Destiny 2 players are using Flashpoints to get Forsaken loot ahead of the September 4 release

From loot caves to bosses that can be tricked into falling to their deaths, Destiny players always find the most clever workarounds to Bungie's designs. And now, we can add "getting armor and weapons from an upcoming expansion a week early" to the list, because Destiny 2 players have discovered how to obtain Legendary quality gear from Forsaken ahead of its September 4 release date - pretty easily, too.

How to get Destiny 2 Forsaken gear early

All you need to do is complete a Flashpoint (basically, a series of challenges that changes on a weekly basis, unlocked after you complete the main campaign) and... that's it. As of this writing the Flashpoint giving out Forsaken gear is on Mars, handed out by Ana Bray. The gear you'll receive is random, but does scale to your Light Level. This means that if you're already at max Light, you might get a piece of gear you can't technically use until Forsaken launches and boost your cap.

But judging by this Reddit thread, plenty of players are getting to taste Forsaken fruit. When it comes to armor, the drops seem to be of the "Scatterhorn" theme, ie. Scatterhorn Robe, Scatterhorn Wraps, Scatterhorn Stride, etc. It's hard to tell what exactly that means since we don't know the full details of Forsaken's story, but there's clearly a Fallen visual theme going on, which I am all for. Traits are random as well, but players have picked up on a few new ones. The new SMG Trackless Wastes, for example, has the perk Slideways: "Sliding partially reloads this weapon's magazine and temporarily boosts handling and stability". 

Some players have hypothesized that this is intentional on Bungie's part as a way to generate hype for the upcoming DLC, but I'm going to go ahead and say that's probably not the case. Some armors have visual glitches that cause parts of your avatar's torso to become invisible...

While others have a default shader literally labeled "TEMP".

Plus, over on Twitter, Bungie straight up says this is happening "earlier than intended" and that it's investigating the issue. To which players have more or less responded, 'What issue? It's probably fine, don't even worry about it!'

If you want to get in while the getting's good, you'd better hurry; the Destiny 2 Year 2 update is a massive 35GB, and drastically changes many of the game's systems, including how your loadout works.