Destiny: April Fools’ Day Prank Is an Epic Dance Party

Who wants to dance? Your Destiny character does, that’s who. As part of Bungie’s April Fools’ Day prank, your Destiny character is locked into a constant state of dancing on Bungie.net.

Visit the “Legend” tab on the website to see your character get down. It’s even funnier if you have multiple characters, as YouTube user moreuse shows us in the video above.

Does Bungie have a dedicated dance choreographer on staff? They must, because some of these moves are pretty excellent.

Destiny is just one of the many games celebrating April Fools’ Day today. Check out our roundup here to see what other games are doing to mark the occasion.

Destiny Share Will Bungie keep fans until House of Wolves

The House of Wolves was originally set to hit download markets in March, but was postponed by Bungie and has yet to be given a set release date.

An arrival window has been set between April 1 and June 30, which could mean the release could be set for this month.

However, Other leaks in the past year have suggested that House of Wolves could be released on May 19, and will feature an array of new missions, strikes and Crucible levels.

 

“All we ask is that you leave your mind open to the evolutions that are inevitable,” community manager David Dague wrote back in February.

“What you see here are very old ghosts from our pre-launch database.

“Aside from giving it a name, Bungie has yet to reveal the House of Wolves. That means that anything you know about it can change.”

The game’s last expansion, The Dark Below, launched on December 9 and a wait until May would certainly leave the title rather barren of new content for gamers.

“I’m glad Iron banner is coming but even what it offers isn’t really worth participating in if you are 32 already. I hope Bungie introduces something new soon.

“I don’t understand why they don’t just add all the story missions to the random strike generator, that would mix things up at least a little. Also a friendly fire option.”

Halo: The Master Chief Collection is another option for fans, now that the matchmaking problems seems to have been put to bed and multiplayer can be enjoyed to its fullest again.

Battlefield Hardline is another option, while GTA 5’s Online Heists could appear as a tempting prospect with those with enough friends and a lot of patience.

House of Wolves meanwhile is reportedly set to include:

  • New Awoken storyline with Raid
  • 3 new Crucible maps and a new Fallen Strike
  • a big range of new weapons, armour and gear

Switching games now for something like Call of Duty may appear to pricey for some gamers, and having put in so many hours into Destiny it would seem certain that the core support are set to stay for the wait.

One fan wrote: “As much as I would like it to come out last week if they take their time and do it right I will be Happy as long as it’s better then the Dark Below.”

Destiny Share May See The Return Of Queen’s Wrath Bounties

“Destiny” may be looking at new bounties in the future, specifically some new Queen’s Wrath Bounties. This is if new unearthed information via data mining is to be believed.

The new findings are courtesy of Redditor THConer. Inquisitr managed to spot the new findings, which hint at the possible return of the event once the “House of Wolves” arrives.

All of these should be taken with a grain of salt. As far as official promises go, Bungie has announced before that it will be dropping one more update before “House of Wolves” hits “Destiny.”

For now, developer Bungie has revealed the details, tweaks and changes that will be set for Inferno mode this week. The Inferno Clash will see some similarities with the Inferno Control mode.

There are 10 maps to be expected for Inferno Clash. These include The Anomaly, Firebase Delphi, Twilight Gap, Rusted Lands, Shores of Time, Bind Watch, Asylum, The Burning Shrine, The Cauldron and Pantheon.

The changes for the new Crucible have been lumped into four main areas of “Destiny.” The first is that there will be no trackers or radars involved when playing. In line with this, Bungie has also limited the Heavy crates per match to just one set. This matches the lack of Tracker for the mode.

As far as scoring is concerned, the Inferno mode will only be about getting kills. So even if players deliver good assists, it’s mostly to aid with teamwork more than anything else. On the topic of teamwork, Bungie Crucible Designer Jeremiah Pieschl also emphasised the importance of communication to push players more towards the winning side of the battle.

Bungie is already preparing a new bounty for “Destiny” players, to be held on April 1, 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Pacific Time for PS4 players. Unlike a couple of gaming April Fools’ pranks, the hunt and reward are real. Those who claim victory will receive a nameplate as pictured in the Bungie blog post here.

The battle will be against the Guardians of Destiny. The team will have two members of Bungie as players.

Nightfall and Heroic Strike Revealed: Punch Sekrion

Sekrion is your main target but as is the case with Nightfall missions, several modifiers are in effect.

These include Angry (enemies don’t flinch), Epic (heavily shielded and plentiful enemies), Juggler (no ammo for your currently equipped weapon), Void Burn (void damage is greatly increased and this works for both you and your enemies) and Nightfall (return to orbit once your entire team dies in a Darkness Zone).

The weekly refresh for Bungie’s Destiny has come and gone, replacing the Weekly Heroic and Nightfall for the week. Last week saw players head to the Summoning Pits to face Phogoth the Untamed but this week, you’ll be going to Venus and visiting the Nexus.

The Weekly Heroic modifiers include Juggler and Heroic (tougher and higher number of enemies).

For the Nightfall, make sure to pack the Word of Crota or Atheon’s Epilogue to deal with mobs. Truth, Against All Odds and other Void heavies along with Swordbreaker and Praedyth’s Revenge will be your best friends. What are your thoughts on the weeklies? Let us know below.

Destiny Share New PVP Battleground Inferno Clash Hits This Week

Detailed on the Bungie blog, Inferno Clash will contain a few characteristics that were present in Inferno Control mode but has a heavier emphasis on scoring kills.

These include the removal of the radar on the HUD, placing only one set of heavy ammo crates per match, and simplified scoring. For the latter, Bungie has removed “as many scoring events as possible” and made it so that assists will no longer be awarded points. The map rotation will also be carried over from Inferno Control, which featured the following maps featured in the line-up:

  • The Anomaly
  • Firebase Delphi
  • Twilight Gap
  • Rusted Lands
  • Shores of Time
  • Blind Watch
  • Asylum
  • The Burning Shrine
  • The Cauldron
  • Pantheon

Destiny’s upcoming patch 1.1.2 update will introduce a few tweaks to the game in preparation for the House of Wolves expansion. This includes increasing the capacity for players’ storage vaults, which are currently capped at 20 slots each. The update will also implement new audio options, a feature for colorblind players, and various gameplay fixes.

Destiny Share New Queen’s Wrath Bounties

The baking of Queen’s Wrath was likely drawn out further as resources were split between updating Destiny and getting The Dark Below expansion ready for release. However, it appears that it could return with The House of Wolves based on these bounties discovered in DestinyDB by a sharp-eyed Redditor.

The first Queen’s Wrath PVE event received mixed reviews from Destiny players when it was first released a couple of weeks after the game’s launch. A mid-event patch was needed once Bungie realized how easy it was for players to rack up Ascendant Shards. The developer then announced the event was “going back into the oven for a while” at the end of October 2014.

New Queen’s Wrath Bounties

  • Moluk, Wormwaker – Defeat Molik, Wormwaker in “The Seeding” mission in the Cosmodrome on Earth.
  • Nycor, Reborn – Defeat Nycor, Reborn in “The Veil Lifted” mission in the Cosmodrome on Earth.
  • Watchers of Crota – Defeat the Watchers of Crota in “The Wakening” mission on the Moon.

The first two listed above are missions that appear to come with The House of Wolves expansions. Meanwhile, the Watchers of Crota bounty refers to a mission from The Dark Below.

These new bounties plus the pre-existing Queen’s Wrath bounties are all classified as “Reef” bounties. I can’t recall if they were classified as such when the original event was released, but it lines up with the new Reef social space outed in a recent Destiny leak.

Those aren’t the only new bounties discovered. There’s also a new Vanguard bounty.

  • Battle Scars – Earn 20000 Experience in story missions with the Epic modifier active.

And, a new Iron Banner bounty.

  • Salvaged Hope – Participate in the capture of 15 Salvage zones while competing in the Iron Banner tournament.

The Iron Banner bounty is interesting, because it is based on the Salvage game type. All six of the Iron Banner events to date have run the Control gametype. Could the PVP special event be due for a shakeup as well?

It’s good to see that Bungie hasn’t forgotten the Queen’s Wrath and there has been work done on it. Hopefully, it can help fill in some of the mid-game content where Destiny hits a lull between when players complete the campaign and when they can start participating in raids.

The House of Wolves is expected to bump up the starting levels for Heroic and Nightfall Strikes plus the Strike Playlist. Mid-game content will become more and more important as Destiny continues to expand.

Designer Leaving Bungie for Bethesda From Destiny

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He’s leaving Bungie to join Bethesda Game Studios. “Next Friday, after nearly 6 amazing years and w/ REACH & Destiny on the shelf, I say goodbye to my Bungie family. A new adventure awaits!” he wrote. Before joining Bungie, Hamrick worked at Midway Austin.

Thanking fans and his Bungie family, Hamrick said that he was “super stoked” about joining Bethesda. However, he didn’t disclose what game he has been hired to work on. VG247 reports that the company is currently involved in multiple projects including Doom, Fallout 4, and reportedly Dishonored 2.

Vault Expansion Was Limited

Sci-fi shooter Destiny will be getting the House of Wolves downloadable content pack soon, and Bungie has revealed more information on the patch players will be getting prior to its release. Detailed on the official Bungie site, the update makes a few tweaks to the game, including increasing players’ in-game vault space.

 

Update 1.1.2 will increase vault space for weapons from 20 slots to 36, but this required a compromise for PS3 and 360 versions of Destiny.

Update 1.1.2 will increase the vault dimensions for armors and item to 24 slots and for weapons to 36 slots. Prior to this, all vault item spaces were capped at 20 slots each. The expansion of the vault was limited by “memory constraints on older generation hardware,” which required a compromise to expand storage space. For Destiny players on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, the item comparison feature will no longer function in the vault. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One players will remain unaffected.

PlayStation 4 owners are getting the 2.50 Yukimura update today, which introduces a Suspend and Resume function. While Suspend and Resume won’t immediately work with Destiny, the 1.1.2 Update will enable its function.

Patch 1.1.2 will be out in April, before the House of Wolves DLC hits. The update will also bring new audio options, a feature for colorblind players, and various gameplay fixes.

“The Results are So Much Better” With Pre-Made Teams

While Bungie did change some things around for the Heroic Strikes, Raids still require parties to be created outside of Destiny, and it looks like Bungie is finally attempting to explain why.

In an interview with VG24/7, Community Manager David “DeeJ” Dague explained, in a nutshell, that matchmaking simply cannot compare to pre-made teams, and pre-made teams make challenging Raids or activities easier to deal with.

The community always engineers the best solutions for bringing players together. While Matchmaking is a great resource for introducing total strangers who can share a Crucible match or a Strike, we believe there’s no substitute for a pre-made team. The most challenging activities in Destiny require communication and teamwork.

He continued, further elaborating on what he meant by “there’s no substitute.”

When like-minded players with complimentary play-styles seek each other out and make an expressed commitment to work together, the results are so much better than when they meet anonymously through a matchmaking algorithm. In our experience, enabling smaller clusters of players to support each other is far more effective than trying to create a system that works for everyone.

What do you think? Do you wish that matchmaking could be implemented into Destiny Raids, or are you happy creating your own teams outside of the game?

FIFA 15: Nightfall And Weekly Heroic Strike Reset

Bungie has once again reset the “Destiny” servers to provide gamers a fresh challenge for the week. The latest Nightfall and Weekly Heroic Strike is The Summoning Pits, which takes place on the Moon and sees gamers going up against Hive Ogre; Phogoth the Untamed.

The Nightfall changes things up a bit from last week too switching out a couple of modifiers. The “Destiny” subreddit indicates players can expect Epic, Nightfall, Acr Burn, Lightswitch and Angry modifiers on their journey. Epic throws large numbers of highly aggressive, shielded enemies at players, while Arc Bun multiplies damage taken from any source.

PlayStation Universe notes that the Heroic Strike also takes place in The Summoning Pits, with Arc Burn and Heroic modifiers, the latter meaning aggressive enemies appear in larger numbers. In order to emerge victorious, players must enter the Hive fortress, repel the waves of Hive minions, locate and enter the Summoning Pits and defeat Phogoth himself.

Besting Phogoth is no easy task though. Gamers can choose to wear him down from a distance using Rocket Launchers, or decide to take out the waves of Hive mobs that appear first, in order to battle him one on one. Once unchained, Guardians are advised to aim for the critical hit area on his chest to inflict the most damage. A video, hosted on the DestinyFollower YouTube channel provides a helpful guide on how to kill Phogoth.

As previously reported, the team at Bungie has recently outlined the features included in the 1.1.2 update. The update will focus on increasing Vault Space for guardians, giving players more space to collect items and gear gained on missions. Raid fixes will also be implemented as the team seeks to squash annoying bugs and make missions more fun. New audio and visual options are also on the docket, as are changes to the way ammo drops are handled during Crucible matches.

As part of 1.1.2, Bungie will also be making changes to strikes themselves. The team has gone over a lot of data which shows that some players complete certain missions far less than others, though the studio hasn’t shared what sorts of changes gamers can expect. Bungie warns that gamers will need to be patient, as 1.1.2 is still weeks away. Till then, gamers will have to be content with the Nightfall and Weekly Heroic Strike resets.