Destiny came with some truly high expectations. Even years before it first released, Bungie's adventure was among the most heavily hyped video games ever, enough that our community had a spirited debate about whether it managed to live up to the hype. There are those that would cite the massive scope of the game world as one of the best in games, with some truly satisfying loot hunts at the ready. Others would lament the atrocious voice acting, the sub-par endgame scenario, and the repetitive grinding that would overwhelm the rest of the experience. Regardless of who fell on what end of the spectrum, it was clear that Bungie's work was far from finished.

The first of Destiny's updates came on September 24, with patch 1.0.1.4 reducing mission difficulty for the Shrine of Oryx, Sword of Crota, and Exclusion Zone. That sounded fine, until players realized that the patch also removed the endless glimmer farming from the Shrine of Oryx. Farewell, loot farm! But on the plus side, the Vault of Glass raid was also altered so that it wouldn't end in a complete team wipe.

Next came time to address Destiny's undesirable grind. As players would often go on mission after mission and come up empty, Bungie finally looked to address the game's Engram system. With patch 1.0.2 released on October 1, Engram rarity would always indicate what kind of materials they would create. Legendary Engrams would produce Legendary or better materials, Rare Engrams would make Rare items, and so on. The game also tossed in daily and weekly heroic missions as a way to earn even more drops. The grind was starting to become more rewarding.

With Destiny having addressed a number of its early issues, Bungie started looking to the game's first expansion. The Dark Below was announced for a December 9. That left about five weeks to prepare, so there was still time to make a few more tweaks. Those changes came in the form of the 1.0.3 patch, which offered up an overhauled Iron Banner 2.0 raid. New exclusive rewards were added to the raid, but the difficulty was also amped enough that a run would require at least one Level 20 character. The raid ran until November 24, but the massive patch also included a slew of quality of life improvements, like an improved HUD, team chat, and additional Bounty slots.

There was one last set of improvements to hit before The Dark Below hit, which came in Destiny's 1.1 patch on December 1. This introduced Exotic Shards to help upgrade exotic gear, while Bungie also added general improvements to much of the game's existing exotic gear. If players didn't feel like farming materials, this update also allowed them to purchase natural materials as an alternate way to upgrade gear.

Now that it was easier to earn, farm, and craft loot, Destiny players had a new problem on their hands. There simply wasn't enough vault space to hold everything. It took until March, but Bungie finally looked into the problem with the 1.1.2 update. The number of weapons available for storage nearly doubled, with the vault storage for armor pieces and misc. items also increased. This, along with some other quality of life changes, would pave the way for the next big expansion: House of Wolves.

House of Wolves was given a May 19 release date, but there was an hour-long preview first revealed on April 22. The changes were exciting for Destiny players, with the expansion revealing all-new weapons, as well as a new Awoken ship and some new gear. Legendary and exotic weapons and armor could also go beyond their initial limits with the aid of Etheric Light. These items' level limits would be set to increase for all players, not just expansion owners. At this point, Destiny was starting to feel like a much better game than what was first released.

All of those updates have paved the way to Bungie's largest Destiny update so far. Destiny's 2.0 expansion would do more than usher in its next expansion, The Taken King. It was time to make some serious adjustments to the game's level and looting system as a whole. On August 4, Bungie revealed that players will be able to level up all the way by killing enemies and completing missions, seemingly tossing the Light system to the wayside. The RNG loot system was also changed so that players can hit a limit of certain item drops, which will make it easier to get items that have yet to appear.

Destiny's 2.0 patch officially hit on September 8 and the changes were staggering. The character level cap was upped all the way to 34, with an increased to 40 expected on September 15 with ownership of The Taken King. Character level and Light were now separated, influencing damage values across the board. Dozens of weapon changes were implemented. PvP was overhauled to reduce matches that were decided by the time limit. Quality of life improvements featured skippable cinematics and improved networking.

And perhaps the biggest change of all? Ghost would no longer be voiced by actor Peter Dinklage. His role has been recast, with Nolan North now taking the mantle. The casting change is a glaring reminder that Destiny has grown leaps and bounds over the game it was a year ago. It can still be argued whether it ultimately lived up to all of the hype, but with a dedicated development team issuing a strong year of updates, few can argue that Destiny is not a better game than it was when it first released.