Bungie’s first ‘April Update’ reveal stream, with nearly 100k in attendance, showed off the updated Prison of Elders and let us know about some other PvE updates to come on April 12th.
The focus for the April update is on the Reef and what’s going on there after the devastation. While they’re beaten, they’re not down for the count, and Variks will be guiding you through the update. Although Oryx is dead, the Taken are still as strong as ever, and Variks is tasking you to stop them from resurging. The new story is intended to provide a small continuation of the Taken King storyline, and dovetail into our new Strike and Prison of Elders content.
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335 Light
- “Difficulty and Rewards have both been increased in Prison of Elders, Court of Oryx, Heroic Strikes, Nightfall Strikes, and in the King’s Fall Raid, as well as Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris.”
- King’s Fall Normal drops increased to light level 320. Hard drops increased to 330.
- Court of Oryx Artifact Drops increased to light level 335.
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Prison of Elders
“Claim an Elders’ Sigil from Variks each week in The Reef, and put your Fireteam to the test against three consecutive boss waves. The bosses and the gameplay modifiers change each week, for a total of sixteen unique encounters. Your score is tracked on the Elders’ Sigil, and on Bungie.net Leaderboards.”
- The Level 41 mode will have 50% chance of including Taken bosses.
- Level 42 Challenge mode allows you to earn a guaranteed weapon with 30k points and guaranteed armor piece at 90k points.
- Challenge PoE is a timed activity; you lose points if you take too long.
- No keys required for loot!
- If you wipe in Challenge mode your points will reset to the amount you had before the round started.
- You can complete regular bounties in PoE, and Engrams can drop from enemies.
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Blighted Chalice
With Oryx dead, a new threat will be emerging from the Taken ranks. Malok, which Bungie insisted on stream is pronounced “Muh-lock”, appears to be the main protagonist in the new strike coming in the April update.
Malok will have several abilities, which we have seen before, but he will be using them against us in new and unique ways.
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Quests
Bungie showed off a few new quest lines during the live stream. The first, At the Gates, is centered around helping Variks fight the now leader-less Taken that have scattered across the solar system. According to the in-game description seen on the stream, we will be hunting a Taken boss who is looking to seize power for himself. The quest begins with a mission named Pretender to the Throne, which takes place on the Dreadnaught.
The Second quest we see is titled Return to the Prison and will involve fighting in the newly updated Prison of Elders.
There was an additional PlayStation exclusive quest offered by Petra. This quest involves gathering what is called “Essence of Darkness” for Court of Oryx champions, and stipulates that the more challenging Champions contain more Essence.
The description for this task reads, “The Reef’s spies are reporting a resurgence of Taken activity in the Court of Oryx, and they say they’ve recovered some very powerful technology from these Taken. I want to stop the Taken before they can repopulate the Dreadnaught. Up for a little destruction?”
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Gun Shaders?
In addition to Ships and Sparrows, we’ll be getting some cool new cosmetic options for our weapons. While they are holding some information close to the vest, there have been several new cosmetic items featured in screenshots that can be seen below.
At the end of this GameInformer interview, it was revealed that “new vanity options” will be available for armor as well.
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Taken Winter’s Run
The Archon Priest is back, but even he could not escape the Taken’s grasp. The Priest will be returning in an updated version of the Winter’s Run strike, complete with taken enemies, and a battleground that has been redesigned by the Live Team.
For those who have played Winter’s Run before and think they know the Archon Priest’s game plan, Bungie confirmed on their live stream the he won’t just wearing a Taken costume. He’ll have a host of new abilities for challengers to face.
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King’s Fall
In an interview with GameInformer, Ryan P. shared that “both current difficulties will be adjusted to provide additional challenge and commensurate rewards. The Challenge Modes will still be available, but we aren’t adding a third difficulty tier, or any new encounters.”