teams to claim a Spark in the middle of the map and escort it to the enemy team’s base. Once there, a player must use the Spark to destroy the opposition’s Rift to claim victory.

It was well-liked and makes it even more curious as to why we haven’t seen Rift feature much since. This all changed with Season of the Haunted though as the season’s first Iron Banner event has brought it back, but with some disliked differences.

Reddit user ImNotGhost013 shot down the return of Rift saying: “Rift in this week’s Iron Banner is inherently not fun to play, and it’s astonishing this game mode went live.”

They continued: “Hold interact in the middle of the map while everyone else is fighting? Check. Unnecessary loading screen that constantly interrupts the flow of the game? Check. Bugs that cause the rift to not spawn and make the game impossible to win from behind? Check. Seriously I genuinely cannot wrap my head around why rift was changed so much. Nobody asked for this game mode to switch and I cannot fathom why we changed the fast-paced blowout game mode from D1 into a slow, round-based tactile game mode.”

The OP certainly wasn’t alone in their thoughts either. One comment with nearly 1.5K upvotes said: “There is another fun thing. If enemies are on your base, and you die, you’ll respawn in the enemy base. Meanwhile, the spark might be two meters away from your rift, and you won’t be able to do anything when you respawn on the other side of the map.”

The mode has garnered criticism regarding a lack of rewards, too, with one disgruntled player saying: “Just played two matches and got no rank points.”

Bungie also changed how Power Levels work in the revamped Iron Banner, meaning previously “sunset” weapons are viable again and fans have noted that the meta feels like a trip back in time, while others noted that despite promises of Iron Banner being more of a spectacle, all that really changed when first loading in is Lord Saladin’s position in the tower.

There are still a few days left of the current Iron Banner period and it’s unlikely Bungie will make any serious changes. Instead, players can only hope that the next Iron Banner will run a little more smoothly.

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