Bungie whacked Destinys infamous loot cave because you asked them to do it

Bungie knew about Destiny’s loot cave before launch. It knew it was ripe for exploitation too, but Bungie didn’t care. However, other disgruntled, more honest Guardians did care. They cared enough about this ‘cheat’ that their venomous complaints put an end to the glitchy hovel.

Bungie’s John Hopson explained the somewhat surprising reason to Kotaku at GDC ‘15. Hopson says "The time of the loot cave was the highest peak of players reporting each other for cheating". He adds that the angry complaints lead to the glitch’s demise as he regales stories about players standing deep in the cave to prevent further enemies from respawning.

For the uninitiated, the exploit was found on Destiny’s Cosmodrome. It allowed Guardians to farm hundreds of Engrams from an infinite amount of respawning enemies by lazily standing about and blasting into the darkness.

As Hopson continues, it seems Bungie may have nixed the cave to to save you from yourself. No, really.

"They were very weak enemies that didn't drop very good loot" Hopson explains. "The actual drop rate per minute spent is not any different than anything else. So you actually will get less loot [shooting into the loot cave] per hour than you would just playing the game. But the players weren't doing the math that way".

It seems that Bungie will only close off known exploits if you complain enough about them. But when one gets blasted, another one always pops up. Just check out this recent thrall farming glitch that’s been discovered below. We’ll be honest, we’d rather just play the missions or go on Patrol than use this tedious method though.

Nathan Irvine
Hi, I’m Nathan. You may remember me from such websites as, erm, this one circa 2011. Been hustling in games for over a decade and write for Official PlayStation, Official Xbox, Gamesmaster and more.