Destiny’s latest downloadable content, The Taken King, is being heralded as the game’s greatest DLC yet, but most of the game-changing additions and reworkings aren’t actually locked behind the DLC. Instead, Bungie has taken the time to press these changes into the core game itself, introducing a new quest system, better gear system, and even an updated Vault, which it previously said was impossible. So what does this leave The Taken King with? Judging by hands-on time with the expansion at Bungie studio: quite a lot, actually.
Not only does The Taken King offer up eight new story missions--each featuring higher quality cutscenes than we’ve previously seen--but it also has a ton of new enemies to face down, several new strikes (seven including the PlayStation exclusives), and a brand new raid that Bungie is claims is the "best raid yet."
The Taken King begins near Saturn, where the Awoken and their Queen are busy fighting Oryx’s fleet. Using their powerful space-magics, the Awoken attack the Hive Dreadnaught, but are unable to destroy it. Oryx, being the all-powerful being that he is, activates a massive Death Star-like weapon and sends the asteroids, and Awoken ships, around the Dreadnaught flying outward, broken into several pieces.
It’s unclear what happens to the Queen and her brother at this point, but as far as the Guardians of Earth know, the Awoken have all but been wiped from the universe. This is where we come in, as Guardians it is our job to face down the biggest threats that the Darkness has to offer. Armed with all our Year One weapons, and the snarky voice of Nathan Fillion’s Cayde-6 to fill our ear, we Guardians must set off on a journey to face down Oryx, and defeat his Taken Army. That quest line is expansive enough, but it isn’t until after players finish the Taken King’s storyline, however, that things really begin to pick up steam.
Once you’ve beaten Oryx, and the Guardians have taken over the Dreadnaught, you can dig deeper into the surrounding systems put in place by the new DLC. One of the biggest things to keep an eye on is the new Court of Oryx system. Much like a more public version of Prison of Elders, you’re going to need a team to help you take on the mini-bosses spawned in the Court of Oryx. Using special runes, which can be found throughout the Dreadnaught, you can summon various tiers of enemies to face-off against in the court. These enemies are broken up into three tiers: Tier 1 can be fought with just a single three-man Fireteam, whereas Tier 2 and Tier 3 will require communication, and up to six people depending on the boss that you spawn.
Defeating Oryx also unlocks the Taken War quest line, which sees Guardians traveling throughout the various planets from the game’s original storyline. During these quests players will need to defeat the Taken Army, taking out their Lieutenants, and ridding the world of their glowing remains. Some of these take place during public events, replacing the previous two DLC’s Wolves and Blades of Crota. This is just another notch in the game’s built-in persistence system that Bungie has become so proud of.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about The Taken King, however, is the addition of the new subclasses. All three classes will finally receive a third subclass option, with the players needing to complete a set of quests in order to unlock the subclasses. The new classes have been anticipated by fans, and are one good sign of how Bungie has been listening to community feedback.
Along with these new subclasses, Bungie has introduced a new Heavy Weapon type. After completing the main story missions in The Taken King, Eris Morn will reward players with the hilt of Oryx’s sword. This will kick start a quest line, that when completed will reward players with a shiny new sword to use against their new foes.
After a year of updates and expansions, Destiny is coming into its own. Its muddy story is becoming clearer, its systems more refined, and it's making good on the promise of new content. The Taken King helps bookend the first year of Destiny, and as we head into the second year it finally creates a firm foundation to build on for the future.
This feature includes impressions based on a pre-release demo of the game at an event where transportation and accommodations were provided by Activision.
