Destiny: Rise of Iron is not a release that was just thrown out there in some last minute death-throw for Bungie to make one last bit of money on its Destiny fans before turning their entire attention to the next installment of the game. It could have been that, but it wasn’t. Rather, Destiny: Rise of Iron is a release that brings more action, more missions, more quests, more weapons/equipment/ships/etc. and a raid that shouldn’t be taken lightly by any Guardian out there. In addition, the Bungie team has gotten a bit more creative with its side quests, which not only expands the universe, but plays off the massive multiplayer online (MMO) elements that exist within the machine that is Destiny. In short, there’s a lot to love about this expansion and not much to gripe about.
Let’s get this started.
The story revolves around one of the first group of guardians called the Iron Lords, who helped to protect the earth against alien forces for a large number of years. They were a strong group until they came face-to-face with a technological plague called Siva, which pretty much wiped the entire group out, sans Lord Saladin, our main protagonist that leads the Rise of Iron expansion. Years later, Saladin is now in desperate need to stop the Fallen from acquiring more Siva, which they discovered. The Fallen have figured out a way to equip and improve their own bodies and weapons with the Siva material, thus making them more than formidable opponents. The story revolves around stopping the Fallen and eliminating the Siva.
Not a bad story for an expansion. Not quite as cool as The Taken King story, but definitely good.
Anyway, story aside, the basic premise that every Destiny expansion has carried with it still exists within Destiny: Rise of Iron. Give the player more missions, some quests, new material and then challenge them with a new raid (Wrath of the Machine). That isn’t anything new when it comes to Destiny gameplay design. Having said that, since the release of The Taken King, Bungie seems to have gotten a few things more balanced, such as mission rewards for example. Prior to The Taken King, things like that were frustratingly against the favor of the gamer when they completed a level, challenge, mission or whatnot. There were times where you could do a raid or a mission on hard, but end up with nothing more than evenly leveled weapons/equipment or lower crap. The Taken King changed that, balanced it out a bit, shifting towards more of a pro-player reward construct, but didn’t completely make the balance last.
The balance seems to be tipping a bit more in the player’s favor in Rise of Iron. The more missions and quests completed, the more the game seems to want to reward players. I’m not sure what the change of algorithm was with this release, but it definitely creates more motivation to keep playing the game, while not minding so much of the repeat material. For example, you will see a lot of legendary engram drops during events (massively scaled attacks that have time limits on them) and during quests. The enemies, while harder at times, will reap more rewards. That’s always a good thing when it comes to keeping players interested in the content. Rise of Iron exceeds at this.
Now, with that said, I do have an issue with the reward system during the new Crucible match called Supremacy. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s basically like Call of Duty’s Kill Confirm PvP game. In Supremacy, you take down a Guardian and acquire a cube they drop in celebration of their dead body. If you get killed, people can obtain yours, which equals out to points. If you snag your own team’s cubes, meaning the ones they drop when they die, then you deny the cube to the opposing team. Again, just like Kill Confirm (which is fine, as it is fun). There was a point last week where I was first place four times in a row and each time I would get either lower level equipment I couldn’t use or motes of light (these help to upgrade existing equipment, but are hardly things to celebrate after a hard day’s work). I wouldn’t complain too much, but the lower level players on my team would get the 350+ equipment for doing a worse job, which is just baffling and a bit upsetting. My point is that the Crucible matches seem to still have an imbalanced reward system. Better players that help out their team should be rewarded with better items. It’s really that simple. It honestly just doesn’t make sense to me. Of course, Bungie, while you’re at it, can you tone down that shotgun shit in PvP, too? I can shoot someone in the head 10 times with an auto rifle and not kill them, but when one person shoots me with a shotgun I’m done? No. Tone it down! But, if you can’t, please just reward me better for my efforts.
Other than online play, Rise of Iron provides a good experience with receiving rewards.
Directly related, another neat addition to the Destiny game through Rise of Iron that will guide you and give you constant updates of your progress, thus motivating you to keep pushing forward when you start repeating things, is the addition of Record Books. These books are filled with certain achievements that the game wants you to make. Each achievement comes with a specific amount of XP, depending on difficulty, which equals out to record book leveling and nice rewards, though some can be understated once you get to 350. For example, there is a certain event in one of the new levels in Rise of Iron called Archon Forge, which is an event that is activated by a Siva material in the game. You put in Siva material collected from dead enemies and you can activate the event. Once you activate the event, there are a shit ton of enemies that start attacking and should you get through the event a mark is added in the record book. You have to complete 20 of these events to complete the record book challenge, thus leveling you up in the record books and rewarding you for the efforts (mostly armor, weapons and such). Not all record book challenges are that extensive or difficult, as most vary. Regardless, the inclusion of the record book is a neat item that adds more motivation to your Guardian’s plight, as well as extended interest to the overall package.
As for rewards, there are plenty to be had in the game. There are a bevy of new weapons in the game, some old familiars as well old familiars that have been beefed up a few light levels (well, more than a few). The first few big quests in the game revolve around acquiring weapons. The obvious big one in this release is a new Gjallarhorn, which has been improved immensely. The quest for the Gjallarhorn spans about 5+ missions in the game that lead to parts and ultimately lead to a huge cluster-fight that ends with the Gjallarhorn’s construction and testing (that’s a fun end quest, enjoy it).
The other weapon is the Khvostov 7G-0X, which is an exotic gun forged from a previous firearm in the Destiny universe. That quest is long and requires a lot of searching. You have to find the blueprint for the gun, then you have to locate all the parts to build it. The parts, unlike the Gjallarhorn, are spread out in random places. The gun is worth the effort, but unless you’re cheating via YouTube, it’s going to be tough as nails to find.
Anyway, there are a bevy of other weapons to acquire in the game and, as I said above, the balance in the game is so good that you will run into a variety of good weapons throughout the entire experience due to your own successful efforts. Again, that balance is pretty much everything when it comes to weapons. The same can be said about the armor as well. There are plenty of Rise of Iron armor pieces to go around and upgrading your gear is going to be a constant when you play the game, as you push your way to 370+ light level. There is an arc in the reward system at some point that starts to stall good rewards, but it doesn’t stop dead in its tracks early on. Kudos to Bungie for this.
Before we move on to other topics, one of the new items in the game, which plays a role in a lot of quests, events and accomplishments, is a fiery axe. The axe, which you’ll find early in the game in one of the more intense quests, is a temporary item (as of right now) that will take out pretty much any level of enemy with a few swipes. The caveat with the weapon is location and how long you can have it. The axe is only available in certain areas. For example, one of the areas that you’ll find it mostly in is an area blocked off by multiple lasers (you can find them all over the Rise of Iron maps), which will kill you instantly, and that can be unlocked by using a Siva splicer key – acquired in one of the new areas of Rise of Iron called the plaguelands (huge area). Once unlocked, you can find an axe, and a powerful enemy waiting for you to take the axe, which you fight through to get rewards. Back to the axe, while it is in specific areas and currently unobtainable (I’m not finished with the game yet, so I’m not 100% sure that it’s completely unobtainable, though I haven’t seen anyone sporting it as a regular weapon), it’s a great addition to the gameplay that helps things out, especially during things like the Archon Forge.
As for its temporary status, the axe has a temperature gauge attached to it that slowly goes down over time. If you can find a forge flame to keep it lit, you’ll be golden, otherwise when the temperature hits zero the axe crumbles away. It’s sad to see, especially when you witness the power it brings. Again, it’s a cool addition to the gameplay and it’s yet another accomplishment in the record books. It will certainly save your butt when you play the Archon Forge (can’t express its importance enough in those events).
As for the quests and missions, there are a bunch added to the Rise of Iron. As stated previously, you can acquire new quests through accomplishments in the record books or you can accomplish them through assignments by Saladin and his group of Iron Lords lackies in the Iron Temple (the new Tower). You can also acquire them through Rise of Iron bounties, which are available through folks at the Iron Temple. I’ve been playing the game for the better part of two weeks and I can assure you that I haven’t hit a wall yet with quests. That’s not to say that if you hardcore the hell out of this game that the well won’t run dry quick, but if you’re a gamer like me that doesn’t have 7-10 hours a day dedicated to Destiny, then you should be fine when it comes to quest longevity.
Missions on the other hand are repeating and used solely to accomplish record book items, bounties and other wonderful achievements that sometimes equal out to good items. They are always around, as they were with every expansion for Destiny.
Now, quests and missions aside, the biggest accomplishment you can get in the game is completing the Wrath of Machines raid, which can only be opened after going through multiple quests, as well as leveling up your Guardian’s light. The raid, which honestly I’m still working on completing, is a beast, especially if you have the wrong light levels. A group of us spent about 3-4 hours in the raid two nights ago. The highest light level was a 362, while the lowest was 340. We made it past the first section of the raid, which involved a lengthy display of balanced fighting against ground forces, while coming together to concentrate on the main boss once those forces were wiped out (multiple times). The second part of the raid was a huge roadblock, though. It involved the shooting of Siva Fallen, throwing bombs, shooting television monitors (no joke) and then trying to take down the boss, all the while avoiding death by running into one of five rooms that only offered protection once (then they would be unavailable for protection). The time limit to take down the second boss was based on how many protection rooms were available at any given time. The light level, which is recommended 370, is basically not very flexible. I think that if you get at least someone between higher 350s and 370, then you’ll stand a chance. As it stood, even if we fought off enemies and got a pattern going, our low light levels weren’t doing enough damage to finish the second boss properly or quickly enough. All this rambling equals out to, gosh it’s tough for the unexperienced lower light leveled Guardians. It’s every bit of on par with previous raids in Destiny and is crown jewel of difficulty, if you’re not prepared for it properly.
Before this review is wrapped up, let me just mention that there are some additional side quests that haven’t reared their head before in Destiny family, at least not as expansive as previous side quests. One of the bigger, more interesting side quests of the bunch is the collection of Siva Clusters in the game. Spread around the new Rise of Iron, even spread into the raids, are Siva Clusters for players to find. These clusters, which are small red dots essentially, will equal out to something cool for the player (not telling, you shouldn’t google either). They can be found in the most random of places or the most damming of places. The random places are things like the back of monitors or in the corner under a set of stairs. The damming places are the top of a mountain in the Iron Temple, which will guarantee to frustrate the piss out of you. It will take you at least 15 minutes to climb the mountain to acquire the red dot. If you’re playing with a group of friends and you get there first, I recommend Twitch streaming the shit out of their misery (enjoy the video below).
{media load=media,id=4340,width=720,align=center,display=inline}
Anyway, dance moves aside, there are a lot of little side quests to go exploring, though I’m not sure that the Siva Cluster quest is going to get topped, especially when you realize where Bungie’s evil development team has put them.
So, what is my overall opinion of this game? Is it fun? Is it worth the extra money? I think you will clearly see the most effort and time was put into making Rise of Iron truly great. It’s difficult as hell at times, but doesn’t give you a reason to detour from playing missions, levels and quests over and over again. The hard Wrath of Machines raid will certainly keep you involved with it until you level up to a proper light. Anyway, it’s worth the dough and your time, especially if you’re a Destiny fan.
That said, onto the summary!
