Tis the season for game reveals and announcements to leak just before E3 gets under way, and this time around it’s more details and a release date for Destiny’s next major expansion, The Taken King. In particular, you can expect to see it on 15th September, almost exactly a year after the original game’s release.
A title that was already outed quite some time ago, Kotaku have now recieved marketing material that reveals a whole lot more about what it will entail, beyond a logo that looks reminiscent of the Hive. Turns out that the speculation was bang on, with the centrepiece to The Taken King being a new six-man raid, in which you face off against Oryx – daddy of Crota- himself. After missing one in House of Wolves, this will be a welcome addition.
However, this leak also brings with it news of each class getting a new subclass to fill that final slot in your inventory that has been mysteriously blank all this time. It follows quite logically that these will all be of the element that is currently absent for each, as Warlocks receive arc-based electrical storms, Hunters will have a void damage gravity bow and Titans, typically, get a flaming solar damage hammer. Titans love to hit things.
Finally, the sheet puts the expansion’s price at $40, and we’ll just have to hope that this doesn’t equate to £40 in the same $1:£1 exchange rate that the first two expansions used. Of course, at that price point, this ought to be a bumper sized expansion in terms of the number of story missions, strikes and PvP maps included, which does tally with previous leaks, rumours and supposition that we’ve had surrounding the game and its second year of content.
Regardless, we can definitely expect to see and hear more about Destiny: The Taken King at E3 next week.
Source: Kotaku
Avenger
“Of course, at that price point, this ought to be a bumper sized expansion in terms of the number of story missions, strikes and PvP maps included”
This made me chuckle. Why would they break the habit of a lifetime?
Stefan L
What I mean to say is that since this expansion costs double what is in the first two, there should be double the number of story missions and double the number of PvP maps.
Avenger
I’d hope they follow the path of various MMOs in making the yearly expansion big enough to make an impressionable change of the game, things like completely new ships/costumes/sub-classes being added and maybe some new types of weapons and dare I say a new ability to add the usual grenade/melee system.
I’m not sure I’d be that excited with just extra content fitting within the same framework, unless it came in overwhelming amounts. I wonder if it’ll require all the current DLC to work too, and whether they’ll do a new hard copy release.
Stefan L
Well, they are adding new sub-classes. That’s one of the things that was leaked today and has been on the cards since launch.
And House of Wolves showed that Bungie have, though still shackled by some of the things they did originally and with TDB, been able to heavily alter the framework of character progression and upgrades, so it’s much less of a chore. Prison of Elders and Trials of Osiris are also quite substantially different game modes to everything else in the game.
DLC to this point has been stand alone, so you don’t need TDB to play HOW, and a new hard copy would be something of a no-brainer.
suicidalllama
I won’t be buying it. Despite me having bought the season pass, due to the lack of matchmaking on the raids and prison of elders I haven’t been able to touch them. Unless they fix that I have no reason to carry on playing
Eldur
Matchmaking is a difficult one, especially with raids. You really do need to communicate to get anywhere. But agree that it’s dumb for Bungie to not include ANY mechanism to be social in something that is marketed as an MMO.
The fact that DestinyLFG.net had to be created by the community says a lot of good things about the community and a lot of bad ones about Bungie.
Forrest_01
POE has matchmaking though – Granted, it’s only on the 28 version, but there is matchmaking.
Trust me when I say that you definitely wouldn’t want to be playing with randoms on the higher level stuff though. That would be rage-quit inducing stuff if you ask me.
Eldur
Point taken on 34/35 PoE (and I agree absolutely for ToO), but the 32 Prison is manageable with a PUG which, crucially, is a way of finding new friends with which to enjoy content.
Things like DestinyLFG.net are essentially PUGs, with just a bit of foreplay before the main event. They are still people you don’t know, with skills that you can’t bank on. That the community has had establish that sort of functionality on it’s own indicates a fairly major oversight on Bungie’s behalf, in my opinion at least.
Eldur
Some corners of the internet will explode about the price tag, but I think it depends entirely on the quality of the update – if we get a new planet, a couple of new raids / end game content and some additional sub-classes to tool around with, alongside the expected level cap increase and shiny, shiny new gear, then I’ll happily pony up.
If it’s one new raid, no new areas and a load of the typical ‘go to this planet you’ve been to a hundred times before and shoot things that might be a slightly different colour, BUT BACKWARDS!’ story missions that we’ve had with TDB and HoW, then I will happily pony up my middle finger to Activision.
Forrest_01
Not sure how I feel about this tbh – On one hand, Destiny has been my most played game & I have had some really great times & experiences with it, but the last DLC drop has actually done nothing but drive a wedge in-between the people I was raiding with (dividing people up into secluded teams of three) & actually caused me to play it less as a result.
When people are already teamed up into their fireteams & are visibly doing a prison run (for example), I am less inclined to want to jump into their chat as it could be distracting (& what point would it serve if they are already teamed up & working on stuff?) – Whereas before, people would generally congregate in a chat & get stuff like nightfalls & raids done & it was much more of a social affair. Now, I generally feel a bit like an outcast.
Granted, this DLC/Add-on/whatever sounds like a step back in the direction of what I am used to & what I have enjoyed, but I am not sure I want to shell out the price of a game (again) for what is seemingly nothing more than a glorified expansion. Got burned by that the first time, so won’t be jumping in feet first again for this.
Also, why The Hive for a raid again?? Why not explore a raid around the Cabal for example, who occupy just one planet & have gone largely untouched since the game released??
Eldur
Feel free to add me. Shakyln on PS4. I’m in pretty much the same position…
Forrest_01
Also, it this the rumoured ‘Comet’ expansion then? That was initially rumoured to be due around that time, wasn’t it?
Forrest_01
Apologies, just noticed the tagline. Ignore me! :/