Destiny: The Taken King E3 2015 Preview
Later this fall, Activision will release The Taken King expansion for Bungie’s hit new online, first-person shooter franchise, Destiny. Despite some hefty criticism, Destiny has been an unprecedented success for Activision and the industry. With a 10-year plan in place for the franchise, The Taken King will mark the beginning of “Year 2” for the franchise. After the events of The Dark Below, the Hive king Oryx has arrived in the solar system of the Guardians in order to get revenge. Oryx is not happy that the Guardians snuffed out Crota in The Dark Below, so he is gunning for some payback. Luckily, the Guardians will have new weapons, armor and abilities at their fingertips to strike back at Oryx and put another dent into the hierarchy of the Hive menace.
During E3 2015, Activision and Bungie had two of the new multiplayer modes for The Taken King available to play on the show floor: Mayhem and Rift. As a big fan of Destiny’s Crucible and player-vs.-player gameplay, I was really excited to get a chance to look at these new additions. Unfortunately, there were no playable Strike missions or story missions playable at the convention. I thought the story missions for the recent Destiny Expansion II: House of Wolves were a major improvement for the game. I hope the developers follow suit with this next release.
Rift is an especially fun, new Crucible mode. In Rift, a ball of sparkling, crackling energy called a Spark spawns in the middle of a Crucible map. In a team vs. team battle, one of the team members must acquire the spark and take it to the enemy team’s “Rift” or goal to insert the spark there. A player has only two minutes to get the spark into the Rift to gain the capture points. This is essentially like a Capture the Flag type gameplay mode. It is similar to Plunder gameplay in the multiplayer for the Uncharted franchise. As a big fan of Destiny Control matches, I will enjoy playing more of Rift for PvP in Destiny. A good match definitely requires teamwork and defending the Guardian who wields the spark.
The spark does make your location clear to your enemies. However, it does grant damage resistance. As a fun-loving “Titan bro,” I quite enjoyed being able to land some well-placed punches and charging shoulder tackles onto unsuspecting opponents.
There was also the new PvP mode Mayhem that was available to play on the show floor. Mayhem is a mode where Guardians can spam their super attacks. Weapons are virtually useless because the super meter fills up a lot faster, and Guardians can just go to town with their powered-up super attacks. These include the new third subclasses that Guardians will have access to for The Taken King. These matches are team based, and the super attack meter takes only about 30 seconds to fill up in this gameplay mode. This means there will be a lot more super attacks in any given match. Personally, I cannot stand Hunters and the Blade Dancer attacks, so I enjoyed having more opportunities to shut those down with a well placed Fist of Havoc.
The E3 demos also allowed players to try out all the new subclasses for the Guardians: Sunbreakers for the Titans; Stormcallers for the Warlocks; and Nightstalkers for the Hunters. I really dig the new Sunbreaker subclass since it basically turns the Titans into Marvel Comics’ Thor. You are suddenly enveloped in flames and wield a completely awesome hammer of destruction. The new subclasses will definitely be one of my most anticipated new features for The Taken King.
In terms of new weapons, nothing exciting or distinct in the weapon loadouts were available at E3. I am a big fan of utilizing fusion rifles during Crucible gameplay. There was a pretty solid Legendary class fusion rifle I frequently equipped and utilized to great effect during the demos. Unfortunately, there were no really cool Exotic class weapons to try out and experiment with during the demo sessions. The demo sessions did allow me to mess around with the upgrades and settings for the weapons, so I was able to at least tweak my loadout to a more satisfactory setting for the PvP matches.
So for the most part, the new PvP modes were definitely fun to play and experience at E3. That said, I have concerns about the future of the series based on a video that was shown. Previously, there was an understanding that Bungie was listening to fan concerns and complaints about the game’s story. There was much talk about the massive expansion that would be quite heftier than the last two expansions for the game and was rumored to pack on a lot more story. The presentation that Bungie showed to players did not really give the indication that was the case. It is disappointing because the potential for the story is there; but Bungie does not seem to be moving it forward at all. Bungie needs to provide more than the breadcrumbs that have been offered in The Dark Below and House of Wolves. Destiny really needs to explain what the Traveler is, if it has healed and if it has awoken. At launch, the end of the game indicated that destroying the Heart of Darkness would heal the Traveler. So, has that happened? What about the Stranger? Why didn’t she have time to explain that she could not explain anything? Why doesn’t the Speaker tell you anything about what is going on? So many questions, and there is no indication that those answers are coming to players. I hope I am wrong, but I am not completely sure.
Destiny: The Taken King is due out September 15 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360. A special edition, Destiny: The Taken King Collector’s Edition, will feature the original game, all three DLC expansions and some other goodies on the same date.