Bungie's Destiny, Destiny 2 downed for 'emergency maintenance'

Bungie is continuing to fight bugs which took both Destiny and Destiny 2, its sci-fi-themed multiplayer shooters, offline for four hours last night, warning that third-party data access for applications remains disabled as it seeks to resolve the final problems.

Unveiled back in 2013 as the successor to the Halo franchise, which Bungie left in Microsoft's hands when the two companies parted ways, hype was high for Destiny. Sadly, what appeared to be removed content and launch-day bugs dampened enthusiasm for the game - but not to the point where the company didn't launch a sequel which, continuing a theme, raised its own criticisms. Following Bungie's parting with publishing partner Activision two years earlier than contracted, the company has been working to build on Destiny 2 with new content and numerous improvements - right up until an update took both Destiny 2 and its predecessor offline globally last night.

'Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 are being taken offline for emergency maintenance. Please standby for updates,' the company Tweeted last last night. An hour later, it offered an update: 'Emergency maintenance for Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 is still ongoing. We apologize for the continued delay. Please stay tuned for updates on our progress.' Two hours later: 'We are making progress in restoring services to Destiny 1 and Destiny 2. Players may still experience errors upon sign-in. More updates will be shared as they become available.' An hour after that: 'Emergency maintenance on Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 is now complete. Players may encounter a sign-in queue as the population returns. Issues causing Destiny 1 players to receive BUFFALO errors on Xbox 360 are now resolved.'

Despite announcing that maintenance was complete, Bungie has yet to iron out all the bugs in the game: Earlier today the company confirmed that it had disabled access for third-party applications, often used to manage inventory, as part of the maintenance and that it had yet to re-enable said access. 'Services for third-party applications will continue to be disabled throughout the night,' the company announced at 1000 today. 'While they are unavailable, players may use the official Destiny Companion app to transfer gear. We will provide an update when one is available.'

Bungie has not yet stated exactly what caused the outage, which appeared to coincide with the release of Destiny 2 Update 2.6.0.1 last night.