Ahead of Season of the Wish, Bungie updated players about the upcoming Fireteam Finder in-game LFG (looking-for-group) system. The Fireteam Finder was delayed several times, and was originally announced alongside Destiny 2: Lightfall in 2022.
Now, the developer is opening its doors to players. A new developer insights blog post from Bungie said that it decided to "have a much more public version of our Bungie Beta." Bungie Beta, according to the developer, is a test limited to employees. However, the developer explained that if it doesn't have a public beta test, the other option would be to delay Fireteam Finder again.
On November 30 from 9 AM PST to 5 PM PST, Bungie will conduct a raid stress test, but it warns players that issues could end the test early. The beta test will begin in December, and then Fireteam Finder will fully launch sometime in late January. Bungie said it will update players about the schedule.
When the Fireteam Finder goes live in Destiny 2, players can access it from the Roster tab. Also, the Fireteam Finder node should be available on activity launch screens.
A few weeks ago, Bungie laid off many employees working on Destiny 2. Shortly after, a report from Forbes said that Bungie allegedly revealed the in-game LFG system to the Destiny 2 community before its own developers. It doesn't specify who was behind the decision or when the developer exactly started working on the Fireteam Finder, but the report also said that "LFG has been tremendously difficult from a tech perspective."
Players have had to rely on third-party sites and the Destiny 2 Companion app to find other teammates to play with. For a game that relies on fireteams and matchmaking, players have been waiting for something like the Fireteam Finder feature to appear in-game.
The blog post added that LFG on both Bungie's website and the Companion app will stay active until the developer can provide players a way to access Fireteam Finder outside of the game.
