Today, Bungie will be launching the largest update to their “shared-world online shooter” since The Taken King expansion launched this past September. The content that was added to Destiny this past fall did a lot to fix many of the big issues players had with the game, and you can read my full review here. However, after the first few months of what Bungie has come to call “Year 2”, Guardians began to find that they had little to come back for. Unlike “Year 1”, there was no DLC planned to keep players engaged. Instead, micro-transactions were added to help fund a live team that would work on limited events in the game world. While some of these, like the Sparrow Racing League, were fun, they ended up coming too few and far between to satiate the thirst of hardcore players. The result has been a “drought” that was somewhat inevitable given that Bungie is likely trying to get the official Destiny sequel out as soon as possible in addition to another big expansion.
Many Guardians, therefore, have put Destiny down for perhaps the longest period of time since they began their career in combating “The Darkness”. The question now is whether or not today’s update will be bringing enough content to warrant signing in and shooting some aliens, and from the information we have to go on (we’ll see once we play it if it pans out), the outlook looks good. There is a lot to unpack in this update, and I won’t try to convince readers by getting bogged down in the weeds. My argument rest solely on the fact that, for once, Guardians can progress to the highest levels of power and receive the best gear through multiple avenues of play.
For a long time, raiding was the only way to gain the highest light-level gear (for the most part). Not just any raid, though. Only the King’s Fall raid from The Taken King was viable to obtain end-game loot. Previous raids such as the beloved Vault of Glass were left with no incentive to play. Even the competitive Trials of Osiris multiplayer lacked proper rewards, and thus Destiny became a grind of the same raid over and over.
Today’s update looks to change this. Gear at the new light-level cap of 335 can be obtained from an updated Prison of Elders “Challenge Mode”, in addition to King’s Fall Hard Mode, Weekly Crucible Bounties, Exotic Engrams, and Trials of Osiris. Even Strikes will be relevant to the end-game, as unique drops from Heroic Strikes can drop up to 335 as well. While many players would have loved to see old content such as Vault of Glass and Crota’s End made relevant, I think it was a better move by Bungie to give variety to the end-game rather than add an old raid or two.
So, the short answer is yes, it’s probably going to be worth it to pick this game back up, especially if you constantly find yourself hitting walls on your road to power in Destiny. According to their Twitter account, the update has launched as of this articles posting, so let’s see if my faith is well placed folks.
