Urgent Discovery: Popular Destiny 2 Exotic Disappears Due to Critical Exploit

Bungie has temporarily removed the Hawkmoon exotic hand cannon from Destiny 2's PvP modes due to a game-breaking exploit. This isn't the first time Destiny 2, a live-service game, has faced such issues; the game's history is peppered with bugs and exploits. One infamous example is the "Laser Tag" incident involving the overpowered Prometheus Lens.

Despite largely positive reception for the recent "The Final Shape" expansion, new problems have emerged. A bug renders the No Hesitation auto rifle ineffective against barrier champions, seemingly due to a coding conflict with its unique healing rounds. Now, Hawkmoon has joined the list of problematic weapons.

Hawkmoon, a popular choice since its Season of the Hunt return, has become a Crucible dominant force. Bungie identified a significant exploit: players were using the Kinetic Holster leg mod to reload the weapon without losing the Paracausal Shot perk, resulting in effectively unlimited damage-boosted shots. This led to reports of one-hit kills in Crucible matches.

Bungie swiftly addressed this, disabling Hawkmoon in Crucible before the Trials of Osiris weekend. This follows another recent exploit allowing players to farm rewards while AFK in private matches. While that exploit mainly yielded common resources, rare drops were also reported. Bungie quickly disabled rewards for private matches, highlighting a disparity in response to different exploit types.