How ‘Destiny’ Will Handle Factions, Shaders, And Items With ‘The Taken King’ To Free Up Vault Space

Managing an inventory loaded with weapons, gear, items, and shaders is a constant struggle for Destiny players, especially with a limited amount of Vault space available. While Bungie hasn’t yet revealed how The Taken King and the 2.0 update will add additional space, they have revealed a number of ways that existing space will be freed up.

The first way that Bungie plans to free up inventory space is through the simplification of upgrade materials. As the September issue of Game Informer reveals, the three class specific armor upgrade materials like Plasteel Plating have now been combined into a singular Armor Materials item. This also benefits leveling up armor, as players won’t have to worry about not having enough Sapphire Wire for their Hunter because they spend more time with their Warlock.

Meanwhile, shaders and emblems are being completely removed as an inventory item. They are now selected and equipped from a kiosk in the Tower. The kiosk shows every shader and emblem acquired by the player’s account along with the ones that haven’t been obtained yet with hints on how to get them.

Moving to this kiosk system for emblems and shaders frees up 18 inventory slots for each of the three characters that Destiny players can have on a single account. We don’t know exactly how Bungie will use that freed up space yet, but Community Manager David “Deej” Dague did point to the change in how players declare their allegiance to the game’s factions in an interview with IGN.

“You walk up to the Dead Orbit leader and you can declare an allegiance to Dead Orbit,” Dague gave as an example. “That unlocks a series of Dead Orbit specific bounties that lead to Dead Orbit specific rewards. So instead of unlocking reputation upgrade after reputation upgrade you can do very specific things to obtain rewards that you can look forward to. It takes a lot of the mystery out of Destiny‘s progression system, it takes a lot of guessing out of what am I going to get next.”

Class items will now no longer be used as mere indicators of which faction a character currently belongs to. They will be treated the same as other pieces of armor that come with ratings that give a boost to overall power and ability.

Bungie is throwing in another smart change that doesn’t necessarily affect inventory space, but has been a common complaint from fans since Destiny first launched. The Vanguard and Crucible Marks are being consolidated into a single currency. That effectively removes the question of, “Why do I have to play Crucible just to buy gear from Dead Orbit, New Monarchy, and Future War Cult?”

This is just one of several changes coming to Destiny with the 2.0 update and The Taken King expansion. Weapons are being nerfed and buffed, Weapon Foundries are being added, the current leveling system is being replaced along with Peter Dinklage as the voice of Ghost, and the story structure is being redone among others. Just don’t go dismantling your existing weapons and armor yet because they won’t ascend to the new power levels in the upcoming expansion.

[Images via Bungie]