Bungie finally sheds light on Destiny: The Taken King DLC plans
More events, but at least one "significant" update.
After a week of speculation on the future of Destiny: The Taken King, Bungie has finally shed some light on the remaining additions it has planned.
Last weekend saw the announcement of Destiny's new three-week Sparrow racing event - a much-requested feature but not the larger DLC some fans had been expecting to hear about.
Then, on Tuesday, Eurogamer published an interview with Bungie senior designer Derek Carroll, where we quizzed him on what the recent trend of smaller additions now meant for the game's future. "With Taken King we are moving to a more event-based model," he said.
Now, community manager Eric "Urk" Osbourne has pulled back the curtain - just a little - on what the future will hold. Events will be key, he wrote in the latest Bungie update, but a big drop of content - "the biggest since The Taken King" - is also coming.
"We get it. Some of you were hoping we'd take the stage at PSX and announce 'The Dark Below II: Darker and Lower' (not a real project in development)," Urk wrote. "To put it bluntly, you seem worried that there won't be any more substantial content until we ship another full game, or that all of the content for the rest of Year Two will come in the form of timed events.
"Good news, everyone! There's a whiteboard in one of our meeting rooms filled with scribblings and sticky notes that represent the developments planned for Destiny's not-so-distant future. Events, activities, content, and features designed to keep you happy, entertained, and rewarded throughout the year to come: some events and some activities that will become additions to your Director.
"The first of these early 2016 experiences will be on a scale close to Festival of the Lost. The second will be far larger than anything you've seen since the release of The Taken King. There's also another significant update to the world and sandbox planned in this same window.
"It's true that we've updated the playbook based on what we've learned to date, and to better tap into what makes Destiny unique. Last year, we all waited five months and ten days between content drops after December. This year, the plan is to deliver new experiences at a faster clip. To that end, the updates described above are all currently slated to hit across Winter and Spring of 2016, with more to come, as well."
It's a more positive message, for sure - and it's worth remembering the long dull wait between The Dark Below and House of Wolves where little changed. Smaller, faster updates will alleviate this long wait.
Instead of Destiny's two DLCs last year, here's how Year Two looks from what we know so far:
- Halloween - Festival of the Lost event
- Winter - Sparrow racing
- Early 2016 - another small-scale event
- Spring 2016 - large update, significant world and sandbox changes
- Others to follow
What players really want right now is more story content - fresh strikes, a new raid, a refreshed Prison of Elders area mode - as well as new competitive multiplayer maps.
And while these may be a little way ahead, its nice to have an indication that at least one such update is on the horizon.
