The wait for Destiny 2 is nearly over. Servers are coming online around the globe, beginning in Australia and New Zealand before working their way west. And that means millions of gamers are scrambling to figure out when they’ll be able to play Destiny 2 in their region.
Midnight releases are a bit scarce this year, but that won’t stop the Destiny community from melting the D2 login servers for the game’s first few hours of public life. The good/bad news is North America is being treated as a single region, despite straddling four different time zones. It’s good because we all get to rush the Destiny 2 servers together like that horde of zombies that attacked the Wailing Wall in World War Z. But it’s bad because login issues seem all but certain when the millions of Destiny fans spread across North America all begin hammering the login servers at the same time. On the plus side, if anybody from the west coast successfully logs in, they’ll have a few hours to play on Tuesday night. The game won’t be available until 12:01 a.m. EDT on Wednesday morning, but that’s a relatively modest 9:01 p.m. PDT. And something tells us there will be plenty of people calling in sick tomorrow anyway.
Here’s when the servers turn on across the US:
Eastern: 12:01 a.m., Wednesday, Sept. 6
Central: 11:01 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 5
Mountain: 10:01 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 5
Pacific: 9:01 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 5
PlayStation Network
Sony is still accepting Destiny 2 pre-orders on PSN. Those who’ve already purchased the game can also start pre-loading now, and we’d recommend it if you haven’t started already. We started our own downloads this morning and are now crossing our fingers in hopes that Destiny 2 will be ready to play by the time the servers open up this evening. Those who pre-order the game from Sony will also receive a free Destiny 2 dynamic theme for the PS4 home screen. Customers also receive the Digital Pre-Order Pack, a small D2 add-on featuring a new Salute emote, the Coldheart exotic trace rifle and a unique Ghost skin.
Xbox Live
Pre-orders are also still available on Xbox Live. Anyone who buys their copy of Destiny 2 from Microsoft’s platform will also receive the Digital Pre-Order Pack but there doesn’t appear to be any equivalent for the dynamic theme. The game will unlock at the same time on both platforms but it’s entirely possible that Xbox players might have an easier time accessing the game, since PS4 is the preferred platform for most in the Destiny community.
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Destiny 2 is in development for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. The game heads to consoles on Sept. 6 before making the jump to PC in October.
Be sure to check back with Player.One and follow Scott on Twitter for more Destiny 2 news in 2017 and however long Bungie supports Destiny 2 in the years ahead.
