Cross-promotion between games and caffeinated beverages is nothing new, especially when Bungie is involved. Still, players weren’t happen when they found out that a quest in the lastest Destiny expansion, The Taken King, could only be unlocked with codes found on cans of Red Bull.
These specially marked cans of Red Bull went on sale starting Wednesday, and by yesterday, players had already found a way to get around the need to purchase anything in order to get their hands on a code. It turns out that the codes are fairly easy to guess, but this also means that if you do buy a can of Red Bull looking for a code, it may have already been used.
The manner of guessing these codes was revealed in a thread on gaming forum NeoGAF, and soon plenty of players were using up codes left and right. On the same forum, users have been reporting buying cans only to find that the code was invalid, so this is definitely happening, though the chances of buying a can with an invalid code are hard to guess.
Bungie has had a rough few weeks when it comes to player relations. Late last month the company’s decision to include exclusive shaders, gear, and dance emotes in the Collector’s Edition of Destiny: The Taken King angered fans who had already bought the game and other expansions.
To try to make good, Bungie announced that the extra would be available separate from the Collector’s Edition, but the $20 price tag seemed unreasonably high to gamers who had supported Destiny from the start.
When the Red Bull promotion was announced, Dying Light developer Techland took a shot at Bungie via a tweet that encouraged gamers to drink a glass of water for a free in-game docket.
Neither Bungie or Activision have commented on this exploit so far, but it’s worth mentioning again that unless you’re a big fan of Red Bull, you may want to hold off on purchasing a can to grab the code until this situation is resolved.