It turned out the naysayers were right it was a time lock. These skeptics believed that there was no hidden secret, and that the Sleeper Simulant was simply gated behind a time-lock, related to some unreleased bit of content like the hard-mode raid, or that it required an as-yet unattainable level of reputation with the gunsmith. Even the insults require a lot of background information in Destiny. The belief that this kind of search would yield any result was a minority viewpoint among Destiny’s hardcore players many Destiny redditors referred to the Sleeper searchers as "spinfoil hats" a portmanteau referring to conspiracy theorists’ tinfoil hats and the spinmetal resource that Destiny players gather. Some dedicated players spent hours decoding the encrypted text that appears on computer monitors in the bunker.
Other players seized on the fact that Rasputin is always playing classical music and tried to unlock doors in the bunker by playing music through their microphones. This gained credibility when players noticed that a Destiny community manager had the obsolete weapon equipped on his character profile. They developed elaborate theories the flavor text for the similar-looking Year One fusion rifle Pocket Infinity said that the gun "is less a weapon than a doorway." This was most likely a reference to the "doorway" that the Pocket Infinity’s seemingly bottomless supply of ammo comes through, or used to come through before Pocket Infinity got nerfed, but players theorized that the text might mean the Pocket Infinity was the doorway to the Simulant.
They scoured the Grimoire, the Destiny lore bible that can only be accessed on Bungie’s website or through the game’s companion app, looking for passages that might contain hidden clues or double meanings.
Since the gun's design referenced Rasputin, the AI Warmind, players combed every inch of his bunker and searched the corners of every mission connected to him. Image: Bungie Destiny's Gjallarhorn is everything wonderful and terrible about the gameĪ dedicated core of Destiny players decided that the Sleeper Simulant must be hidden somewhere in the game, and began an involved, exhaustive and ultimately futile search for a secret trigger to unlock the quest leading to the gun.