Destiny: The Taken King is in many ways what Destiny should have been when it first came out. It's not hard to imagine Bungie getting buried under an avalanche of feedback, as every gamer and their dog had their say about what they thought was right and wrong about the game it had created. It's a testament that not only did Bungie cut through all that noise, but it also delivered a follow up that would not only meet the needs of the faithful who'd stuck with it through the darker times, but could also bring in both lapsed players and newcomers alike.
First off, the inclusion of a coherent and interesting story that took advantage of the fascinating Destiny lore did absolute wonders. Taking you on a tour of the solar system to stop the onslaught of Oryx and his Taken army, at the behest of characters who – surprisingly for Destiny – actually had some character, made it well worth seeing through to its conclusion. What was even better was that when you were done, there were still hours and hours of content to dig into, with not only a new raid and more Crucible maps to enjoy, but also a raft of side-quests and mysteries to uncover.
"Bungie delivered an absolutely tremendous update and smashed the tide of negative opinion"
It was these mysteries that turned out to be The Taken King's secret weapon, and post-release it felt like every other week a new one was being discovered. Whether it was unique exotic weapons – like Black Spindle – hidden within a Daily Heroic Story Mission, or chests no one knew how to open on Oryx's Dreadnaught, these cryptic events and discoveries provided yet another reason for you to keep coming back time and time again.
Another area that improved leaps and bounds over vanilla Destiny was in the encounter design, with some great set pieces to be found in the Taken King. This time these weren't just limited to the raids, and could be found across all sorts of missions, with the 'Shield Brothers' and 'Sunless Cell' Strikes – which saw you facing off against two angry Cabal champions, or battling the Hive in complete darkness – being particularly memorable examples.
The winning part of the formula that made The Taken King just so addictive, though, was the revamp it gave to the whole progression and reward system. Increasing the opportunities to get better loot, while also making it so that your character level wasn't linked to your gear, felt like massive changes, and when thrown into the mix with a multitude of other little tweaks the results were really noticeable. So, whether you're spending time running Strikes for loot or taking down Oryx with five friends, it all feels satisfyingly worthwhile.
The Taken King represents the fulfilment of Destiny's, well... destiny, and is the point it actually became the game it feels like it was originally meant to be. To achieve this Bungie delivered an absolutely tremendous update to its shooter and smashed the tide of negative opinion, which in the process caused an awful lot of gamers to reassess their own views on Destiny for the better.
Do you think that Destiny: The Taken King represented exotic loot, or was it more scrap from a studio that's long past its best? Go all Guardians of the Galaxy in the comments section below.
Comments 25
It begins!
Wasn't really hard to improve on the original skeleton of a game though. Biggest disappointment and most over-hyped game of the generation for me. They do excel at getting customers' money though, with hugely overpriced dlc and mircotransactions so I'll give them that.
Glad to see this made the cut, for it's faults and the hate it generates it remains hugely popular and for good reason - it's great fun with hours of content for your money. Will you tire of it eventually? Most probably but what do you expect? If you believed all the pre release hype, you probably expected more, and frankly you aren't entirely to blame for that because it was over the top. But still, myself and many others are looking forward to more substantial Destiny content!
TL;DR Isn't Taken King just DLC for Destiny? Or a standalone game in its own right?
@Dodoo It's available as a standalone retail release, so we counted it.
It's a lot of fun but the Dlc price is a joke, most of us paid £40+ for the taken King content, not big enough for that wodge. Half that price would have been acceptable.
I'd say it's just dlc because I don't need the 'Taken King'? Disc. I got a code on a bit of paper in a box with a redundant disc I'm giving to a friend.
@get2sammyb I see thanks, didn't know that!
I got the first version used. It wasn't bad, but when I had to pay two DLCs for a lot of money ( imo ), then I traded it. A couple of weeks ago, I bought the legendary edition for 30euros, still playing and I really enjoying it!
Personally I see this as a DLC expansion rather than a stand-alone game. You certainly can't buy or play it without the original content and if you buy the 'disc' you get 'Destiny' and have to download the Taken King as well as the previous DLC too.
£40 though for the Taken King is extremely high for those of us who invested in the 'vanilla' Destiny as we certainly didn't need the yr1 content but for those who missed out its very good value.
Even though I consider the price 'high' for yr1 adopters, its still provided me with many more hours of entertainment than ANY other game and that's just the Taken King content (and I don't play the PvP) - admittedly a lot of that is repetition especially as I have 3 Characters (on each console). The whole gear and weapons are 'new' as in the yr1 options just don't have a high enough light to be relevant in the yr2 content - especially not the end-game and therefore, the drive to get new gear and weapons kept me returning.
In a lot of ways. the Taken King did make a few improvements but i also think it's made a few things worse too. In yr1, the end-game activities were more extensive. Not only did we have a Raid (or the PoE) - I still think its a shame that they didn't expand on these by keeping older content relevant, we also had the Nightfall which in yr2 has been 'dumbed' down as well as 'Daily missions' which in yr2, if you are 'Raid ready' are not a challenge and don't really offer 'rewards' either (unless you really need the in-game currency to buy weapons/gear that are way below your current light level.
The introduction of Micro-transactions has also had a negative impact on my enjoyment of the game. Granted I know I don't have to purchase, but I do think they have overall cheapened the experience - not only by having people flaunting some stupid emote at every opportunity but its supposed to have had a direct link to the 'novelty' additions - like the very pointless 'Halloween' missions/masks etc and the 'Sparrow Racing' too.
I think the majority of the cosmetics would have been much better as potential 'quest' rewards but to me all they symbolise is how much money someone has wasted!
I don't want to sound negative, although I appreciate this does, and so I will say that the core game mechanics are superb. The story content, although similar, feels much better than yr1 and the Kings Fall raid is excellent too. Its easily been my most played game of 2015 - surpassing all my top 3 games (the Witcher 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider & Batman:AK) combined
@Neolit Haha, apologies for almost causing a cardiac arrest!
I liked it and ploughed a lot of time into it. Destiny is the only game to date that I've purposely made time to play online with other people. For that reason alone, I'd say it deserves a spot.
Curiously, I reinstalled it a week ago only to play for an hour or so and get bored. Ah well, couple of hundred hours so I got my money's worth.
This literally popped through my letterbox this morning. I sold my original copy ages ago as I wasn't interested it throwing down so much money for the DLC.
However due to it recently appearing on Rakuten for £23.85 (which it's still priced at now btw) combined with one of the numerous 15% off codes they spam to your inbox means I got it for twenty quid. Being that I haven't played ANY of the DLC it was low enough to tempt me back.
That said, it's already gone to the back of a fairly lengthy backlog ...
The way they took the base game and add-ons and sort of reintergrated them to improve the story, then delivered the new story with decent dialouge and voice acting final completed the jigsaw puzzle that was shipped with missing pieces. It still has a crazy hybrid operating model but at least it works really well as a game now.
This was scrap to me, the vanilla base game was bad but to shake down players for money for content doubled in price from the other lackluster dlc and re-release it as a final product nah. Those that play it still are really hardcore fans of the game
and honestly if they offered money back on for it when it first released i would have returned it immediately!
I look forward to a COD map pack taking out the #9 spot!
I liked the game, I picked it up for about £20 I think and it was fun with friends but I got bored of the bountys, everything else was fun but I got to Lvl 30 and traded in for £10. So I basically payed £10 but if I get bored I may get TTK down the line, looks good value now with all DLC.
I loved the game from the start it took away from a only one man team and made you work together as a team. Taken king just made it easier to level up and get better rewards.... I still play it all the time especially with the SLR racing event ongoing
So I guess Bloodborne will take up two spots on the list then since we're now counting DLC as an actual game?
@LieutenantFatman I refuse to purchase a retail game thats full price but also has the cheek to include microtransactions.
I don't have a problem with microtransactions, just as long as they stay away from full priced retail games. They're fine when used in the F2P model as I except they can be a good and fair source of income for the developer when implemented in the right way.
Anytime I see them in retail games I see it as just another way to squeeze us for as much money as possible. Is it not enough that game prices have gone up by around £15/£20 for the base game and then we have season passes that can cost as much as another £50 and now they want more of our hard earned money. Im not sure if its true but, im sure I read somewhere that for £25 you can automatically level upto level 25 in Destiny.
So when alls said and done, one could have spent close to £150 on Destiny. Is it worth it? I think not.
PS sorry to include you in my rant
Yeah I spent mad hours on this
I don't want to agree with this, but my combined 22 days spent playing destiny this past year or so, plus the enormous backlog of "better" games it created that chances are I will never finish means I can't argue it's spot. Even though I took months off at a time, and swore never to go back, I would always get pulled back in simply because there isn't quite something like it that all of my friends play and love to hate.
@Gamer83 Except as stated, Destiny: The Taken King was released at retail and included the base game. The Old Hunters was DLC that was also included in a 'complete' edition.
Not to mention the fact that Destiny isn't actually called 'Destiny' any more, according to its home screen on the PS4. Even the title screen of the actual game calls it 'Destiny: The Taken King'.
Ultimately we think its overall impact that it had on 2015 was enough reason to include it. Same reason we included P.T. in last year's awards.
@ShogunRok
Well, fine if you want to view it that way. Doesn't change my opinion of it. Destiny The Taken King is just another thing wrong with what is becoming an increasingly frustrating hobby.
This is a weird one for me, having played since close to launch I had already paid a reasonable amount of money on the game, and whilst it wasn't as bad as the internet would have you believe it certainly had its flaws. The Taken King fixes almost every single one of these whilst introducing each characters most interesting sub class, as well as the quite excellent Dreadnought which is a literal treasure trove of secrets. The Sleeper Simulant is one of the best quests I've ever done, especially the strike at the end which brought me together with 2 random strangers for a very intense battle year took several tries, but we are friends today because of this. This is what Destiny is, seemingly endless grinding which achieves very little before the game opens up moments of genuine gaming brilliance. One thing it does do is show how barebones Battlefront really is. The problem for the Taken King is the question of value, for those who played year one we were expected to pay basically the same for this upgrade as newcomers were for the whole package. As it is 10th is about right, had Destiny launched this year and in this condition I personally would say it was in my top 5, and for anybody who hasn't played, for the prices I've seen this available for its the bargain of the year
Tap here to load 25 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...