For those dipping their toe back in (Destiny)

by SilverBrin, Thursday, September 17, 2015, 18:31 (3451 days ago)

I've had an incredible experience with The Taken King so far. I'm someone that enjoyed Destiny but lost interest in it early on. I'm reading a lot of comments on here from people debating on whether they should give it another go, people confused as to how the critical response turned upside down from disappointed with the core game to overwhelmingly positive for the DLC, and others still disappointed by the DLC.

I've been playing through the expansion with a group who like myself, stopped playing early on, but were eager to see new content. If you are expecting a fundamental structural change to Destiny, use some common sense here. It is a DLC. So if you didn't like the initial Destiny structure/skeleton, seeing it with some flesh and skin may not change your view of the Destiny body. If you liked the skeleton, but just wanted to connect, this is your chance to have a great relationship with the game. And if you mostly enjoyed Destiny but lost incentive to keep loading it up, there is a shift of focus from the material, to the experiential.

I urge people to NOT look at The Taken King as a feature list of fixes and community requests:

More character development: Check
More exposition: Check
Grind fixes: Check
Light Level fixes: Check
New Raid: Check
etc...

You CAN look at The Taken King as a feature list, but you will more than likely miss the new design approach to level and gameplay interaction that governs what I find to be the biggest improvement to the game: having fun NOT shooting at anything.

Destiny at times faces "shoot the mans" fatigue. Like all shooters, there is a very difficult challenge of creating replay-ability and variety, while escalating the difficulty through shooting at various silhouettes that shoot back. Destiny's core gameplay outside of crucible and raiding is killing and riding the sparrow. New weapons, and new silhouette skins pay decreasing dividends with each iteration. And on a halo -> Destiny continuum, some of us have shot a lot of mans with Bungie over the past 15 years. So then what can The Taken King possibly do with a problem so intrinsic to the genre?

The Taken King changes its focus from giving you more stuff to shoot at and refocuses on your exploring environments and connecting to the Destiny universe. Something the original Halo was incredibly successful at. (You will see quite a few nods to Halo:CE in fact).

Hypnotic level design with giant unused areas that exist solely for you to discover, scan, and think. Jumping puzzles. History. Lore. There is space to breathe. Vistas to sit down and gaze upon. You'll enjoy the creativity and imagination of a realized vision, rather than hollow rooms and canyons for you to passively kill and pass through. The new design influences your behavior so that you aren't in a hurry to find the next door to open, or the next check point to trigger. But you can let some of the Destiny universe that's been hinted at all along, wash over you like the first time you landed on Halo. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of baddies to kill. But when you start pulling your ghost out and looking at creepy statues, your trigger finger gets less and less itchy. You find you don't need waves and waves of Fallen and Hive to smash in order to enjoy the game. And you may not care about what gear or level you have anymore. They put a lot of love into these new levels. So go on and experience them.

If all that sounds really boring to you, there IS a checklist of fixed stuff, new thingys, shiny wearables, and slick abilities. But I challenge you to play this expansion less materially, and focus on the return to core gameplay. Passionately composed environments, characters, and stories. After playing it, the next time you return to a moon patrol for shiny chests and helium, you may catch yourself daydreaming while looking up into the sky instead. This is what the expansion accomplishes. Not a structural overhaul, but a spiritual one.