‘Destiny’ Going Down 5 Hours On Thursday, April 7 To Prep For Update [Update]

Bungie is spinning things up behind the scenes for the Destiny April update due next week. The PlayStation and Xbox versions of the online shooter will be going offline on Thursday for an extended period of maintenance to prepare for the release of the 2.2 update.

Destiny players will not be able to log into the game starting at 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m. PT on Thursday, April 7. The game will be taken offline an hour later at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT, which will remove players from whatever activities they are doing in the game. Bungie engineers will then work on updating the game’s servers in preparation for the 2.2 update scheduled for Tuesday, April 12. This is expected to end by 4 p.m. ET/1 p.m. PT.

Update: The Bungie Help Twitter account announced that maintenance is being extended to 5 p.m. ET / 2 p.m. PT.

Update 2: Maintenance has been completed. The Destiny servers are back online.

Here are the complete maintenance notes posted to the Bungie Support website.

• Starting at 8:00 AM Pacific (3:00 PM UTC), players will not be able to log into Destiny in preparation for maintenance.
• At 9:00 AM Pacific (4:00 PM UTC), players will be removed from activities as Destiny servers will be taken offline for maintenance.
• Maintenance is expected to conclude before 1:00 PM Pacific (8:00 PM UTC).

• Bungie.net sign-in and Companion app services may be restricted during this time.
• Players signed in shortly before maintenance will receive prior notice via in-game messaging.
• Once maintenance is concluded, all services and Destiny login functionality will be restored.

This is a regular occurrence prior to the release of a major new update to Destiny. For example, it last occurred prior to the release of the Crimson Days event as well as before the big December update. You can expect the data mining sites to get extra traffic following this maintenance as fans dig for the latest gear, weapons, and items added to the game.

The Destiny April update is a sizable stopgap update to the game to provide a bridge to next DLC release in the fall. The April update is completely free and adds new PVE content to the game as well as rebalances the weapons and Crucible activities.

As previously covered by The Inquisitr, the Light level cap is being raised from 320 to 335 to provide players new opportunities to progress further in the game. An all new “Pretender to Throne” questline is being added with new story missions that conclude with an all new Strike called “The Taken Chalice.” Players will hunt down the hulking Malock to prevent him becoming the new Taken King.

Additionally, the existing Winter’s Run Strike is being given a Taken remix version that upgrades it so it can be included in the Vanguard Heroic Strike playlist and Nightfall rotation. It even includes a version of the Archon Priest boss that has been “Taken-fied” by Bungie.

The big addition, though, will be the new Prison of Elders activities. A new Level 41 matchmade encounter will be added with a recommended Light level of 260. There is also a new Challenge of Elders version with a 320 Light level that will rotate new modifiers each week. It is played in three rounds against with a fight against an existing or one of four new bosses during each round. Rewards for completing the round with certain scores includes 335 Light gear.

Bungie also revealed new armor sets and weapons coming to Destiny with the April update. There’s a new Desolate armor set that grants a Taken look to a character when the full set is equipped. There are also a new Chroma sets of armor and weapons that players can customize to be highlighted with one of four different colors.

The final preview released by Bungie today revealed gun balancing changes to Destiny along with some important changes to Crucible. Even the Warlock sub-classes received some tweaks.

[Image via Bungie]