Destiny 2’s new Exotic Quest is a bug bonanza, it seems

Are you on an Exotic-earning spree in Destiny 2? If so, you’re probably pretty thrilled about the release of an exciting new Exotic mission, Encore, which lets you earn the awesome-looking Choir of One special ammo auto rifle. The bit that might dampen the excitement, though, are all the bugs.

While some of Destiny 2‘s bugs have historically even been welcomed by the community and turned into full-blooded features due to their usefulness, the problems with Encore are markedly more annoying. According to those who’ve been hard at work trying to unlock Choir of One, the new Encore mission is absolutely choc-full of problems that are virtually impossible to avoid. Examples include excessive soft-locking, random insta-death occurrences, and broken progression mechanics, which all combine to make for a particularly annoying Exotic mission.

Getting the Choir of One is a real chore in Destiny 2, due to bugs

On top of confusing and outright broken gameplay mechanics that pop up throughout Encore, players have also highlighted the presence of more invisible walls than there usually are in such missions. New Independent Variable Minotaurs are egregiously annoying to fight, too, due to their longer-range teleportation abilities.

The roster of problems with Encore is too long to list here, which illustrates just how big of a fumble this release has been so far. This puts Bungie’s previous comments in an interview with GamesRadar about it being “the biggest Exotic mission we’ve ever built” into starkly negative light, one might feel: “The ability for us to build this massive Exotic mission – literally one of the biggest – it wouldn’t have been possible in the past.”

The fact that Encore is currently such a pain to interact with a particularly notable disappointment to those who’ve stayed on top of this year’s seasonal offerings. It’s simple: Bungie may be going through a particularly problematic period of time, but the content of this year’s first Episode has been genuinely solid. Starting with a strong kick-off and wrapping up each new story beat with satisfying Act finales, fans of the game have had an opportunity to continue enjoying Destiny 2 even after its Light and Dark saga wrapped up in full with The Final Shape.

Heck, even the new Battleground missions have been a marked improvement compared to those that came before it, to the point where I’m no longer particularly worried about them potentially diluting the Vanguard Ops playlist further still.

Exotic missions are just a single step down from the heights of Raids and Dungeons, and having one of the biggest and most promising pieces of this type of content fumble due to bugs is a real shame. Bungie is yet to chime in on the matter, though the team is almost certainly already working out fixes to Encore’s many, many problems.

The silver lining, granted, is that some players claim they haven’t encountered bugs of any sort playing Encore. So, there’s a chance – however slim it may be – that you, too, will be able to play this mission the way it was meant to be enjoyed.