You're still at risk when using supported third-party applications.
Ever since Destiny 2’s PC launch, many players have reported being banned for using third-party applications, or even for simply loading up the game. As a result, there’s been a great deal of confusion over the issue and what is – and isn’t – allowed.
Bungie’s attempted to bring some clarification – with mixed results.
Bungie’s published a blog post on its official site which appears to share some hard facts on its ban review process and further information on Destiny 2’s supported third-party applications. In terms of clarification though, it’s still a little confusing.
Here’s what Bungie had to say on the recent slew of PC bans.
- Destiny 2 cannot automatically ban you, only Bungie can ban a player after a manual investigation.
- Yesterday, we banned approximately 400 players on PC.
- Bans were applied to players who were using tools that pose a threat to the shared ecosystem of the game.
- We did not (and will not) issue any bans for the use of overlays or performance tools, including Discord, Xsplit, OBS, RTSS, etc.
- Information on using third-party applications can be found here.
- We are overturning 4 of the bans that were issued during the PC Beta.
Bungie makes it clear in the blog post that running third-party PC applications like Discord or XSplit will not result in a ban. Digging into the link Bungie’s provided, however, it turns out you’ve still got to be wary when using these applications as they can negatively impact Destiny 2’s performance.
Take this as an example:
““Who’s talking” and visual notification features, such as those provided by Discord or Mumble, are not compatible with Destiny 2.”
So, it seems as if Bungie haven’t been particularly clear in this regard, as problems can still arise depending on how players use these supported third-party applications.
What’s more, Bungie hasn’t provided an answer to the many PC players who claim they were in fact banned for using these third-party programmes. If it claims that using these applications will only impact game performance, then there still doesn’t seem to be a clear distinction between “negatively affect” and “ban” for those affected.
If you’re a PC player, we highly recommend you have a good read of Bungie’s third-party applications and feature compatibility guidelines. From what we can tell, Bungie’s unlikely to ban you for using supported third-party applications in the ways its described, but use them incorrectly – even inadvertently so – and you may not be able to run the game.
Taking all things into consideration, we recommend you simply avoid running any third-party applications for the time being, just to be on the safe side.
