As any regular Game Rant reader probably knows, several writers are big fans of Bungie’s Destiny. For as much as we’ve written about the game’s faults, there’s still something truly special about the communal experience offered by Destiny that makes it hard not to keep coming back.

However, with the House of Wolves more than a month removed from its launch, we're not afraid to turn our thoughts towards what’s next. More specifically, we took to the Activision booth at E3 2015 to see what Destiny: The Taken King has to offer, and whether it will meet the needs of the game’s rabid fan base.

Unfortunately, what we got a chance to play was fairly limited in scope. The demo was comprised of only a single story mission - one that was also truncated so as to only deliver the relevant story beats and give players a brief opportunity to mess around with the new subclasses for Destiny.

However, if the first mission of Destiny: The Taken King is anything like the full “major expansion,” then fans are likely in for a treat. Since launch, players have been looking for something that has a greater pull than simply the quest for better loot, and Taken King appears to have that appeal. This standalone content is not  about fulfilling some nebulous world-saving quest, or randomly battling bosses in the Prison of Elders, Destiny: The Taken King centers around a showdown with the series’ first big bad: Oryx.

The Coming War

The mission on offer for the Destiny demo was titled ‘The Coming War’ and saw players descending upon the moon of Phobos, where a disturbance has broken out within the ranks of the Mars-dwelling Cabal. As soon as players put boot to ground something feels off and as they descend through the Phobos installation they find weird distortions in reality. Think of them like rips in time, where dark blackness and flecks of starlight are peeking through.

Eventually, players descend deep enough that Oryx finally decides to make his presence known. For now, Oryx is only a projection, but he is without question menacing, and more importantly he has a bone to pick with the Guardians. Oryx knows that the player has taken his son Crota down – see: the Crota’s End raid – and he is out for revenge.

After his brief reveal, Oryx then sends out his minions, the Taken, to give the player some trouble. As seen in the Destiny: The Taken King trailer, these Taken are essentially reskinned versions of original Destiny enemies, albeit with new attacks and slightly different animations. Psion's can multiply if left unchecked for too long and the Cabal Centurion's shields can shoot out energy blasts. There’s also a cool dissolve effect after defeating one of these enemies that’s unlike anything seen in Destiny thus far.

Fighting these enemies, including a mini-boss called the ‘Word of Oryx’, is fairly straight forward outside of learning to manage those new attacks, though. Aim for the head and try not to get overwhelmed. It's also worth mentioning that we had one of each weapon type to work with, but none offered anything special in the way of perks. Bungie is likely saving the bigger weapon and armor related reveals for a later date.

What made the experience slightly unique, however, was getting to mess around with the new Destiny subclasses: the Sunbreaker Titan, the Nightstalker Hunter, and the Stormcaller Warlock...

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Up Next: Playing Destiny's New Subclasses

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Playing the New Destiny Subclasses

By now, most fans should be familiar with the three new Destiny subclasses, but here’s a brief refresher:

  • The Sunbreaker Titan subclass is the solar variant and its super calls out a small solar hammer that is capable of dealing damage in both melee and at range.
  • The Nightstalker Hunter subclass reps the void element and its super triggers a bow and arrow shot that can strike a decent sized area (think the Voidwalker’s ‘Nova Bomb’ Super for reference).
  • The Stormcaller Warlock subclass wields lightning (arc) that at the press of the right trigger can travel between several enemies, filling them with arc energy.

Each of the classes were only about halfway leveled, so it was hard to glean how powerful they can become. Even so, it was very clear that Bungie is trying to add some more variety to the Guardian classes by giving players something a little different.

These classes are also working to fill roles that were missing for the six Year 1 classes by giving players. For example, the Titan was always in need of a sustained offensive super that could rival the likes of the Bladedancer and Sunsinger, while the Hunter will surely benefit from a super that’s more focused on AOE. Even on a more basic level, having the option of each elemental damage should take away each class' handicap during Nightfall Strikes and any other future experiences that feature elemental burn modifiers. We can also see all three of these classes being formidable choices for the Crucible, but it’s hard to say if any are over or underpowered right now.

There’s obviously more to the three subclasses than just the Supers, but that appeared to be the main focus of the demo aside from the story teases. There were two of the three grenade types available for each of the subclasses, and they do add new wrinkles to combat encounters. Some felt like repeats of other types of grenades, but the Sunbreaker’s Matchstick grenade, which sends a trail of flames forward at impact, could prove really useful.

All in all, the new subclasses did what they were supposed to do: offer another way to handle enemies and new skills to master. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Hunter, Titan, or Warlock; it looks like all three classes are getting some cool new toys to play with.

Final Destiny: The Taken King Impressions

There may have been tons of growing pains, but if nothing else the Destiny: Taken King E3 2015 demo proved that Bungie has learned a lot in the year since the Destiny first look Alpha. Where that 2014 test experience turned a lot of people on to Destiny, many would argue that it also offered promises that the main game couldn’t keep.

So rather than repeat those mistakes again, Bungie wanted to keep the Destiny: The Taken King demo short and sweet; give players a small taste of the new content, but keep the big picture shrouded in mystery for the time being. The new subclasses were fun to mess around with, and Oryx looks like a genuinely formidable antagonist, but we couldn’t help but wish his minions were more than just glorified reskins. Aside from that, the cinematic structure to the mission (no spoilers) and the promise of new content is sure to keep fans going intrigued for the foreseeable future.

Destiny: The Taken King releases September 15, 2015 for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.