‘Destiny: The Taken King’ Dreadnaught Given Sneak Peek, Patrols Will No Longer Be Easy
The Dreadnaught is the centerpiece of the upcoming Destiny: The Taken King expansion for PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The massive flagship for Oryx will be the home for story missions, a Strike, and the all-new Raid. It will also host a revamped Patrol that Bungie promises will be more varied and challenging than what players have experienced since the shooter’s launch.
Bungie describes Oryx’s spaceship fortress as a series of claustrophobic tunnels that open into large areas inside the Dreadnaught.
“It was an incredibly fun challenge to find the right balance between a mysterious tomb ship and the flagship for the Taken fleet,” Senior Artist Andrew Hopps wrote in the Weekly Update. “To capture the idea of this unfathomable threat, a monstrous spaceship captained by the Taken King, yet filled with vast caverns and unknown passages.”
This Weekly Update is an invitation to gaze into unexplored territory. https://t.co/mq4UZ6xcHz pic.twitter.com/wj2nKZmLLz
— Bungie (@Bungie) July 30, 2015
The Strike featured in The Taken King is still unnamed and the vast majority of it is still unknown. However, Bungie did reveal one of the new enemies for Destiny, the Darkblade. It’s a Hive warrior that leads the Taken army inside the Dreadnaught.
The update went into greater detail on the design behind the Dreadnaught and its effect on Patrols. Creative Director Luke Smith gave the order to make the ship “an inscrutable loot-filled fortress.” That fortress is of Hive design though so there will be elements already familiar from the moon. However, there are new features such as the impressive skybox from being inside the rings of Saturn. Designer Ben Wommack also explained how the studio went about sprucing up Patrols.
“We’ve created a suite of new mechanics and woven them into the Patrol mode. Every week, every day even, it will draw you back to fight through to its depths for loot and glory. Expect to find new Bounties, Patrol Missions, and Public Events both large and small—some of which you can even instigate yourself, if you can discover how.”
Some of these new things to discover in Patrols on the Dreadnaught sound like they might be part of the new Quest system that is being implemented in Destiny.
“The Dreadnaught has its secrets—you’ll need to return again and again to solve them all and acquire the rewards we created for doing so. There are hidden treasures and bosses waiting to be found, and it won’t be apparent how to access them the first time you go exploring. We’ve laid out a lot of breadcrumb trails though, as you fight your way through the ship. So follow the clues you’re given, face the challenges you can find, and earn that sweet loot!”
He went on to explain that Public Events will be more challenging than before and they won’t always be obvious how to beat them.
“Get ready to fight bosses and encounters in surprising combinations of circumstances, and look to your fellow Guardians for help,” Wommcak said. He then closed with the warning that “Patrol is no longer easy mode.”
Patrol has turned into one of the weaker parts of Destiny in part because it has always been predictable and much lower level than player’s characters. The introduction of Blades of Crota in The Dark Below and Wolf Packs in House of Wolves spiced things up a bit, but even those became stale after the initial excitement. It will be interesting to see how Bungie can make Patrols more varied and challenging to keep players interest piqued past the initial release.
Destiny: The Taken King is set for a September 15 release.
[Images via Bungie]
