I’m fairly sure everyone has their own, well-formed opinion of Destiny by now, it must’ve set a record somewhere for being the most hated game you love of all time. With the introduction of the changes made with the year 2.0 update, along with this new expansion, ‘The Taken King’, will Destiny finally reward the grind-iest of grinders, or will you still be left unsatisfied once the king is slain?
The Taken King costs quite a lot of money, this is an inescapable fact that’ll no doubt sway your decision to purchase it in some way or another, the question then being, is it worth it? For the hardcore Destiny fans that’ve been playing since the days of the almighty quest for the Gjallahorn, then yes undoubtedly so. Within The Taken King, you’ll get access to a good few hours of new story content, complete with a semi-coherent, if not slightly predictable plot, several new strikes, enemies, classes, PvP offerings and of course a new raid on top of the many other things the year 2.0 update brought. Amongst all the new content is also the ‘Dreadnaught’ a new hub to freely roam about in, collecting hidden fragments, completing quests and uncovering its many secrets, of which there are plenty I might add.
If, like many others, myself included, you loved to play Destiny but couldn’t quite get past the weekly limitations nor the raid shaped wall halting your progression, things are looking up. The looting system has been revamped in that you always feel as though you’re progressing now. Engram drop rates have been significantly increased; due to Master Rahool being significantly less stingy, you can often find better gear from the most unlikely enemies. The new levelling system means that you’ll hit the new cap (level 40) rather quickly just by completing quests and shooting a lot of aliens. The end-game tasks still rely upon your light level, but that number is now an average of all the defensive and offensive pieces of gear you have equipped, meaning that it’s easier to raise; and fortunately meaning that one piece of subpar equipment isn’t going to hinder you too much.
Without attempting the raid, the highest light level you’ll hit will be in the upper 290’s, I can manage to scrape myself up to 297 if I put on all my highest gear, but seeing as the recommended level for the raid is 290, it shouldn’t be too much of an effort to get some decent kit. The new infusion system helps with this too, as you can now dismantle higher rated gear into your favourite legendries or exotics to bring their stats up. It’s great not to be forced into using something you don’t particularly enjoy using and instead make the things you do like, better and more capable.
With The Taken King, a lot of the game feels fresher and more modern. The quest tracker will help point the way to what you next want to accomplish, the streamlining of incredibly specific upgrade items into just a few, is a welcome change, and the addition of weapon foundries (brands) gives each type a unique feel. The latter being especially important due to all the new loot that’s now been incorporated in, new gun models, firing sounds and even optical sights have been added in for more variety.
Now back in the day, I loved my Suros Regime as much as the next assault rifle dependant guardian, but it never really felt exotic, it was just a good ol’ reliable rough and tumble assault weapon. Here in The Taken King, one of my first exotic drops was the Supercell, and it’s a world apart. When you’re not tryharding your pants off, the Zhalo Supercell is probably some of the most fun I’ve ever had on destiny. A primary assault rifle featuring potentially chaining arc damage, it goes without saying that all I did for the first few hours of getting it, was run about screaming ‘unlimited power’ whenever it occurred. And this is only the start, there are weapons hidden and tucked away that feel genuinely exotic, and indeed worthy of their ‘can only equip one at a time’ limitations.
Along with the new story, strikes and raid come a new-ish enemy faction too. Called the ‘Taken’ they’re at first glance, just a simple palette swap of the games’ regular enemies such as Captains, Goblins, Centurions etc. But they all require different tactics to fight due to their different abilities, Goblins can tether to their allies, sacrificing their offensive capabilities in turn for making their new buddy immune to damage. Captains will often bum rush you whilst firing an ominously slow ball of irritation that’ll temporarily blind you if you get hit by it. Other lower tiered enemies can split themselves multiple times, some can teleport, some go invisible, and the list goes on. Fortunately, there’s also an extra subclass for each character to level up and fulfil their lacking role. Titans can now cause ranged damage with fiery hammers of death, Warlock’s get to chain lightning from their fingertips and Hunter’s get an incredibly useful bow and arrow to supress groups of enemies for their teammates.
Of course, things are rarely perfect and there are still things, both old and new that are unfortunately yet to be fixed. Despite Nathan Fillion bringing a fantastic performance out of Cayde-6 and Nolan North’s efforts with our floaty little ghost friend, the story still feels like an afterthought. This might not be such a problem for some, but with all the lore that Bungie have brought in with the Grimoire cards you earn and discover over the course of the game, you still can’t view them in-game for some reason. If there were a section on the menu where I could read up about whatever event just occurred then I would, I’m not going to open up a web browser or an app on my phone to do that, it’s just not going to happen for me, or a majority of the community for that matter.
Another fault lies with the ever thorny issue of matchmaking for the high level events. I appreciate that the raids themselves require a group of communitive people, but once again, that can often mean leaving the game to find like-minded individuals run by fan sites. Some form of area in the game where people can meet up, specifically for raids, and agree to tackle such a task could work just as well without bringing in matchmaking. At level 297, I can pretty much accomplish most of what the game can throw at me right now. On my own, I’ve managed many a foray into the Court of Oryx, I can brush past the Daily Heroic Story and I’ve completed the inordinately long quest line to get Nightfall tier rewards from the crucible. However they inevitably revolve around winning games, and regardless of what performance I play, that relies upon a good team of random people to succeed. What I’d like to see in the future, is something akin to a raid, but just for singleplayer folks. Something that can grant high tiered rewards, but don’t require you having several friends playing the same game, with the same kind of gear level at the same time, that all want to do the same thing for several hours at a time.
I enjoy Destiny, in fact I’ve always enjoyed it at its core, the superb gunplay, the never-ending hunt for more loot, the rich, deeply buried lore and the community have always been mainstays. The changes and additions made with The Taken King extend it far beyond what it once was, into a pretty complete experience. It is quite steeply priced, and for some reason, the older ‘year one’ activities don’t have upgraded loot drops on completion yet, I do so miss the Prison of Elders for example, but assuming these and some other things can be fixed and updated, the future is strong for Destiny.
