New details have been released today on the SIVA-corrupted Fallen House of Devils and their enhanced capabilities in combat. The changes wrought by Bungie’s techno-plague are more than merely cosmetic, although the cosmetic changes are pretty drastic themselves, with the peg-leg Dregs at the forefront of those visual updates, but far from the end.
“Where you see a lot of the soft curves in the Fallen weapons, we now have a lot harsher curves,” Senior Designer Matt Findley told Game Informer.
We also learned that although SIVA itself has no agenda, it is highly aggressive in transforming those who use it. According to Findley, it’s under orders to “Defend and Protect”, giving it a militaristic bent even before the House of Devils got their four alien hands on it.
Click here to learn more about how PvE’s overhaul.
[divider]
Robot Pirates
The Dregs’ Peg-legs have a purpose it seems – they’re much faster than their unenhanced cousins. They’re also armed with a SIVA grenade that explodes in some kind of cloud. Finally, the deathseekers we’ve seen in gameplay videos are triggered by headshot kills, meaning it may sometimes be worth spending an extra bullet or two to get the kill with body shots. Boolean Gemini time, anyone?
The Dregs’ weapons are also updated. Their pistol know fires in a zig-zag – a questionable improvement at face value – that may sometimes miss when it would have hit, but sometimes hit when it would have missed. Given how often Dregs miss, maybe we should be worried about this one after all…
Cyborg Samurai
The Vandal Splicers also have some interesting new abilities. Their Shock Rifles are not the slow, seeking rounds we’re familiar with, but rapid fire machine guns meant to inspire fear. Their Wire Rifles are also getting a burstfire ability, making them a triple tap rather than a single shot. This could be good or bad, as it’s possible now for part of the shot to miss, but we’re guessing it hurts more than usual if it doesn’t.
Finally, Vandals will now have berserk “Banzai!” moments when their health gets close to zero. When this ability triggers – only when they’re near death – they regenerate rapidly and charge in as melee attackers in a final attempt to overwhelm unwary Guardians!
Suppressing Fire
Servitors will also present new challenges. While the standard version is capable of putting out a fair amount of damage, its shots are easily dodged and rarely a threat to experienced Guardians. This has been replaced by a new triple tap shot as well, designed to put them in an aggressive artillery-suppression role.
Eyes up, Guardians – it’s a brave new world out there!
[divider]
That’s all we learned in this reveal, but these aren’t the only new enemies we’ll face:
- Splicer Dregs: Skitter around on mechanical peg-legs and throw SIVA-powered grenades.
- Vandals: Gained a berserk ability, regenerating health when critically damaged and then charging into melee.
- Captains / Shock Rifles: These weapons no longer fire seeking rounds, but instead fire much faster.
- Snipers / Wire Rifles: Wire rifles have evidently gained some kind of triple tap ability. Unclear how it works.
- Servitors: The Devil Servitors have a new, SIVA-themed look that gives them an angular design.
- Perfected Walkers: The Walker tanks have been updated to fire seeking cannon shots and summon additional SIVA clusters to litter the ground.
- Splicer Machine Priest: Evidently these enemies conduct dark rituals of some type, and we’ll get missions (potentially patrol missions) to stop them. No further details – they may even overlap with an enemy type above.