Bungie wants you to try out the Destiny 2 12-player raid glitch before it's gone

Destiny 2 Beyond Light
(Image credit: Bungie)

Update: Bungie addressed the explosively popular 12-player raid glitch in its latest blog post, and while it is planning to fix it, it's also happy to let players enjoy it for a little while longer. 

"The big buzz around the community this week has been players finding out a way to cram four fireteams in activities meant for one," community manager Cozmo writes. "We’ve been watching the 12-player raid hype and are glad you’re enjoying yourselves. We aren’t rushing out a fix for this and it’s totally fine if you want to try it out and have some fun. Just keep in mind that we didn’t create these activities expecting a clown car of Guardians to roll up, so you may experience some weirdness."  

Bungie says it's planning to fix the fireteam mashup exploit before Grandmaster Nightfall Strikes arrive on March 16, so you've got just over a week to make the most of it. It works in several activities, and it's good fun. Read on for a quick primer on how to trigger the glitch. 

Original story: 

Destiny 2 players spent the weekend cramming 12 players into traditionally six-player raids thanks to a newly-surfaced glitch. 

This glitch has technically existed for some time, and we've seen several activities cleared at over capacity before, but it only hit critical mass in the last 48 hours or so. Players found a reasonably reliable way to exceed the usual player cap, and it spread like wildfire. 

As YouTuber and Destiny exploit sleuth Cheese Forever explains, the method behind this glitch is fairly straightforward. Simply put, you have one team queue into an activity with a separate full team on standby. When the matchmaking timer for team one reaches the last possible second – and the timing on this is reportedly very tight and finicky – the leader of team two needs to join them and opt to bring their entire team with them. If you manage to thread the needle, the activity will load like normal and both teams will be combined. 

For raids, this allows two teams of six to group up and absolutely bulldoze everything in the game - it's amazing what you can do with 100% more players. The results are even more game-breaking in three-player activities like Nightfalls and dungeons, since a team of six can piggyback on the usual team of three for a 200% increase in overall strength. Let's see a Grandmaster Nightfall boss stand up to that. 

This highlight reel from YouTuber Scrub is a great showcase of what happens when you pack 12 people into a raid – in this case, the Deep Stone Crypt. Many raid banners were placed, mechanics were bypassed, and bosses were decimated. 

This was truly a glitch for the ages. Naturally, it also caught the attention of some folks at Bungie, like community manager dmg04: 

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A Destiny 2 Witch Queen delay has pushed the game's next big expansion to early 2022. 

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.