In Rise of Iron’s opening cutscene, we learn that Felwinter, Jolder and the rest of the Iron Lords died fighting off a self-replicating terraforming technology called SIVA that malfunctioned and turned into a cyber-plague. Sure, I’d love to meet the guy it’s named after. I’ve been killed by a gun called “Felwinter’s Lie” a hundred times. It centers on the Iron Lords, a group of ancient warriors best known for having their names attached to the Iron Banner weapons that PvP-minded Destiny players have been using for the past two years. The undercooked narrative spans five missions and barely has time to make any sense before it abruptly concludes. It took me just one hour to wolf down the new story missions. It consists of a brief new story campaign, a new patrol zone, a new competitive mode, a few new multiplayer maps, a couple of new or remixed cooperative strikes, and a new six-player raid. Rise of Iron is Destiny’s last substantive expansion for the foreseeable future, until an overhauled Destiny 2 launches in late 2017 or beyond. This is how Destiny has been since it came out. Where did that time go? How did I do that? How many times have I replayed the same levels, the same bosses, the same maps? How can I still feel like I’m getting something out of my relationship with this oiled, mathematical mechanism? I have played more than a thousand hours of this game.
Zoom all the way out, and you’ll notice the ways the game has crept into your life. You feel yourself being fed through the machine. Your routines become herd-like and predictable. Leveling up is an exercise in micromanagement and inevitability. Daily and weekly challenges become a calming to-do list. Zoom further out, and things become still more predictable. Maybe he would’ve been better off in the Prison of Elders. He cries out and vanishes in a tower of flame. I’ve probably killed the Archon Priest a hundred or more times, and those victories have blurred together at at this point. You’ll fight the same boss six more times in the next few days, and you’ll get similar loot each time. The boss will fall, and some loot will drop. Zoom out, and things feel thinner and more repetitive. A strong team strategy could lead to a gratifying, total victory. A small mistake could call for an act of reckless heroism. In a given ten-minute boss fight, any number of exciting things could happen.
ĭestiny remains unpredictable and thrilling in the moment, and becomes increasingly predictable the farther you zoom out. Bungie’s art direction and sound design are so consistently good it’s easy to forget how much work goes into them. The control scheme and ever-elusive “game feel” are tuned to near perfection. Destiny still has some of the best first-person shooting of any console game. Throughout the many sea changes of the past couple of years, a few things have remained constant. Here we are, one year later, with Rise of Iron. I played and played until finally, in late 2015, I burned out. I’ve written thousands of words across dozens of reviews, interviews, and critical essays. I’ve played every mission and map and mode countless times, stopping and stalling and restarting and quitting in frustration.
#Destiny patrol the plaguelands anomaly full
I’ve devoted full weeks in aggregate to raiding and striking and grinding along with my core cadre of friendly fellow players. I have been playing Destiny diligently since it launched in fall of 2014. I account for more than half those hours on my own. Collectively, our staff has played over 2,000 hours. Destiny is a first-person action game in which players fly around the solar system fighting with aliens, evil cyborgs, and occasionally each other. A brief history for those who are new to Kotaku and our on-again, off-again obsession with this game.
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