‘Destiny: The Taken King’ Has Only One New Area, Redesigns Existing Strikes
The content of Destiny: The Taken King has been an open question since Bungie announced the first Comet expansion to the PlayStation and Xbox multiplayer game. The developer provided some extra details Thursday, though it doesn’t fully explain what to expect.
The big news with the announcement is that there is only one new area in The Taken King expansion, which costs $39.99 by itself. The Dreadnaught, Oryx’s capital ship, will serve as a new patrol destination in Destiny. We’ve seen new areas from the debut trailer including the Mars moon Phobos and Mercury, but it appear those are limited to Story missions, possibly Strikes.
This Bungie Weekly Update arrives just before two holidays – both of which feature fireworks. https://t.co/PwaWAweptR pic.twitter.com/8BLIgzncue
— Bungie (@Bungie) July 2, 2015
Interestingly, The Taken King is doing more than just adding Strikes. Bungie is also modifying the existing Strikes “Dust Palace,” “Undying Mind,” and “Cerberus Vae III.” The Taken will occupy these in some form or fashion. “Dust Palace” is the PlayStation timed-exclusive Strike that will be available for Xbox players when the expansion launches on September 15.
Here are the details for The Taken King that Bungie provided.
- New story missions and an array of sidequests that conspire to tell the story of our battle to defend our Solar System against Oryx and his Taken army
- New narrative driven by cinematic cutscenes starring an engaging cast of characters
- New Exotic Weapons, Exotic Armor, and Exotic Questlines
- The Dreadnaught, a full new destination, with unique secrets, rituals, and treasures to uncover
- A new breed of enemy combatants, The Taken, armed with new abilities and weapons
- An increased Level Cap, and new ways for your Guardian to grow more powerful
- The most substantial injection of new, unique, and redesigned weapons, armor, and talents to date
- New subclasses with all new Supers and abilities
- New cooperative Strikes with unique and dynamic new Boss battles
- Redesigned and reimagined Strikes – Dust Palace, Undying Mind, and Cerberus Vae III – are now overrun by the Taken
- New Crucible multiplayer maps with new Crucible modes, including the previously revealed Rift and Mayhem
- And, of course, last but not least, our biggest six-player Raid yet
As previously covered, The Taken are not exactly new enemies. They are Fallen, Cabal, Vex, and Hive enemies that have been kidnapped and twisted by Oryx. The base models are similar, but have been given new powers and an eerie new skin.
The new level cap appears to be 50 based on multiplayer footage from E3. Rift is Destiny‘s twist on the Capture the Flag game mode. Instead of a flag, players carry a ball of energy that needs to be “dunked” into portal at the enemy base. Meanwhile, Mayhem reduces the cooldown of super abilities dramatically.
If you haven’t seen the details on the new Guardian sub-classes that will be added to Destiny with The Taken King, please check out this article along with this article on how they will be unlocked.
What do you think of the Destiny: The Taken King content detailed by Bungie? Sound off in the comments below.
[Images via Bungie]
