Dedicated Destiny players pre-ordered The Dark Below expansion, and have been playing it for a week. They’ll already have their own firsthand opinion of it. And it’s likely a bad one, because as you may know, the Internet hates The Dark Below. In part my review is a rebuttal to some criticism from these dedicated players. But more, this review is for casual observers who have only heard the Internet’s collective outrage. I’m here not as a Destiny apologist, but to even out the debate.
Destiny arrived with mixed reviews. IGN‘s Vince Ingenito gave it a 7.8/10, citing many underdeveloped facets. Our own Nathan Stevens gave it a decidedly more positive 9.6/10, admitting flaws but highlighting the overall experience. I’m inclined to slide more toward Nathan than Vince. I agree with Vince that there is much unrealized potential in Destiny: It has a lackluster RPG system with largely-undifferentiated classes. The story is extraordinarily thin. The content is relatively sparse and quickly becomes repetitive.
With that said, I haven’t stopped playing. Since Destiny released on September 9, I’ve logged 440 total hours across 3 characters. Why? Because for all its flaws, Destiny offers a unique gaming experience. It’s true that the game pulls from many different genres and doesn’t fully develop all those components. But at its core, Destiny is a loot game. And it develops its loot system to perfection. Yes, there’s a lot of grinding, as with most loot-driven RPGs. But Destiny‘s system of daily bounties, weekly activities, and cooperative raids make it probably the most addictive game I’ve ever played.
For the past 3 months, I’ve felt like I needed to at least play for an hour every day to do a few bounties. And more often than not, logging in for a few bounties turned into playing for a few hours. But more importantly, Destiny created a community of gamers to collectively share its admittedly tedious tasks.
I have a group of friends, 5 of us total, who have played videogames together every Tuesday night for the past 5 years. And for 4 years and 9 months, pretty much the only games we could play together began with Call of Duty and ended with some subtitle about warfare or spec ops. Destiny‘s expansion beyond the standard 4-player co-op signaled a fresh new gaming experience we could share.
Of course, 6-player co-op isn’t much larger than 4. And much of Destiny‘s content is built around 3-player fireteams. But my point is that the multiplayer experience of Destiny doesn’t lie in a competitive multiplayer filled with trolls. It lies in ‘dating sites’ to find raid partners. And in rushing to help 2 strangers defend a warsat. And in spending 30 minutes running around the moon with a stranger, pointing to chests and helium coils. And in kicking that big purple ball around the Tower. And in starting dance circles. No matter what you’re doing or whom you’re playing with, Destiny always feels like a game you’re playing with friends.
Six paragraphs in, and I haven’t said anything about The Dark Below. That’s because it’s important to understand Destiny–its strengths and its weaknesses–before I offer my opinion on how TDB affects the game. As I mentioned, the consensus is that at the least Bungie botched this expansion, and perhaps ruined the entire game. Most of the Internet’s collective outrage revolves around changes to the best loot. They updated how exotic armor and weapons work, making new exotics more powerful and providing a vendor system to upgrade old exotics.
Forbes‘ Paul Tassi has taken issue with this upgrade system, saying that it’s too expensive and too dependent on the randomness of weekend-only vendor Xur. And Polygon‘s Daniel Friedman says that the higher-level expansion gear disrespects the effort players put into upgrading their old gear, and upgrading the new gear requires too much. These have been the primary criticisms, and they are certainly valid. But to offer some counterpoints, I would say:
Upgrading exotics via Xur is a little expensive, and certainly dependent on his random offerings. But it can’t be a coincidence that the first weekend of the expansion he offered the most popular guns (Ice Breaker and Suros Regime) for upgrade. And these are exotic items. They’re supposed to be the rarest of the rare. You shouldn’t be able to get them on demand. There was randomness involved when you got them the first time, and there should be randomness involved in getting the upgraded versions.
For those lamenting that their old exotics are suddenly underpowered: They’re not. Your old exotics were meant to fight up to level-30 missions. Until the hard-mode Crota’s End raid releases in January, level 30 is still the highest level for any activity in the game. As far as getting to level 32 (the new max), radiant upgrade materials aren’t quite as rare as Friedman makes them sound. The raid isn’t the only way to get radiant materials. They can also be purchased from Eris in the Tower. But again, you shouldn’t expect to be at max level instantly. You weren’t able to play the Vault of Glass raid on the day Destiny released. You had to work to get to level 26. Likewise, you should expect to have to work a little to get a character to level 32 for hard-mode Crota’s End.
Friedman’s point about new gear disrespecting prior work is the most salient. Before TDB released, I felt the same way. But after playing TDB for a week, I feel exactly the opposite. TDB expansion content is much more rewarding than the original title. I’m not sure exactly how many hours I’ve played in the past week, but I probably had over 400 hours with the original game. I had completed the level-28 raid over a dozen times. But I had only gotten a total of 3 pieces of raid armor across all 3 characters. For all my hours, I was nowhere close to level 30 with any character.
But in less than a week with TDB, I have one character at level 31, another at 30-almost-31, and the third has all the right armor to be level 31. I achieved this through a combination of purchases from vendors in the Tower, and engram drops in the new level-26 strike playlist (Vanguard Roc). This TDB level-26 strike has the most frequent engram drops of any activity in Destiny since the loot cave. Additionally, getting to level 32 will be easier because Bungie has increased your likelihood of getting balanced drops from the Crota’s End raid. And, there’s a raid chest (which can contain radiant materials and exotic items) that you can get to without even fighting any enemies. So even if you’re below level 28, you can still get to a raid chest.
My experience with TDB for the past week has been that while having my gear become somewhat obsolete is inconvenient, there are more than enough opportunities for loot in the DLC content. And moreover, Bungie has made it possible even for people who don’t purchase TDB to get to level 31. It’s unfair that people without the DLC won’t be able to participate in the weekly strike when it’s part of the DLC. I think all players should be able to do a weekly strike every week, whether they have TDB or not, because the weekly strike is one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of the game. But the tradeoff here is that Bungie has opened up new paths to level 31 (as far as I can tell, non-DLC players can buy level-31 armor from the faction vendors), ushering players without the DLC toward the Vault of Glass raid. And because the raids remain the pinnacle of the Destiny experience, giving more players access to raiding is certainly a welcome addition.
Here’s what you get with The Dark Below:
- 3 new competitive multiplayer (PvP) arenas
- a new cooperative strike (plus another new strike as a PS4 exclusive)
- a new level-26 strike playlist (Vanguard Roc)
- 3 new story missions
- the new Crota’s End raid
- lots of new weapons and armor, including access to legendary gear from Vanguard and Crucible vendors in the Tower and exotic gear from Xur
All in all, I understand the fierce criticism accompanying The Dark Below. Bungie did not handle the expansion release and its accompanying updates with the most tact. But Bungie has shown that it’s listening to the community, and has in the past acted to fix aspects of the game that weren’t working as intended (e.g., Iron Banner). I think it’s important to view Destiny as an evolving experience, not simply a static game. This can imbue the game with some unpredictability, lest they make fixes you weren’t expecting. (I, for example, am not dismantling any of my raid gear, just in case they buff it in the future.) But Bungie has shown that they’re not too proud to fix aspects of the game that truly aren’t working.
As such, I don’t think The Dark Below merits the animosity that the Internet has unleashed upon it. For dedicated players who have been grinding through Destiny for 3 months, grinding a little more for upgraded weapons and armor shouldn’t be much of a burden. More importantly, TDB seems to have made high-level loot easier to access for both players who buy and those who don’t buy the expansion. This makes the game’s most satisfying activities more accessible, even to those who don’t have hundreds of hours to play. And if it costs me a little more grinding to help a few more people play my favorite game of the year, I’m perfectly content with that tradeoff.