Bungie bans players with modified consoles from Destiny

By Will Fulton December 15, 2014

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Bungie is banning the Destiny accounts of players who have logged in to the online shooter with modified consoles, according to a recent news update from the studio. “The BanHammer has been a-swingin’,” says the post, and shut out Guardians apparently have little recourse, because “Ninja Justice is always swift and final.”

The developer does not explicitly link the modded consoles to cheating, but it is implied through correlation between recently banned players and those that “had logged into Destiny on a modified console at some point.” A cursory YouTube search for “Destiny God Mode,” for instance, brings back a number of videos demonstrating cheats, such as unlimited ammo and super jumping, that rely on using a modified PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360.

Cheating of this nature appears to be limited to the previous generation of consoles and not the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, at least for the time being. Hackers have already had years to develop practices for breaking into and modifying the older consoles’ firmware, while the newer hardware is still resilient to their incursions at this early point in the console life cycle.

“We routinely review Banhammer actions to ensure that they are applied accurately and fairly,” the developer elaborated. The post ends with a cheeky sign-off: “Play nice! And use the boxes that your favorite retailer ‘gave’ you.”

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Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

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