The Dark Below or Where is this Story Going?
Last week, a couple things happened: my Xbox One returned from being repaired and the first DLC for Destiny was released. It was hard to figure out which I was most excited about, so right after we recorded episode 68 of the podcast, I had my controller in hand and the console running. As usual, I joined my brother in The Tower and we picked up our new story mission from the freaky, mascara bleeding lone survivor of an encounter with Crota. Maybe making people have endlessly running mascara is Crota’s superpower? Good thing we’re both playing Exo characters who don’t wear makeup. Ready to see what new pieces of the Destiny story awaited us, we dove into The Dark Below.
If you’ve been hiding under a rock or you just stopped caring about Destiny soon after it came out, Expansion I – The Dark Below brings three new story missions, a new strike, and a new raid to the game. There are 6 new PvP maps, but I still don’t care about any of that. There are also a number of new weapons and armor (including legendary and exotics) and the ability to raise your Light level to 32. So let’s talk about all of this stuff briefly.
The first thing we did was pick up a story mission and jet back down to the Cosmodrome. That didn’t really seem like what I was expecting in an expansion focusing on The Hive. After a good 15 to 20 minutes, we were left wondering why an expansion with only three story missions would lead off with something so short. After less than 90 minutes we had destroyed the soul of Crota. I mean, the legendary fusion rifle reward was pretty cool looking and has the ability to switch between arc and solar damage, but it’s still a bit disappointing. Finishing the new story missions opened up some more quests, but that’s not exactly the same as more story. When the lack of story was one of the most common complaints from players of the core game, it may not be a great plan to skimp on the first expansion. Weirdly, my ghost stayed absolutely silent the whole time. I couldn’t get him to shut up originally, but he has nothing to say about tracking down the soul of what amounts to the god of the Hive. If Bungie couldn’t retain the services of Peter Dinklage, he should have been replaced.
The new raid, Crota’s End, is supposedly full of all-new game play mechanics and enemy bosses. I’m sure it’s amazing in the same way that I’m sure the Vault of Glass is amazing. As much as the blog posts over on Bungie’s site continually say that they listen to their community, it’s odd that they refuse to add matchmaking to the raids. In an interview with Game Informer (quote via IGN) Luke Smith said, “… we have absolutely no plans to do raid matchmaking at this time.” They’re apparently looking at ways to make more interesting content outside of raids, just not for this expansion. I think it’s a bit unreasonable to expect players to have five friends that all have similar schedules and own the game on the same console. Clearly, the people over at Bungie don’t feel the same way.
Completing the additional three missions that follow the exceptionally flat portion of The Dark Below‘s story opens up the new strike. Sadly, it’s not a more interesting or involved strike than anything else in the game. It seems that what Bungie thought would be more engaging for non-raiding players would be to simply triple the number of enemies being thrown at us. Upping the difficulty is a nice thought, but I prefer my bullet hell games to be side-scrollers. At least I can get some new gear and raise my level by two. Two? Yep, that’s just spectacular. I really, really hope that I’m wrong and that the new strike is going to make Destiny more enjoyable, but I’m pretty skeptical at this point. Frankly, if I wasn’t playing with my brother, I most likely wouldn’t have bought the expansion pass.
The last bit of content besides PvP was a series of quests that feel similar to the exotic bounties, but without getting ganked by my fellow players. It had to wait until this recent weekend because it involved turning in items to Xûr, Agent of the Nine. (Could we get more story about the Nine? Mr. Tentacle Face seems like a really cool story hook.) Killing various Hive with specific elemental damage was fun, but I really quite enjoyed the challenge of isolating cursed thralls and killing them with melee damage without getting killed. (They explode with a satisfying, yet painful pop.) Camping Skywatch for a public event can be tedious, so bring a friend. The final turn-in also requires Xûr, so try to get it all done over a weekend. You’ll get a new legendary piece of class specific arm gear for your effort.
Speaking of Xûr, I am glad that there is a path (limited weekly as it may be) that allows people to upgrade the exotics they already own to bring them into line with the new, more powerful gear of the expansion. It’s not the most important part of the update, but it’s certainly a welcome one.
The thing that I want the people working on Destiny to take away here is that weapon balancing and eliminating loot caves is about the bottom of the concerns you can address and say that you’re listening to your fans. The fans are the people that continue to play and buy expansions while pleading for raid matchmaking or some form of in-game communication option beyond pointing, saluting, and dancing. Yeah, my Bad Juju is a bit more powerful now, but it would be nice if I could use that in a raid. Six new PvP maps? Was the lack of maps really more demanded than more access to raids? More than actually expanding the story into something more coherent without digging through the Grimoire on another site? I’m guessing that a lot of people originally bought the pack that included the first two expansions, but Bungie is really going to need to step it up if they’re planning on selling me on expansion number three or the planned sequel.
