Bungie finally fixes Destiny 2 Artifice armor in time for the Season of the Seraph

Destiny 2 Season 19
(Image credit: Bungie)

Just in time for the freshly revealed and launched Destiny 2 Season of the Seraph, Bungie has fixed a months-old bug affecting Artifice armor, the best gear in the game.

Update 6.3.0 rolled out alongside the new season earlier today, and right at the top of the hefty patch notes is a line that endgame Destiny 2 players have been awaiting for nearly a year: "Artifice armor pieces that previously lost their bonus artifact mod sockets have had those sockets restored and can be used to slot Season 19 artifact mods." 

Artifice armor is obtained from Master dungeons, and it comes with an extra mod slot which can (only) be used for seasonal mods acquired through the current artifact. It's a limited selection, and sometimes you don't even have spare armor energy to spend on that extra mod, but the option is always nice, and it can sometimes unlock some exclusive and powerful mod combos. 

The trouble is that the same seasonal mods Artifice armor is built for could cause it to bug out and lose that extra mod slot during seasonal transitions due to some kind of backend issue. The workaround, and the subject of many player PSAs in recent seasons, was to take all the mods out of your armor before the last day of the season. 

Way back in July, Bungie acknowledged that it had only partially fixed bugged Artifice armor and that a permanent solution would "require some additional time" because it was apparently a surprisingly complex and difficult problem to solve. By additional time, Bungie evidently meant another five months, almost to the day. Nevertheless, Artifice armor is seemingly fixed for good this time, and not a moment too soon. Destiny 2's got a new dungeon coming out this Friday, December 9, which will drop Artifice armor of its own, and nobody wanted this bug hanging over their heads yet again. If you want to learn how to beat the Destiny 2 Spire of the Watcher Dungeon, check out our guide for that too.

Another big change in today's update: all those materials you're tired of collecting have been removed from the game. 

Austin Wood

Austin freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and he's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a senior writer is just a cover up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.