Destiny lead designer Gavin Irby reveals the King's Fall Raid Hard Mode will challenge players with more than just tougher enemies, but will feature new mechanics.

As Destiny players prepare for the release of the game’s King’s Fall raid Hard Mode tomorrow, Bungie has revealed some information about the new mode that will excite and challenge players. Rather than just make the enemies tougher in the raid’s Hard Mode, the team at Bungie are shaking things up and introducing new mechanics.

In the most recent Destiny weekly update, lead designer Gavin Irby shared his vision for King’s Fall Raid Hard Mode, and what players can expect. According to Irby:

“For the mechanics themselves, we shied away from simply increasing sandbox difficulty (not that it won't be harder). You've had time to hone your strategies and develop a rhythm. Some of you might even be able to do it backwards, blindfolded, or upside-down. Hard Mode is going to upset that rhythm. We're going to give you one more plate to spin, and make you think on your feet.”

Many Destiny players will undoubtedly be excited by the opportunity to face not only a tougher Oryx and crew, but also new mechanics that will throw off the team’s rhythm. Sure, facing harder enemies forces fireteams to think a little differently about the raid, but the idea of new mechanics takes that to a whole new level.

Unfortunately, Irby didn’t provide any more details beyond the above, since he didn’t want to reveal too much before players give the raid’s Hard Mode a try. So at the moment, players can only speculate about what will be different in Hard Mode. Hopefully, the new mechanics will be enough to make Hard Mode feel fresh and exciting, and less like a slightly more difficult iteration of Normal.

Interestingly, instead of building Destiny’s King’s Fall Raid Normal Mode first, then tacking on greater difficulty for Hard Mode, Bungie started with Hard and subtracted for Normal. Irby shared his perspective on Bungie’s process:

“[We] followed a subtractive approach by building the mechanics early on. For a long time, we play-tested internally in Hard Mode, treating it as the default experience. Once we were satisfied, we removed them to arrive at the Raid you have already played.”

It’ll be interesting to see the new mechanics in action and just how challenging the King’s Fall Raid Hard Mode is. And eventually, we're sure players will try to take on Oryx with fewer than six players in the new mode.

What do you think about Irby’s comments on Destiny's King's Fall Raid Hard Mode? Will you be attempting the new mode this weekend? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Bungie