Let's jettison the preamble out the airlock early. You've either jumped into The Taken King's Dreadnaught already, or in your heart-of-hearts Bungie is dead to you, and this new expansion is all for naught. (Destiny is, after, all the most polarising product since sunglass lenses got invented.)

I was the Guardian who persevered with this franchise, for all its faults. Lately I've been thrashing my way through this new offering, but decided to hold the AusGamers review in abeyance until I could take a decent stab at the new Raid content (which dropped at 3am Saturday morning). Here then are my more complete thoughts on Destiny: The Taken King...



Let's kick this off by chronicling my grind up to becoming 'raid ready', Light 290. That triple-digit figure is an attack/defense average that very much defines your effectiveness in Destiny 2.0; any half-wit with a hand cannon can hit the more traditional level cap of level 40. Likewise, saying you've “clocked the story and hit the end credits” means bugger all as well – an Oryx showdown occurs in about three hours worth of play. It does, however, prove to be a very penultimate showdown.

Not long after the puniest-God-since-Loki retreats, you'll find yourself swamped by a slew of quests called The Taken War. Though these lack the grandiose mid-mission cutscenes of the opening act, they're still extremely well paced, offer taxing difficulty, and are professionally voiced by everybody's favourite roguish robo-man, Cayde-6 (played by the incomparable Nathan Fillion). Yes, Destiny now comes with a rollicking story and characters worth caring about. I’m just as shocked as you are.

I was also caught off guard by an RNG loot system that no longer makes me want to rage-spit at my TV. The game better tracks what you need, what you can do without, and an infusion system lets you sacrifice newer gear to ensure your favourites can continue being useful (does not include Year One stuff). There's also a neat series of “loaner gun” bounties, and the gunsmith has weekly items that are shiny (but of questionable quality) which can be blindly pre-ordered. How meta of you, Bungie.

Gone too are the weird stalling moments of progression where you can get stuck in gaming hell. Unlike the Year One content, being a level 31 in a fireteam with two 34s no longer feels like they're Domingo and Pavarotti while you're just “the other guy”. A Guardian's personal power is now based off 10 acquirable bits of kit, not four armour items that were randomly (read: sadistically) dropped from the higher end content.



The grind will no longer wear down your patience. The story is full-bodied and engaging. The content is at least twice what you got last year. Throw in a fantastic new co-op public event space (Court of Oryx), raid-lite Strikes that randomise encounters, plus a host of tricksy new enemy types, and The Taken King makes vanilla Destiny look like a rushed to market beta.

The icing on the cake, however, is definitely the raid content. From this point onward I’m going to be describing how the King's Fall fares compared to the much loved Vault of Glass and the decidedly meh Crota's End. If you don't want spoilers, please scroll down to the verdict section now.

I think Bungie has really delivered with this latest raid. The opening phase involves the best ingredient in any high-level content: teamwork, shouted orders/insults and post-game eating disorders. Familiar tactics return, like the synchronised portal standing, and this is woven in with the new “carry the glowball to the thing” mechanic that pops up in the main quests. You've also got to love a new jumping puzzle (and by 'love', I mean 'hate being a Hunter').

As our assault on Oryx progressed, we learned to respect randomised glyph sequences, buffs/debuffs that required our team to huddle into close proximity, and an intense section where we were forced to cower in the shadows of destructible objects, lest a boss' enrage timer tore us all a new one.



I won't spoil the final phases and ultimate encounter. Though I can confirm that they will push even the most skillful Guardian teams out there to their limits (until some OCD 13 year-old writes a cheese FAQ and ruins the challenge for everybody). One thing that's apparent: rocking up at 290 and expecting to have a fair shake at things after the second phase is a bit of a pipe dream at the moment. Before entering, I recommend that at least half of your team do the excruciating single-digit-Light-gain-grind that is going from 290 to 295+.

I’m not sure if it's the endorphins of post-raid afterglow talking, but right now I’m inclined to say this is Bungie's best end-game content yet. Any Guardian that was put off by the uninspired, massively cheese-able Crota's End, or the non-raid solution that was Prison of Elders, should definitely make a beeline for King's Fall. Just like the first time you blasted Atheon into fireworks with buddies, this is watershed moment stuff. Bungie has delivered a helluva final act to what's been a very surprising, highly purchasable rethink of this wayward franchise.