We're going to have a wild stab and guess that any Destiny 2 players clicking on this page have encountered the dreaded 'temporarily at capacity' message.
It's no surprise really, Bungie's enigmatic space shooter has achieved massive success in 2023 and looks to only be growing as we approach the continuation of Year 6 with Season 22. Whether you're playing Destiny 2 on PC, PlayStation [PS4/PS5], or Xbox [Series S/X] you're likely one of a number of people experiencing this issue, so let us explain what it means and how long you'll have to wait before the game starts working again.
What does Destiny 2 “temporarily at capacity” mean?
Despite what the internet may tell you, Destiny 2 is still very much a popular title. As such, when we see the release of new expansions, seasons, or even larger updates for the game it's not surprising to find that the game won't let you in because it's at capacity.
Essentially the game is experiencing a flood of players attempting to jump into the game all at once. This creates a bit of a bottleneck, as the game's servers struggle to deal with so many people jumping in all at the same time.
Think of it as like a shop opening before a big sale. There might be hundreds of people outside, but with only one small door, only so many people can enter the shop at any given time.
click to enlargeWhat is the Destiny 2 temporarily at capacity wait time?
Strictly speaking, there's no way to "fix" the 'temporarily at capacity' error because it's a problem of Bungie's own making. Well, it's not their fault the game is so popular, but they can only do so much to let players into the game as quickly as possible without breaking the servers entirely.
You'll just need to sit tight and wait it out. Chances are you'll be added to a queue and as soon as space becomes available and servers get less busy, you'll be placed into the game.
In the past, these server queues can take anything from a matter of minutes or well up to an hour to get back into the game. Not that this is an issue limited to Destiny 2, plenty more games like Call of Duty Warzone, Final Fantasy XIV, and more experience similar issues following the launch of huge updates.