Reviews// Destiny: The Taken King

Once the patrol mission was available I jumped in to explore, expecting the usual crate hunting and side missions in a hope that I could complete a bounty or stumble across a public event. What I found was a series of strange items, new materials and chests that I couldn’t open.

Keys popped up on my screen without me knowing what they were for, enemies that I had no idea how to kill and doors that would open and close randomly allowing me access to a computer that did nothing.

The Dreadnaught is an area filled with mystery, begging the player to head to internet forums and social media to share what they could find so that collectively people would start to unravel its secrets. It’s exciting and makes you wish that all other areas had the same hidden gems locked away.

Everything from making the screen shake as your character becomes infected to invisible platforms indicate that if you can solve what you’re supposed to be doing, you’ll be rewarded. I stumbled across a boss who could kill me with one hit and was immune to every one of my weapons, and he’s ingrained into my mind as something I need to go back to once I’m more powerful.

It’s so exciting. I love it when games do this and it sends me back to my school years where the only way to find an easter egg or hidden item in a game was to pick up rumours and hearsay from the playground.

Unfortunately The Crucible hasn’t had the same love and attention poured into it. It’s still fun enough, but although the new maps are good, none of the compare to what was currently already on offer.

They all seem pretty much designed for the game’s new mode ‘Rift’. Rift is a bomb detonation mode where two teams battle over the ‘spark’ and try and get it to the enemy's base to ignite their rift.

It’s not that the game mode itself is terrible, but it doesn’t feel as solid as Control. There’s too much bottlenecking, as you’d expect, and favours snipers who can just hang back and ping the heads off of anyone who dares try to pick the spark up.

This means that you need an incredible amount of luck or a very well-drilled team to win these games, and as someone who rarely plays Destiny with a full fire team I found myself on the losing end of matches a little to often for my liking. That, and rewards are heavily focused on this new game mode to try and get people to play it, making the more fun game modes feel like more of a waste of time.

Mayhem mode fares a lot better. It's team deathmatch, but with your Super abilities recharging much quicker than they usually do. Within moments of the game starting your screen fills with colour as grenades, lightning, balls of fire and purple shields all flare up. It’s fast paced, fun and is the perfect way to complete some bounties that would otherwise take forever.

I’d like to have seen The Crucible expanded on. More ways of playing, more focus on teams and game modes that are less out of the textbook. Destiny’s PvE is a big step forward but this side just feels like additional content over a massive update.

That aside, Destiny Year Two and The Taken King bring a lot to the plate. It’s an expensive product, especially for the amount of actual new content on offer, and there is no way that a Destiny fan will be disappointed.

Those who want to jump on board at this stage can be happy knowing that nearly every negative word they’ve heard about the game is now redundant. Bungie has done an amazing job of improving the experience and are fast-tracking those who want to get up to speed.

If you’re deciding to get involved and have picked up the Legendary Edition then you’re in for an absolute treat. The amount of stuff to do in that package is insane and if there is a brick wall to hit in progression, you’ll be hundreds of hours in before you get there.

But for those that have no interest in Destiny, you won’t suddenly find yourself changing your opinion. It’s still, at the base of it, the game that never clicked with you and although The Taken King has improved things, its main focus is to impress the fans, not appease those who aren’t convinced.

I’m genuinely buzzing with excitement if this is any indication on where Bungie is taking this thing. But then I would say that, I’m a fan.

Pros:
+ Increased story mode
+ The Dreadnaught
+ New light system

Cons:
- The Crucible could do with a major update
- Won’t convince those who never liked Destiny to start with

SPOnG Score: 8/10