Pre-Order Glitch for Marathon Automatically Installs Destiny 2 for Players

A glitch in Bungie’s system briefly led to players pre-ordering Marathon inadvertently downloading Destiny 2. This odd digital hiccup resulted in the sci-fi shooter sneaking onto players’ hard drives, marking one of the more bizarre installation bugs we’ve seen.

Bungie acknowledged the issue on social media, stating, “We’ve resolved an issue where Destiny 2 would begin installing after pre-ordering Marathon on Steam. We have also resolved an issue where Collector’s Edition owners would receive an error when attempting to activate their game code on Steam.”

Despite the fix, players had a blast joking about the situation, suggesting Bungie was so eager to bring new players into its loot shooter that it was installing Destiny 2 on their systems without consent. One user quipped, “Marathon used so many Destiny 2 assets that it automatically downloaded the game when people pre-ordered Marathon,” while another joked, “Marathon comes with malware.”

Though Bungie didn’t clarify the root cause, it likely relates to the pre-order bonuses. Purchasing Marathon ahead of its March 5 launch grants players free cosmetics for Destiny 2, and a bug in the files may have triggered the auto-download to ensure those rewards were registered. Regardless of the cause, the issue has been resolved. As for Destiny 2, it still has its challenges.