Published on: Jun 16, 2015 @ 14:11
Destiny’s new, full-length trailer for The Taken King has arrived, and it’s very clear that yesterday’s teaser was only scratching the surface. In this video, Bungie’s own design team outline what we can expect when The Taken King finally drops.
We’ll take you through everything we noticed and what our early take is on what this DLC is going to bring to the table. As always, know that we’re editing and updating as soon as we can, so hang tight if there’s something you saw that hasn’t been mentioned!
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Starting Off
The Taken King begins with your guardian being tasked to investigate a distress signal on Phobos, one of the moons of Mars. Apparently, the Vanguard is concerned that the Cabal are acting as an invading force, moving aggressively to further their own goals. However, you quickly discover upon your discovery of the distress signal that it’s the Cabal themselves who are under attack.
Their adversaries? A new type of enemy, the “Taken”, and their master, Oryx himself. He’s out for blood, indicating in a VO(!) that he knows it was you who killed his son. Suddenly, your goal is no longer to stop the Cabal, but to fend off the aggressive and terrifying Taken in order to report the danger to the Vanguard.
Bungie’s team stops to inform us what they had in mind when they were designing the Taken. Apparently, the Taken are grotesque permutations of your other foes who have been “ripped out of our dimension”, infused with Oryx’s malice and will, and shoved unceremoniously back in. They are being consumed and controlled from the inside with a malevolent green flame, and Bungie expresses how they wanted to communicate a tortured feel in their movements and behavior. They will apparently be much more difficult and “alien” than the current lineup, and Oryx’s ability to ignore inter-dimensional laws will mean that they can port in at any moment to give what have been otherwise simple encounters a sense of urgency and real threat.
The reason for this is that Bungie wanted to make sure that Oryx’s presence was a pervading force as you play through the expansion. As one of them succinctly put it, the end goal is to “wear his ass like a hat”, and fighting his forces constantly will certainly provide incentive.
And where will we accomplish this ultimate goal? Oryx’s very own dreadnaught; a massive “castle in the sky”. The likely location for the Raid, we will explore it while systematically conquering its mazes, puzzles, and defenses. Bungie describes it as a “giant mausoleum”, complete with ritualistic ceremonies, summoning pits, and – of course – a healthy amount of loot to be had.
But in order to do this, our Guardians are going to need to power up. Weaving the expansion of the classes into the lore, Bungie will make re-discovering some of the “lost arts” part of the story. After being outmatched and outgunned on Phobos, it’ll be clear that getting in touch with our arcane roots is going to be necessary to have all the tools to beat Oryx once and for all. And Bungie promises that our Guardians will be “more powerful than ever before”.
Class Roles
The Nightstalker was designed as a “support class” that the Hunter previously lacked, using the two-shot Gravity Bow to tether enemies to one another, and hold them in place so they can be dropped by anyone with a steady aim. This element of Crowd Control has been sorely lacking in Destiny, so we think this represents a great move forward in terms of strategy.
The Stormcaller is the Warlock’s answer to Bladedancer. After an activation animation, the Warlock using it will be able to hover quickly across the battlefield, summoning Arc energy and issuing it forth from his fingertips. Footage showed that there will be a timed duration that this ability can be used, and it would stand to reason expending Arc energy would consume more time off the meter, much like Bladedancer.
The Sunbreaker grants the Titan an unbelievably cool flaming hammer, that can be thrown or used as a melee, which expands on our theory from the teaser trailer. It also has a timer, like Golden Gun, and throwing the hammer or slamming the ground immediately consumes about half of it, suggesting that you a Titan can make two such assaults before the time is up.
Expanding Crucible
Shifting to PvP, we were teased with two new game modes that look to be an absolute blast. The first is Mayhem, a Crucible event in which cooldowns for all abilities (including Supers) are boosted to insane levels. Brief footage showed a complete mess of supers and grenades, and Guardians who are ready to embrace the chaos will no doubt find this a refreshing change of pace. Of course, with the cramped maps we currently have, and the tenuous Super power balance, it’ll be interesting to see if one class excels unnecessarily well.
The second mode was Rift, stylized as “Destiny’s answer to Capture the Flag”. It appears Bungie is heading back to their Halo roots, as Guardians must grab the “spark” and team up to “dunk” it into the enemy team’s Rift. These dunks looked like a stylish way to stick it to your opponents, and one developer even mentioned that a “backflip” dunk granted extra style points, which may factor into the overall tally of who wins and who loses. Halo was full of quirky, personality-filled game modes like this, and if Destiny even gets one or two similar additions, PvP will benefit greatly.
We also saw a brief glimpse of characters who were over level 40! It’s assumed that new the maximum Light level will be 40+.
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Bigger & Better
Bungie concluded with a summation of their aim for Taken King, which easily looks to be the biggest thing to hit Destiny yet. They’ve been listening to our feedback on Reddit and the Forums, designing new Strikes, Patrol missions, Bounties, Public Events, keeping in mind what has worked and what hasn’t, and they’re confident that The Taken King will deliver a product that they can be proud of.
Boss encounters will be more challenging, with rooms that contribute to how you are able to fight. In addition to the requisite new Exotics, Weapons, and Armor, Bungie also promises “amazing stuff with weapons that we can’t even talk about yet.” Looks like we have a lot to look forward to!
One thing they can confirm?
“Is there another chest in the Vault of Glass? We’ll never tell.”