14 January 2026

Destiny 2 Releases New Update for January 2026

By newsgame

Bungie releases its first big update of 2026 for Destiny 2, including a ton of fixes for various issues plaguing the game as well as more improvements to the much-maligned Portal. 2025 was a rollercoaster of a year for Destiny 2, as the game began to experience a downturn in its player base while also attempting to kickstart a new chapter in the game’s lengthy lifespan. While the Renegades seemed to breathe a bit of new life into the game with its well-received content, many continue to wonder what 2026 will hold.

Although the Star Wars-inspired Renegades expansion for Destiny 2 hasn’t had the massive impact that Bungie was likely hoping for in terms of sparking a sharp rise in players, the content as a whole has been received much better by players than the Edge of Fate expansion did. The new weapons, including the Lightsaber-esque Praxic Blade and its numerous customizable components, have been a big hit with players. Fans are hoping that Bungie can continue to build on the success of Renegades for whatever it has planned for 2026.

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For now, Bungie has released its first big update in 2026 for Destiny 2, addressing a variety of bugs and issues impacting the game. However, the update also continues to make tweaks to the Portal, a mechanic originally introduced in Edge of Fate that has proven to be one of the things that players have highly criticized since its addition. Intended to be a streamlined menu to get players into various activities quickly, the Portal has largely been seen as “soulless” compared to the previous Director menu, forcing players to add modifiers to earn specific loot and essentially continue repeating that process.

It seems the feedback has not gone unnoticed though, as the Portal has seen plenty of updates and even took a major backseat to the Lawless Frontier menu system and new Vanguard Alerts system in Destiny 2. Vanguard Alerts brought back that weekly reset feel pre-Edge of Fate, including the return of GM Nightfalls. With this January 2026 update, Bungie continued to make highly requested changes to the Portal, including increasing the activity timer for the Derealize Master Conquest activity, as many indicated that it was near impossible to finish with the current restrictions. In addition, higher difficulty Arena Ops and matchmade Fireteam Ops activities now start with more revive tokens.

The new Lawless Frontier activity added in Renegades has also been well received by players with its randomized objectives that help make it highly replayable, especially when being invaded by an enemy player. This update addressed a variety of issues with the new game mode, from potential progression blockers, soft-locks, and rare instances that could happen during invasions like players hiding in spots that were impossible for the team to locate. The Salaried Mercenary Triumph has been adjusted to be trackable per account rather than per character.

Some gear and weapons also saw some fixes in this update, including Destiny 2‘s popular Praxic Blade. It seems some players figured out how to trigger the Hyperblade perk without guarding, which has been fixed. The Warlock’s exotic chest piece, Mataiodoxia, could also chain its suspending burst indefinitely in some cases and while that would be very handy for the player, it wasn’t intended to work that way, so Bungie has fixed it. Service of Luzaku, Wish-Keeper, and the Armamentarium also had some odd bugs patched out as well, with the latter now fully working with heat-based weapons.

Destiny 2 Version 9.5.0.5 Patch Notes

Activities

Renegades

Fixed an issue where the mission Welcome to the Frontier could sometimes soft-lock when returning to the hangar under poor networking conditions.
Fixed an issue where claiming engrams from Syndicate Quartermasters generated an empty engram in the “wrapped items” section of the Inventory screen.
Fixed an issue where claiming rank up reward engrams from Syndicate Quartermasters required The Witch Queen ownership.
Fixed an issue where players logging into multiple characters of the same class in one week could progress or lose Syndicate Weekly Shipment progress.
The Salaried Mercenary Triumph is now tracked per account, not per class.
- Players must log in once on each class for previously earned progress to be counted.
Reduced the number of Guardian multikills required for the Knock ‘Em Down Triumph to five (previously 15).

Lawless Frontier

Fixed an issue where certain Smuggle encounters could be blocked from completion if relic items were accidentally dropped in inaccessible locations.
Fixed a rare issue where Smuggle runs could soft-lock at the start of exfil.
Fixed an issue in Sabotage activities where sniping or killing the initial antenna holder extremely fast would cause the encounter to not progress.
Fixed an issue in the Venus Grotto Doublecross arena where some Invaders could hide from the other team at the top of the PvP dome. They can’t hide anymore.
Fixed a rare bug where the Invasion teleporter remained open and allowed Invaders to reuse after returning to the ready room to collect rewards.
Fixed an issue where non-invader Walkers would sometimes not have correct damage reduction.
Fixed an issue where combatants could teleport inside Sabotage objectives with shields and become unreachable.
Fixed a visual issue where Forging Matrix Europa: Sabotage would display the description for a Bounty Hunt activity.

Raids and Dungeons

Equilibrium

Reduced the cooldown and increased damage for shadow power to improve its utility.
Fixed an issue where the shadow power tutorial would continually resurface on alternate characters.
Fixed an issue where the Harrow Apprentice would not pursue players and not progress the encounter.
Fixed an issue where the Harrow Apprentice’s shields could not be removed to begin a second DPS phase.
Fixed an issue where the shadow power pools visual state was incorrect.
Fixed an issue in the final encounter where some pools in the shadow realm were granting less shadow power than intended when gathered quickly after teleporting in.
Fixed an issue allowing sunspots and the Kill Shot mod to break Taken Captain immunity shields intended to require shadow power.
Fixed an issue where the third puzzle would not reset correctly after a failed completion attempt.

The Desert Perpetual

Fixed an issue where the laser attack from Koregos was not activating as intended.
Fixed an issue where players would not be granted the Death-Defiant II Triumph upon completing The Desert Perpetual Epic Raid without any fireteam member dying or returning to orbit.

Portal

Increased the activity timer in Master Conquest: Derealize.
Increased the starting number of revive tokens available in higher-difficulty Arena Ops and higher-difficulty matchmade/playlist Fireteam Ops activities.
Fixed an issue in the Heliostat Pinnacle Op where the name of the Psionic Protection buff was not displaying.
Fixed an issue where Grandmaster Vanguard Alerts were not available in Fireteam Finder.

Crucible

Fixed an issue where Crucible Ops match completions did not contribute to the B Greater weekly objective.
Fixed an issue where Trials of Osiris Lighthouse chest would not award shaders as intended.
Fixed an issue that allowed players with an active PvP restriction to still access Trials of Osiris.
Fixed an issue where lobby balancing was enabled for Trials of Osiris.
Fixed an issue where the latest Trials of Osiris Ghost shell was unobtainable for some players.

Gameplay and Investment

Exotic Armor

Titan

Armamentarium

Fixed an issue where grenade throws with this Exotic equipped were not reloading Heat frame weapons.

Warlock

Mataiodoxia

Fixed an issue where the suspending burst from Stylostixis could chain indefinitely.
- The weave settles once more…

Weapons

Exotic Weapons

Service of Luzaku

Fixed an issue causing threadling nests to lose health more quickly in some activities. Threadling nest lifetime now should not change from activity to activity.

Wish-Keeper

Fixed an issue where ensnaring lines were not generating when hitting a target directly.

Praxic Blade

Fixed an issue where players could activate the Hyperblade perk without guarding as intended.

Weapon perks

Fixed an issue where the Accelerated Assault origin trait would lose ammo on burst weapons.
Fixed an issue where the Gutshot Straight perk was doing more damage than intended to Divinity cages.

Quests and Pursuits

Fixed an issue where the Solo Ops step of the Exalting the Flame, Taming the Storm, and Into the Abyss New Light quests could not be completed on difficulties higher than Advanced.

General

Fixed an issue with the Digi-Teal shader that resulted in a different shade of cyan being applied when compared to the rest of the Aquamarine Assistant pack’s contents.
Fixed an issue in the Eververse Archive where the Oracular weapon ornament for Conditional Finality incorrectly displayed that it required players to have reached the Lighthouse.
Fixed an issue where the final cinematic in The Final Shape campaign lost some visual effects.

Released: August 28, 2017
ESRB: T For TEEN for Blood, Language, and Violence