Destiny 2: Beyond Light has been facing persistent issues with the Trials of Osiris endgame PVP activity, leading to multiple cancellations. Some players have been exploiting Bungie’s Rejoin Fireteam mechanic in Destiny 2, causing Bungie to cancel Trials of Osiris on February 28, 2021. Trials of Osiris did not make its return to Destiny 2 until two weeks later on March 12, 2021, and was cancelled again the next day.
The Rejoin Fireteam mechanic in Destiny 2: Beyond Light, has been exploited in a way that allows players to complete a Flawless Trials Passage to gain access to the Lighthouse and its coveted rewards, without ever firing a bullet. Players were using a specific Hakke Emblem to signal to other players that they were open to win-trading and exploiting the Rejoin Fireteam feature.
Win-trading with the Hakke Emblem is complicated, as players need two characters with separate Trials Passages and the specified Hakke Emblem. One character is a throwaway character and used to take the losses. Players would load into Trials of Osiris with their losing characters in hopes of matching another team that is also using the Hakke Emblem. If players do not match another team with the Hakke Emblem, they would just jump off the map and kill themselves, occurring a loss and giving the other team a win.
Destiny 2 Trials of Osiris Win-Trading, Hakke Emblems, and More, Oh My!
If players do match up with other Guardians also wearing the Hakke Emblem, the win-trading scheme begins. The two opposing Fireteams would message each other and run a random number generator assigning each team a random number between one and ten, and the team with the higher number is declared the winner. The winning team will then change to their winning characters, one player at a time.
Changing characters this way works because of Destiny 2’s Fireteam Rejoin feature allowing a player to leave the Trials match and rejoin their fireteam in the same match on a different character. Once all the players on the winning team have swapped to their winning characters, the losing team would then jump off the map and kill themselves. This gives a win to the winning team, progressing them closer to a Flawless Passage. After the match, both teams return to orbit and start the process over again on their losing characters, repeating this process until they finish a Flawless Passage.
Using this win-trading exploit allowed many players to finish a Flawless Passage and retrieve the exclusive Flawless Trials of Osiris gear without actually playing the game mode as intended. Bungie has stated that this is a tough bug to fix but is hoping to get a patch out by March 23, unless further issues arise. With the seeming difficulty of this bug, though, it seems players may be prepared to wave it by, and with how persistent this issue has been, it would be no surprise to see Trials of Osiris not make a return until April 2021.
Bungie recently announced that it is looking to overhaul Trials of Osiris as well as Iron Banner, with a focus on matchmaking for Trials of Osiris. Depending on the severity of the current Rejoin Fireteam exploit, Trials of Osiris could have a very rough road leading up to its eventual overhaul. Bungie has also noted that it cannot disable the Fireteam Rejoin feature within Trials of Osiris without disabling the feature game-wide, affecting a much larger number of Guardians. So there's no quick fix for this issue, so those who enjoy Trials may need to wait a while longer.
Destiny 2: Beyond Light is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.