When Destiny first launched, it was a half-baked, punishing game with the barest hint of a story, delivered through crummy dialogue and repetitive missions that tasked you with shooting endless waves of enemies. One year later, everythingâs changed.
Iâve spent much of the past 24 hours powering through Destinyâs big Year Two expansion, The Taken King, which came out yesterday morning. I did the first story questâconsisting of eight meaty missionsâand then I plugged away at many of the other quests that pop up once youâve beaten the first one. I completed a few strikes, shot through some PVP matches, and spent some time exploring the Dreadnaught, a new planet-sized ship thatâs full of hidden treasures and obscure secrets. And I still feel like thereâs so much more to do. (You can expect our full review in a week or two, once Kirk and I have had way more time with the game.)
In recent Destiny stories, Iâve snarked that after a year, Bungieâs ambitious shooter-MMO hybrid is finally out of beta. Like all the best Destiny snark, that rings true. After playing Destiny 2.0, itâs almost hard to believe that Bungie once made so many horrible decisions, and itâs nice to be able to look back and laugh, knowing how much better the game has become. Remember when purple engrams would drop blue weapons? And there were only five bounty slots? Can you believe we had to re-level all our exotics? Ha ha ha.
In Destiny: The Taken King, though, everythingâs different, both in the small waysâlittle additions that make the game more player-friendlyâand the bigger-picture ideas. There are cool new enemies with insane abilities like blinding and teleportation; one, the Taken Goblin, can use an energy beam to connect to another enemy, making them invulnerable until you kill the Goblin. There are crazy new subclasses that I imagine will be overpowered for at least the next month. Thereâs all sorts of new gear that immediately renders the old stuff obsolete. (Miss you, Gjally.)
And there are mysteries, hidden all throughout both the new and old areas of Destiny, that you might not expect. This, for example:
I wonât spoil it.
All of the gameâs missionsâeven the ones from last Septemberâare now organized into quest-lines that are easy to track and finish. You can see them all in a sharp, flavorful new âquestsâ menu on your character screen. (One thing Destiny never gets enough credit for: How brilliant the UI design is all around.)
Some of these quests task you with doing some really interesting things; others lead into one another in ways that werenât really possible with vanilla Destiny. The system is flexible enough to allow Bungie to keep adding new content through the form of âquestsâ over the next few weeks, months, and years, which presumably they will do.
The Taken Kingâs first eight missions, which are delivered through one of these quest-lines, are also indicative of how much Destiny has changed over the past year. No longer do you stand in a room and shoot through waves of enemies; now there exists the type of actual variety you might have expected to see a year ago, with stealth and platforming and interactive objects that you can use to solve rudimentary puzzles. We saw this evolution start with Destinyâs first expansion, The Dark Below, and continue with the second, House of Wolves; now, after a yearâs worth of iteration, it finally feels like Destiny is living up to the lofty promises Bungie made when they first announced the game.
Problem is, thereâs not much to make fun of anymore. Even the story is interestingâyes, Destiny has a story now!âmostly because the writers have finally figured out how to deliver it. No longer must you suffer through a series of cutscenes in which insufferable people yell enigmatic things at you. Now, characters like Zavala and Eris Morn will talk to each other on the radio, playing off one another and revealing a level of personality I never thought weâd see from the gruff world of Destiny. Ghost replacement Nolan North does a fine job in the role, but Nathan Fillionâs Cayde-6 is the real star of the show; if youâve ever wanted to shoot aliens while listening to Captain Mal make fun of everyone, this is your game.
I still donât feel like Iâve gotten a handle on everything in The Taken King. Even after you beat the first main storyline, youâre hit with an almost overwhelming number of new quests and other things to do, including, for the first time in Destiny, a large new map with its own patrol missions and quests. Meet the Dreadnaught.
The Dreadnaught might be the most impressive new thing in Destiny. I say âmight beâ because I honestly have no idea. While exploring the Dreadnaught with Kirk last night, I kept finding weird secrets, including chests that I have no idea how to open. For example:
Whatâs the Key of Xol? Where can I get it? How do I activate it? I have no idea, and thatâs part of what makes The Taken King so great. Bungieâs designers have taken the unexplained mysteries of last yearâs Vault of Glass raid and infused them in every part of the Dreadnaught, and thatâs a very, very good thing. Iâm psyched to dig in more and try to figure out just what the hell is up with all of the Dreadnaughtâs hidden passages and objects.
Like, look:
Whatâre Skyburners Deployment Codes and how the hell do I get them? I HAVE NO IDEA. And donât even get me started on the Wormsinger Rune, whatever that is.
A year later, Destinyâs changed in some wonderful ways. Itâs been a very slow change, yes, and those of us who have been playing since last September will talk newcomersâ heads off about how good they have it now, but itâs all welcome.
Itâs impossible to tell what The Taken Kingâs longevity will be like. We wonât get our heads around the weekly rhythm until the raid comes out and more time passes. For now, though, itâs safe to say that as Year Two kicks off, Destiny is better than itâs ever been.
You can reach the author of this post at [email protected] or on Twitter at @jasonschreier
