Bungie admits Destiny 2's new Pathfinder system isn't working "as we expected," gives out over 3,000 Bright Dust as "a make good to get folks caught up"

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We're getting 350 Bright Dust a week for nine weeks

Destiny 2 The Final Shape
(Image credit: Bungie)

Destiny 2: The Final Shape was a great expansion that quietly made a few perplexing additions in-between mostly great ones, with the new Pathfinder reward system being one of the more confounding. Obtuse, buried in menus, and seemingly featuring objectives chosen by throwing darts at a wall of numbers, the Pathfinder could lead to wild swings in reward cadence, especially compared to previous pursuits. Bungie says Pathfinder has ended up unexpectedly stingy on Bright Dust in particular, the free currency used to purchase some Eververse shop items, so it's giving out a whole bunch of the stuff for free for the next nine weeks. 

Global community lead dmg04, a well-known community figure who left Bungie but recently returned to the studio just in time for it to suffer severe layoffs, revealed the freebie on Twitter. For nine weeks starting this week, you'll find 350 free Bright Dust in the Eververse tab of Destiny 2's in-game menu. That's a total of 3,150 Bright Dust, which is a pretty solid chunk – enough to get a few decent cosmetics. 

In a Reddit comment clarifying the news (in place of a TWID that was waylaid by the aforementioned layoffs), dmg added: 

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"Players aren't earning as much bright dust as we expected under the new Pathfinder system released with The Final Shape. We wanted to get ahead of this and issue a make good to get folks caught up as there were no intentions of reducing XP or Bright Dust earn rates. Had the comms planned for last week, but delay pushed us out. We're working on some Pathfinder feedback to help earn rates in the future, but we don't have exact details just yet on execution." 

It's encouraging to hear that Bungie is actively looking to address Pathfinder feedback and retroactively dishing out some missing Bright Dust to even the scales between effort and reward. Of course, that last line from dmg carries new meaning in the shadow of Bungie losing hundreds of developers. We don't have "exact details" on a lot of Destiny 2's future nowadays, but hopefully that'll change in the Episodes ahead.

Destiny 2 is reportedly moving away from annual expansions after The Final Shape amid declining sales, with Bungie apparently planning more Into the Light-style free updates.

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.