Destiny: The Taken King is a major expansion for Bungie's first-person shooter, Destiny. Released on September 15, 2015, as the third expansion of Destiny, it revolves around Oryx, The Taken King and his plot for revenge after players slew his son Crota in Destinys first downloadable content (DLC) pack, The Dark Below. Players must face the "Taken", Oryx's army of corrupted aliens forced to fight for him. The Taken King adds content across the game, including new missions, a Player versus Environment location, Player versus Player maps, player gear, weaponry, and a new raid. Upon the expansion's release, retailers also issued Destiny: The Taken King Legendary Edition which includes Destiny (base game), The Taken King, and the previous two expansions, The Dark Below and House of Wolves.
Two days after its release, Sony announced that the game broke the record for the most downloaded day-one game in PlayStation history, in terms of both total players and peak online concurrency. Its release coincided with patch version 2.0 for Destiny, which made fundamental changes to the core functionality for all players to mark the start of "Year Two" of its lifecycle, including a new quest system and revisions to the game's leveling system among others. Through the development of The Taken King, Bungie sought to address criticisms from players and critics; many changes to the game were direct responses to this.
The Taken King and its associated patch received positive critical reception, with reviewers citing the more coherent storyline of the content contained within, as well as other changes across Destiny as a whole that improved its overall systems and gameplay mechanics.
Gameplay
In comparison to the previous two expansions of Destiny, The Taken King features a "full campaign", three new multiplayer "strike" missions, and seven new Crucible maps. Three new Crucible modes were also added, "Rift"—a capture the flag-like mode, "Mayhem"—which greatly lowers cooldown times for abilities, and "Zone Control"—a modified version of Control where points are awarded only for capturing and maintaining control of zones.
The expansion introduces a new faction of enemies, the titular Taken—the slaves of Oryx. Taken enemies are variations of the existing enemies seen in other parts of the game as a whole, but have a darker, undead-like appearance, and have new abilities and attacks. The Dreadnaught, a Hive ship situated within the rings of Saturn, serves as a new playable environment in The Taken King; Bungie described the location as being "an inscrutable loot-filled fortress", emphasizing secret treasures and bosses contained within. At the Dreadnaught's Court of Oryx, players can use special runes to summon enemies for public battles; defeating its enemies requires the use of distinct strategies. All participants in Court of Oryx battles receive rewards, but the player who initiated the battle will receive higher-valued rewards. The runes correspond to three difficulty levels, ranging from easier fights to "just below Nightfall". A new raid mission, "King's Fall", was opened on September 18, 2015 at its lower difficulty; the hard version became available on October 23, 2015. Beginning December 1, 2015, the raid also contains a weekly bonus challenge, in which defeating one of the bosses in a specific, specified manner will yield additional rewards.
Each of the three character classes feature a new, third sub-class. Each focuses on an element that had not been represented among each class's preexisting sub-classes, and features a new super ability. The Hunter class's new Void-based sub-class "Nightstalker" includes a bow-like super known as the "Shadowshot" that tethers enemies together, limiting movement and preventing enemies from using abilities for a short time. The Titan's "Sunbreaker" sub-class features a solar-based super, the "Hammer of Sol", creating a flaming hammer that can be thrown at enemies, or used for close-quarters combat. The Warlock's new sub-class, the arc-based "Stormcaller" includes the super "Stormtrance", which produces lightning bolts that chains between enemies.
The new "Legendary Mark" currency replaces Vanguard and Crucible marks, and are shared across all of a user's characters. Legendary Marks can be used to re-purchase exotic items that had already been found by a user, along with upgraded versions of some pre-existing exotics, through the new "Exotic Blueprints" system (although this also requires Exotic shards), and engrams that are guaranteed to contain a legendary weapon. Upgrades for Year Two items no longer increase their statistics; instead, Legendary gear can be "infused" with higher-levelled Year 2 items of the same type to improve their stats.
Patch changes Major changes were made to the core gameplay of Destiny as part of the version 2.0 patch released on September 8, 2015; some of these changes are available to all users, regardless of whether they own The Taken King. The voice of the player's Ghost, Peter Dinklage, was replaced by Nolan North; all of Dinklage's existing Ghost dialogue from Year One was retroactively replaced with new versions recorded by North. A new "Progress" tab was added to the user menu, which displays character progression through storylines—which have been reworked to utilize a new "Quest" system, as well as currently active bounties and faction reputation. Up to four active bounties and quests can be pinned to be displayed on the bottom-right of the screen when Nav Mode is used. Players can turn in quests and bounties at any time, and up to 32 quests and 16 bounties can be stored in their inventory. All existing storylines were adapted to work under this new system. New "Collections" interfaces allow players to track the exotic items, emblems, shaders, emotes, sparrows, and ships that they have found, and view clues for obtaining those they do not currently possess.
Prior to The Taken King, experience points were only used to reach up to character level 20, but additional levels (up to 34 with the previous DLC, House of Wolves) could be reached by equipping stronger armor containing "Light" attributes. This was criticized because it limited the customization options of the players. These "light levels" have been removed, with experience-based leveling used across the entire game, up to level 40 for owners of The Taken King. A separate "Light" statistic is determined by averaging the strength and power of the character's equipped gear. Newer weapons and some Year One exotics are capable of higher damage than existing Year One weapons; damage values on all existing weapons were scaled down numerically from 365 to 170, with higher values representing weapons that are more powerful than those from Year One. The highest obtainable light level was 320; the April Update increased it to 335. but then later it was increased to 400.
Class items, newly introduced Ghost shells for all players, and Artifacts are able to provide additional boosts to a player's abilities. The process of earning reputation from other factions has changed; previously, players were required to equip a specific item which would exclusively divert all reputation gains to the corresponding faction. Instead, players now purchase a "faction badge", which awards reputation for the chosen faction in addition to standard Vanguard or Crucible reputation. Players can change their faction once per-week. The Gunsmith NPC now offers reputation for the completion of weapon field testing bounties, which allow the ability to purchase a weekly Legendary weapon from his "Foundry Orders". A mercy rule and matchmaking improvements were added to the Crucible. Players' vaults can now also hold up to 72 armor pieces and 72 weapons.
As well, other changes were made across Destiny, including weapon and perk balancing, and minor user interface changes.
Plot
The Taken King focuses on Oryx whose son Crota was the antagonist of Destinys first DLC, The Dark Below. In revenge for the Guardians' defeat of Crota nearly a year prior, Oryx sent his Taken, Hive warriors altered by the Darkness, throughout the solar system and they subsequently converted many Vex, Cabal, Fallen, and other Hive to become Taken as well. This allowed him to acquire an overwhelming army to enact his vengeance.
The story begins with Oryx bringing his Dreadnaught and armada to the Solar System, where the Awoken, led by Queen Mara Sov, ambush him. A struggle ensues and the Awoken appear to have the upper hand, however, this ends with the Awoken fleet being destroyed and the apparent deaths of Queen Mara Sov and Prince Uldren Sov. However, much of Oryx's fleet is also destroyed, stalling his advance. The destruction of the Awoken fleet disturbs Eris Morn, a former Guardian who lost her fireteam at the hands of Oryx's son. With the guidance of Ghost, the Guardian is sent to investigate a Cabal distress signal on Phobos, but is ambushed and forced to evacuate, where it is revealed to the Guardian that Oryx has corrupted the Cabal in order to make his Taken army. In the Last City, the Vanguard discuss the attack and the Awoken, until Eris Morn interrupts and tells the Vanguard of Oryx's intentions. The Guardian is then sent to obtain a new power to combat this new enemy: Titans are sent to Mercury to find a rogue clan of Titans known as the Sunbreakers; Warlocks must perform a Stormcaller ritual within a lightning storm on Mars; Hunters must find Cayde-6's old friend named Tevis, a Nightstalker Hunter, in the Black Garden.
Cayde-6 then sends the Guardian to search his secret stash in the Russian Cosmodrome for a stealth drive to infiltrate Oryx's ship with. He convinces the Tower's shipwright, Amanda Holliday, to attach it to Eris's ship, as it has the scent of the Hive from her many years spent on the Moon. The Guardian uses Eris's modified ship to attempt to infiltrate the Dreadnaught, but is spotted. The Dreadnaught's main weapon is fired, destroying Eris's ship. Narrowly escaping death by teleporting out of the ship and onto the Dreadnaught, the Guardian and Ghost explores and disables the weapon. The Guardian also discovers that the Cabal have also boarded the Dreadnaught by ramming one of their warships into it and plan to destroy the ship. In order to reach Oryx, the Guardian must steal what remains of Crota's soul from his tomb on the Moon so that they can pass through a portal on the Dreadnaught called a Rupture. The Guardian is able to get cloaking tech from the Warmind Rasputin to sneak into Crota's tomb, and successfully recovers Crota's soul with help from Eris when the cloaking tech fails. The Guardian infiltrates the Dreadnaught and is able to pass through the Rupture, and after fighting Oryx's guards, the Guardian reaches Oryx. After defeating him, Oryx draws the Light that was gathered in his sword and vanishes. The mid-credits scene shows Eris Morn touching Oryx's sword and then watches it crumble, taking the crystal that was inside of it.