It’s been somewhat of a challenging year for Bungie with the launch of Destiny.  Back when it released last year, I scored it an 8.0 out of 10, the main reason in which it failed to score higher was its lack of campaign substance.  12 months on and we come full circle to The Taken King.  In many ways, the vanilla Destiny and its first two expansions were effectively a beta stage for Activisions next big franchise.  But does The Taken King bring enough warranted changes, is this the game that Bungie intended Destiny to be and most importantly, does it justify the £40 upgrade?  In a nutshell, yes it warrants the price and their new and improved feature makes Destiny: The Taken King one of the most fun, fulfilling and social games you’ll play this year and next.

The Taken King follows the events of the Destiny base game and it’s following two expansions.  The Wolves have been defeated and Crota has been slain.  Only now Crota’s father Oryx is pissed and he’s coming for Guardian blood and all those that stood fought by their side, and that includes the likes of the Queen of the Awoken; Mara Sov.  Now the Guardians not only face the wrath of King Oryx, but now they must also face his Taken legion.  Foes like no other, an enemy with no allies’ and they take whom they please to swarm their plague across the stars.  This is a war waged like no other, this is the Destiny experience that Bungie intended, this is The Taken King!

Before The Taken King released, a big update was released by Bungie in preparation, regardless of whether you own the new content or not and with it came a huge host of improvements and added features.  Some subtle and some not so.  Arguably the biggest changes made come in the form of how you level up your Guardian.  You will still be able to level up your Guardian the traditional way, but now up to the new XP level cap of 40.  However now we have a Light Level.  The Light Level is a combination of Attack and Defence abilities taken from your gear, both armour and weaponry.  Contributing towards the Light Level are two new slots for your Ghost and Class items.

Previously your Ghost would be a little more than a storytelling accessory, but now not only will the Ghost be more involved with the games narrative, he’ll also play an important role in getting you to level 42 (Light Level exceeds the level 40 XP cap) with its skills and abilities, as well as now being voiced by Nolan North.  At first his new voice took some getting used to, but I have to say that I prefer Drakebot over Dinklebot.  You can now also carry a variety of Ghosts, each with their own skill-set and colour scheme.  Like the weapons and armour, you’ll be able to level up the Ghosts Light Level, but more on that later.

The other new slot comes in the form of Artefacts.  Depending on which Artefacts you acquire, they can help improve your skills with certain weapons, increase your strengths and disciplines, even help you track down resources and treasures.  Class Armours now also play apart towards your Light Level, so those capes and ass flannels will now have more importance; they also contribute towards Vanguard and Crucible reputation bonuses.

Another aspect that has been greatly improved is the way in which you can track Bounties.  No longer must you hit the options button to see what’s left to do, now via a simple press of the touchpad you can bring up your tracked bounties on screen.  The way in which you cash in your Bounties have also been made easier, for starters the Bounties are more varied and once complete you no longer have to visit the Tower.  All you have to do now is visit your menu screen on the fly and simply press X (or A on Xbox) to cash them in.

Story quests can be seen and tracked in the same way as Bounties, but what’s extra awesome is that now many of the vendors at the Tower can grant you quests, most of which lead up to acquiring a very handy item, some Legendary or an Exotic.  Speaking of weapons, no longer do you have to obtain an Etheric Light to fully upgrade, that concept is no more.  Now you can “Infuse” any Rare and upwards weapon or gear to a higher level (including Ghosts).  So for example you can take a simple 280 Auto Rife and Infuse it to become 300+, which of course all contributes towards your Light Level.  Naturally you can only upgrade a weapon with another weapon that has a higher Light Level.  Also on October 13^th, Tess the vendor will be returning representing the Eververse Trading Company.  Here she will sell you new Emotes, now they will be microtransactions, but they do not give you any gameplay advantage, so you won’t be missing out in that regard if you choose not to buy any.  However, Bungie will be giving you pieces of Silver (the new in-game microtransaction currency) to pick up one or two Emotes free of charge.

One of the many issues with the vanilla Destiny was the currency overkill, as it became a chore to keep track of which vendor or faction leader collects what currency.  That process has now also been simplified and the only real currencies you need to worry about are Legendary and Crucible Marks, each are rewarded from the respected multiplayer modes and quests.  One element that I believe is a shame however is that Year One Exotics and Legendary weapons are now practically pointless, unless you take on missions from the original Destiny.  So for example that dam Thorn hand-cannon that I worked so hard to acquire, is pushed down the pack with a level of 170, even green common weapons can be more powerful.  I don’t know if Bungie plan on making use of some Year One Exotics, especially those acquired by an Exotic Bounty, but is seems a shame for many of them to go to waste.

Year One weapons do come in handy however when you need to dismantle weapons for a Year Two quest, as they all count. Thankfully some Exotic weapons and gear can be upgraded from Year One to Year Two, which will have the new Light Level of 270+ (which are also upgradable in the game like everything else), as long as you have at least the required Exotic Shards and 150 Legendary Marks to purchase each one.  Of course there will also be an all new batch of Year Two Exotics to acquire, as well as PlayStation exclusive content for the first year, before it becomes available to Xbox Guardians.  Speaking of Exotics, with the new update came an increased chance of having an Exotic item drop, via the Three of Coins.  These apparently give you a 3-in-1 chance of an Exotic item dropping, which may sound great, but when it takes you 30 coins redeemed for an Exotic to drop, questions have to be asked.  Still you have a much better chance in Year 2 then you did in Year One with the Three of Coins.

Other changes come in the form of new weekly and daily challenges, so to with their rewards.  Previously you would play the Daily and basically be rewarded with items you don’t really need, only the Weekly challenges were really worth while, all for the sake of the Strange Coins to spend at Xur’s Friday outlet.  Now for the daily you will be rewarded with not only upgrades, but also with Legendary Marks, so there’s more value in them from the off-set.  The Weekly Vanguard Heroic will require you to play out a randomly selected Strike with modifiers, which will give you a shot at a Legendary item, as well as those precious Marks.  The Weekly Nightfall remains more the same, with the added chance of an Exotic dropping, but your still also guaranteed a Legendary at the least.

The end game to Destiny was vastly important, especially with that grind to acquire items and upgrade your Guardian.  However, all grinds in just about any videogame can get very repetitive, it was perhaps even more so in the vanilla Destiny.  While you will have to chore out the same kind of grind in The Taken King, the story missions and Strikes are made a little less repetitive by enemies being mixed up.  So in a nutshell you could play the same Strike three times in a row and encounter different enemies with each.  Albeit it’s not a huge change, but a subtle improvement that most Guardians will surely appreciate, some Strikes also come with reward specific gear, which is an added bonus.

If I was to have one piece of constructive criticism with The Taken King (and with Destiny as a whole), it would be the lack of inclusion for optional matchmaking when wanting to play a Raid.  I’ve been a Destiny player since day one (from the Alpha in-fact), yet it took me almost a year to get a full Fireteam together to take on Vault of Glass and Crota’s End, and I just hope this won’t be the case with the latest Raid; King’s Fall.  I understand the reasons for perhaps not having a matchmaking system put in place for Raid’s could be down to the fact that its best playing with organised Guardians that you know, rather then a potentially unreliable random, but sometimes when you need that extra one or two players to fill out the Fireteam, it could come in handy.  Likewise for the one of two Guardians that are looking for a team of three to four players as they attempt to play a Raid for the first time.  If Bungie did one day allow matchmaking for a Raid, I believe it would be extremely helpful just to have that extra option at hand if needs be.

While the visuals of The Taken King pretty much remain the same, albeit an updated main menu screen and star map, the new location of the Dreadnaught can be a site to behold.  Destiny was a pretty game to begin with, with stunning backdrops from locations such as the Moon and even good old Earth.  The Dreadnaught is a crashed Cabal ship located in the rings of Saturn.  It’s a unique place crammed with all foes (other than the Wolves at the time of writing) in which all hell as broken loose.  But despite its chaoticness, many a times it had me stopping and just admiring the view at hand, which of course resulted in me spamming that PS4 share function.

I can also appreciate the look of the Taken, shadowy forms of their victims that can multiply within an instant, gives the game a ghostly presence.  But it’s not just the Taken that are new in town, as newcomers from species already in the game have joined the battlefield.  I won’t give too much away, but there’s a boss fight at the end of the Strike “The Sunless Cell” that I believe is fantastic.  It would have been easy for Bungie to just recycle many of the old boss types, so it’s nice to see them going to so much effort.

Earlier in this review I touched upon the voice-cast change made to your loyal Ghost companion.  Activisions say that due to commitment issues, Peter Dinklage was replaced with videogame icon Nolan North, who among many roles, is perhaps known more as the voice of Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series.  To be honest I wasn’t a huge fan of Dinklage’s work in Destiny (though I love him as Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones).  While some may say his voice work in Destiny was deliberately robotic, in my humble opinion it seemed rather flat, almost like he didn’t want to be in the studio at the time of recording for the game.  But as I said back in my original review, the lack of story and poorly written script had a huge factor in the voice acting quality, after all, the voice cast can only read what’s put before them.

 

In my opinion Dinklage didn’t seem to portray the kind of passion that generates from Nolan North’s voice.  At the end of the day it’s all a matter of preference as to which Ghost voice you prefer, for me, Nolan edges it.  Thankfully storytelling doesn’t seem to be an issue with The Taken King, the cutscenes are far more epic then before as well as more frequent and you’ll also hear more from your Ghost during missions.  Other characters such as Eris, the Vanguards Ikora Ray (Warlock), Commander Zavala (Titan) and Cayde-6 (Hunter) play more prominent roles.  Notably Nathan Fillion really relishes in his role as Cayde-6 and does a superb job at portraying that signature humour with a hint of badass that we know and love from the actor.  Plus the added benefit of both Nathan Fillion and Nolan North playing prominent roles in a videogame, it doesn’t get much better than that.

In the vanilla Destiny one of my favourite aspects of the game, was it amazing soundtrack which was composed and directed by Martin O’Donnell, and I still believe it to be one of the best videogame soundtracks in recent years.  However, following somewhat of a sticky departure from Bungie, Martin O’Donnell was no longer at the helm for The Taken King.  Now the responsibility falls into the hands of Michael Salvatori and C. Paul Johnson, who both worked on the original score also.  They are now joined by Skye Lewin, who all despite the absence of Martin O’Donnell do a sublime job in capturing that essence that made the original score so compelling, as well as adding a hint of their own sound for The Taken King.

With all the changes and improvements made to The Taken King, it could be perhaps easy to focus too much on the campaign side of things and forget about its competitive multiplayer.  For me it’s PvP is my go to online mode at the moment, so it’s even more important that its various modes keep me hooked just as much as the original Destiny, perhaps even more so in The Taken King.  With it comes eight new multiplayer maps, on top of what came before and it also comes companioned with the new modes Rift and Mayhem.

Rift in essence is kind of like a game of NFL, where each opposing team must carry an orb from their side of the map, into the designated enemy area.  Of course it is your team’s job to defend you across your journey and the job of the opposing team to stop the runner.  Mayhem is perhaps my favourite mode in The Taken King, which is basically a chaotic version of Clash (i.e. Team Deathmatch).  Only in Clash everything from your Special and grenades regenerate much faster and even the re-spawn timer has been removed to instantly throw you back into the action.  In a nutshell, Mayhem is its very meaning in every sense of the word.

Speaking of Specials, by acquiring The Taken King will unlock three new sub-classes for each of the Guardian types.  Hunters will be gifted with an awesome Bow and Arrow attack called Nighstalker, Warlocks with an electricity attack that has you floating around like a witch called the Stormcaller, while finally the Titans will have an epic like grenade/hammer attack known as the Sunbreaker.  Each has their own unique qualities and everyone will have their favourite.  Each of the new sub-classes are extra handy in PvP also, as while activated, your Guardian will a higher damage tolerance.

Do people still play Destiny? (is the annoying and commonly asked question in Facebook comment threads).  Well believe it or not it was extremely popular with the vanilla Destiny, but now with the release of The Taken King its popularity has blown through the roof.  Veteran players will only have to look at the heightened activity surrounding the Cryptarch in the Tower, let alone The Taken King breaking all kinds of day one sales records (including beating the original game at launch).  So it should come as no real surprise because despite its initial flaws, Destiny was already  a game with bags of potential and not only do you have new players coming into the game, but also returning players that lost interest many months ago.

All credit to Bungie, because a year on and its right on track to fulfilling its “Destiny” (sorry, I’ve been trying to squeeze in a bad pun throughout this review).  They’ve managed to identify the games flaws and not only rectify them, but they’ve also exceeded many of our expectations.  On top of all what I’ve spoken about in this review, Destiny has a vibrant community, I found out this to be the case just days after joining the unofficial Fireteam Chat Podcast group, which is inspired by the IGN podcast.  When The Taken King was initially announced, the £40 price point for the expansion pack was met with uproar; I myself questioned whether it would be anywhere near that kind of valuation.

If you own Destiny and the first two expansions, paying the £40 is well worth the value and then some.  It’s packed with content, worthy improvements and Bungie will continue to improve the game via frequent updates.  Yet if you’re new to Destiny, you can pick up Destiny: The Taken King at retail which includes the vanilla game, The Dark Below, The House of Wolves and of course The Taken King for around £40! Which is insane value for money, especially when I believe just the expansion alone is great value for money.  So if you’re sitting on the fence undecided whether to return or join this vibrant gaming community, then you have just reasons more than ever before.  Now more than ever before, I am truly hyped and excited for the future of this franchise, so go on Guardian follow the little light and fulfil your Destiny and Become Legend… and yes, there were deliberate puns.

• You can read our original review of Destiny here.

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