Destiny 2 players held Xur hostage for two days to snag god-tier weapons
Destiny 2 players know the drill. Every Friday, like clockwork, Xûr will show up somewhere in the solar system with rare goods to sell. Every Tuesday, he leaves. Except, some players have figured out ways to get the vendor to stick around a little longer—and last week, they were determined not to let him leave at all.
It's hard to tell exactly who started it, though Shacknews cites a Redditor named Hatenotechlab who stayed with Xur through server reset (preserving the instance, and so ensuring the vendor didn't disappear as normal) to find he was now selling a particularly spicy weapon.
See, about a month ago, Xur started selling legendaries alongside his usual exotics. Legendaries roll with random perks, and finding the best perks can be an absolute crapshoot if you're trying to acquire them via drops. When you suddenly have this vendor straight-up selling guns with great rolls, keeping him around as long as possible becomes top priority.
Guardians were determined to keep that Hand Cannon up for grabs as long as possible, and went to great lengths to do so. Redditor klip_twings explained how he spent 15 hours over two days keeping the instance active. Over the course of the week, hundreds of other players cycled in and out of his fireteam to access the vendor.
In total, they reckon over 350 players in total acquired a "godroll" True Prophecy in their fireteam, but Klip ended up putting together a bunch of fun statistics as Xur's captor. 200 people crouch spammed to say thanks. 10 asked if Xur's other weapons were any good. Klip destroyed over 250 sparrows to keep the instance from crashing after an early close call, and consumed over 300 milligrams of ("completely legal") medical marijuana throughout.
Sadly, it wasn't to last. At one point True Prophecy's perks rotated out—and while many players reckoned Bungie may have interfered deliberately, the timing coincided with another vendor's items rolling over, suggesting item rotations are linked. On Thursday morning, Klip notes that he woke up to find nobody was keeping Xur around—and by the time server maintenance booted everyone out later in the day, the dream was firmly over.
As a community-driven response to Destiny's loot economy, the entire event is a fascinating throwback to the first game's loot caves. Players will always be attempting to find shortcuts to the best gear, whether that's camping outside a pile of rocks or kidnapping extra-terrestrial shopkeepers.