Destiny is quite a big selling game for Bungie, and the recent release of its second expansion pack, House of Wolves, will insure that it continues to sell. There has been a lot of talk about the House of Wolves download content (DLC) update, as well as a possibility of a Destiny 2 release date.
According to the Destiny the Game website, The Destiny: House of Wolves Expansion pack contains “a wealth of weapons, armor, and gear to earn in new story missions, three new competitive multiplayer maps, and a new cooperative Strike”. There is also a new competitive elimination mode in the Crucible and an all-new arena activity, the Prison of Elders.
The new weapons, armor and gear can increase your Guardian’s power, including Fallen and Osiris-themed collections. The story missions include one where the Queen of the Awoken calling upon them to hunt down the House of Wolves. Players can meet with the Queen’s emissaries at the Vestian Outpost in the Reef.
Then there is the Trials of Osiris, as three-player Guardian Fireteams face one another in an Elimination-style combat. There is also a new Crucible Map known as Timekeeper, a mysterious clockwork-like structure built by the Vex centuries ago, this is an exclusive Sony Playstation map, set in a Martian wasteland for some serious combat.
Then there is the new Strike, the Shadow Thief. This has a lot of story that is very buried in the Destiny mythos, as does the Prison of Elders.
Some recent news has appeared as Destiny fans took Bungie’s toughest House of Wolves challenge and “smashed it in a level 35 spree”. According to Express, a team of hardcore fans wanted to go through the Prison of Elders, and a team led by Sunshadowr, who completed the Crota’s End raid on his own without even firing a bullet, took on the level 35 challenge while still at the rank of Level 33. It took several tries, but he managed to kill the final boss, but only to be killed himself and ending this run in a wipe.
Destiny publisher Activision has stated that another Destiny-related release for this fall. Chances are, it will probably be another expansion pack, six months after the release of House of Wolves would be good timing for an update.
It might be too soon to talk about Destiny 2, but we have heard a lot about it. Venture Capital Post confirms that the next installment of the game is currently underway, from a statement from Activtion's CEO Eric Hirshberg. Gamespot also reported in November of last year that Activation Publishing has a ten-year plan for the game's storyline. This means that a Destiny 2, or whatever they will call it, is just one step in a massive storyline that has a long-term plan. An Activation representative still don't have anything to respond as far as the storyline is concerned, but the Latino Post states that this is underway.
Gamespot has reported that Destiny has about 9.5 million registered users, and that users of the game often play the game an average of more than three hours per day. The game is an MMO (massively multiplayer online) type, but the company is avoiding that term but accepts the description of "shared-world shooter". I suppose the only thing left to do is to franchise this even more, and I can't help if there are plans to have a Destiny television series like Halo plans to have.
David Dague has also stated months ago that players have a relationship with their characters, and the "carry-over" feature will help nurture that. Dague has also seen the concept art for the sequel and the new exotic weapons, and is pretty optimistic of the sequel. As far as I can remember, they "carry-over" feature is a request from fans, and I am not certain if there is any other video game franchise that does this kind of character development. Not only will this sequel offer some new and exotic weapons, but the player will be able to take their Guardian character with all his or her equipment, and carry it over to Destiny 2.
So, the House of Wolves is going strong, and one can only hope that it will not have any bugs associated with it. As for Destiny 2, it will be coming...soon. Yes, it will probably be a while, but another expansion pack is sure to arrive in the fall. Considering that there is a plan to carry over Destiny characters into its sequel, I have to wonder if a sequel is really needed. Can’t they just keep doing DLC?
