Update: Bungie says everything is back up and running.
It’s Monday, which means you’re probably at work wishing you were at home playing Destiny. Well, the good news is that even if you were home, you couldn’t.
Sci-fi shooter Destiny is down for maintenance, according to developer Bungie. It started earlier this morning at around 8 a.m. Pacific time (11 a.m. Eastern), and the studio notes that it could take about 6 hours to finish. So everything should work like normal this evening. Destiny is an always-online game that relies on its Internet connection to function — Bungie’s maintenance is an effort to keep everything in order so that the servers do not go offline during peak hours.
Spread the word. Destiny will be offline for maintenance tomorrow, starting at about 8AM PDT. Downtime could last for 6 hours. Future plans!
— Bungie (@Bungie) June 21, 2015
Bungie also noted in its announcement that this maintenance was part of “future plans.” The studio is preparing to release the next major expansion, called The Taken King, on Sept. 15. This will mark Destiny’s one-year anniversary, and the new content — which costs $40 — will essentially turn the game into Destiny 1.5.
With that much new content, new players are likely going to want to try it out, and lapsed players could return. That could put a strain on the Destiny servers, and this maintenance could ensure that doesn’t pose a problem.