With the new expansion for Destiny, The Dark Below, Bungie is adding new multiplayer arenas, a new Raid, a new Strike, new story quests and missions, and more.
If you were disappointed by the story featured in the main Destiny game, Bungie President Harold Ryan explained to Eurogamer that they’re changing things up in The Dark Below:
The structure of the story in this expansion is different than the story in the core game. Looking at how the story plays and how we wanted to repackage it and reacting to fan feedback, we’re taking a different approach to the story in this one. So it’s going to be driven in a very interesting way for players, as you meet with Eris in the Tower and follow her guidance through the story.
Inspired by the exotic quests (the Thorn quest was given as an example), Ryan continued by saying The Dark Below story missions will “feel much more emergent and interactive in the world as you play through and unlock the story of Eris.” As well, “it’s going to feel much more loot driven and story driven in that it’s going to feel faster-paced with more action as you go through it, and with exposition. The important thing about Eris is, this story is going to be her story, and she’s going to send you on a mission that’s a lot of fun.”
Looking at the PvP side of things in The Dark Below, Ryan said the new Skyshock map is a vehicle map, which will give them “enough vehicle maps to start working on more interesting vehicle focused game types and hoppers in the future.” However, he couldn’t confirm any new vehicles, just adding, “We’re not talking about new vehicles.”
As for what isn’t inside The Dark Below, Ryan confirmed, “You’re not going to a new planet or a new destination. But you will find many new experiences in existing ones.” Asked if we might get a new planet in the second Destiny expansion, House of Wolves, he said, “House of Wolves is not something we’re ready to talk about at this point. But we certainly understand the desire for new destinations.” When the Mercury multiplayer map was brought up, Ryan simply teased, “Yeah, Mercury would be a fun place for sure.”
In terms of new Crucible modes within The Dark Below, Ryan said there’s “nothing we’re confirming at this point.” They are “testing a bunch of ideas and concepts that relate to the game modes for the Crucible” right now, and the Crucible will “evolve week by week, all through the holidays, including when The Dark Below goes live.”
Switching gears to the previously leaked DLC for Destiny, Ryan revealed that the reason some of the content is on-disc is because they don’t want to overwhelm people with downloads:
There’s a bunch of shared-world content we’ve shipped on the disc specifically to limit download sizes for people. Both inside the US and all over the world, how much you download on your local home internet connection can be a problem, and even how much storage space it takes up on your console.So we share a lot of assets across all the activities in the game. When people get into areas that aren’t unlocked right now, they’re seeing pieces we built and shipped ahead of time, but they’re by no means the finished experiences or even the finished content.
If you were thinking parts of The Dark Below were cut from the original game to be released as DLC, Ryan said, “No. Eris and her story were built over the last three months, long after the game was done. For example, for The Dark Below, that included the activities and the bosses and all of the polish of it.” In fact, Bungie “literally just finished putting together The Dark Below.”
With a “sizeable team” being built to work on the live game, Ryan says Bungie is constantly making changes to Destiny based on feedback to help improve balance, mechanical changes, matchmaking times, and latency. Although he couldn’t go into detail on many of the gameplay changes due to how they may evolve in testing, Ryan did mention they have “a bunch planned.”
[Source: Eurogamer]
