Category: Destiny News

Destiny 2 Release Date, News, and Rumors, Expansion House of Wolves

The popular game Destiny has had a lot of success with their initial release and their expansion of The Dark Below.  They will have another expansion this summer with House of Wolves, not to mention the high anticipation of Destiny 2.  Here is what we know of the release date, news, and rumors.

 While word of Destiny 2 is scarce at best, there is word about Destiny next expansion, House of Wolves.  According to Gamespot, a Bungie Weekly Update blog post has revealed that “this month, there will come a day when we’ll reveal a release date for the trials that await you, with a whole reef of details soon to follow-but it is not this day”.

However, Gamespot also reports that there is already a massive leak saying that House of Wolves will launch on May 19th, but the official word that House of Wolves will probably launch by the end of June.

The new expansion pack is a follow-up to last December’s The Dark Below.  House of Wolves plans to contain three new Crucible maps, a new Fallen Strike, a new Awoken storyline plus an exclusive raid, as well as hundreds of new weapons, armor, and gear.

“Most of the time, this is awesome. When someone is willing to put in the time as a Raid sherpa, a clan leader, or a forum moderator, we all benefit and Destiny comes a little bit closer to its potential as a shared world.”

Community Manager David Dague also announced that fans are set to find out the release date of House of Wolves later this month.

House of Wolves Release Date Coming Soon from Destiny

The latest weekly update on the Bungie blog indicates gamers won’t have to wait much longer for information, with news regarding a release date expected before the end of the month.

Since “The Dark Below” was released in December, “Destiny” gamers have played and replayed content a thousand different ways. The patient wait for the game’s next major DLC pack, “House of Wolves” continues, but at least fans now know when they can expect more news.

As noted by Gamespot, “The House of Wolves” is believed to launch with a new storyline focusing on the Awoken, an exclusive raid, three new Crucible maps, a new Fallen Strike and new weapons, armour and gear. Gamers who purchased the “Destiny” Expansion Pass will be able to access “House of Wolves” without paying anything extra, while the DLC is available to purchase separately for $20.

“The next expansion for Destiny is something we’re really looking forward to talking about. This month, there will come a day when we’ll reveal a release date for the trials that await you, with a whole reef of details soon to follow – but it is not this day,” read the blog post, by Bungie community manager, Deej.

The tease may seem cruel, but at least gamers will still have the weekly Heroic and Nightfall Strikes to keep them busy. Regular “Destiny” data-miner, Megamanexe4 has spilled the beans on Reddit, indicating gamers are set for a level 24 Heroic Strike mission to the Mars Median Bay for a showdown with Cabal Colossus Ultra; Valus Ta’aurc. Heroic and Lightswitch modifiers will be active, meaning hordes of enemies dealing greater damaged with increased aggression will be the order of the day.

The Weekly Nightfall offers up an even sterner challenge, with a level 30 Very Hard mission featuring Nightfall, Lightswitch, Angry and Juggler modifiers. Destiny power leveling make you upgrade more easy. As always, Nighftall means if the entire fireteam dies, players get kicked back to orbit, Angry sees enemies that don’t flinch even in the face of massive damage, while Juggler means enemies don’t drop ammo for currently equipped weapons.

Players looking for a leg up on Valus Ta’aurc can check out a video hosted on the DPJ – Daily Destiny Videos YouTube channel, which shows Guardians of all classes how to cheese the boss. Players will need to make their way up to a hidden spot in the battle arena, from where they can headshot Ta’aurc with ease, whilst staying behind cover.

That said, experienced players may have no need of the cheese. As noted by Polygon, Destiny aim to make some raid bosses, including Valus Ta’aurc a little easier in the near future. Finally, the developer is also planning on temporarily banning a small number of toxic players from matchmaking. Bungie said the offenders are chronic idlers who who sit idle in competitive and cooperative multiplayer, damaging the experience for others.

Destiny share Bungie devilishly trapped its players

On forums and in other community venues, both hardcore and casual players will attest to that sentiment, yet somehow, both fan bases still chug along, min-maxing their stats, grinding out faction reputation for a chance at extremely rare cosmetic items, or chasing that one elusive gun. Normally, that would sound like we players are making our own decisions about grinding extra hard for minimal returns, but really, we’ve fallen prey to Bungie’s grand designs.

Once you hit the soft level cap — something a robot has managed — you can play through four weekly events (currently two raids and two strikes) per character until the reset seven days later allows you to get loot from those events once again. In an effort to gain extra chances on dropping specific desired loot, players created extra characters (a maximum of three slots), which not only extends their playtime, but grants them access to the game’s most enjoyable content extra times per reset. At GDC this year, head of User Research at Bungie, John Hopson, revealed the tricks and strategies Bungie employed to keep us coming back for more — even if certain players are able to uncover what’s coming down the pipeline.

Three years before Destiny released, Bungie had test groups regularly playing game builds and documenting almost every response elicited during gameplay. The developer split players up into five categories: short and long campaigners, short and long omnivores, and specialists. Campaigners would play the campaign, omnivores would partake in activities from every category — PvE, PvP, and anything else — and specialists would focus on one specific activity. Wanting players to get the most out of its game, Bungie focused on the omnivores.

Bungie employed eye-tracking technology to document where players looked, they recorded what players said — explicit or otherwise — and gave players a button to press when they felt something in the game worked. So, while Bungie employs dastardly tricks like time-gating the game’s most fun content or requiring a slog of a faction reputation grind, the developer’s real trick is it psychoanalyzed — and recorded — players to find out what works best.

Destiny Share Skip Confluxes in Vault of Glass Raid

Thanks to Isaac356 on the Destiny subreddit, a new strategy has been uncovered that lets players bypass the time-consuming Conflux section of Vault of Glass. Now, this isn’t a particularly challenging section, especially for level 32 Destiny players, Destiny power leveling make you upgrade more easy, but it does take a while to get through. Some might even call it boring.

However, most of these “cheeses” have been regularly patched out of Destiny in an attempt to keep players on the straight and narrow path. For example, many Vault of Glass raiders preferred to push the Templar off the map in Vault of Glass, rather than actually fight him the correct way.

Once the Templar exploit was patched out, however, players found far fewer ways to exploit the raid as a whole. That isn’t to say the experience got more difficult, but it became a hefty time commitment. While some can run through the Crota’s End raid in under 30 minutes, the average Vault of Glass run can take close to an hour, and there’s really no way to speed it up…until now.

Getting past this section is fairly simple, although it’s unclear if the skip can be done with a full fireteam. In Isaac356’s example, he does it with a single teammate.

Here’s how it’s done. The first player stays in the Trials of Kabr section of the raid, waiting as early on as possible. The second player then descends to the Conflux area, triggers the section, and then returns to orbit. With nobody there to guard the Confluxes, but no player within the Darkness Zone, Destiny seemingly freaks out and keeps the Confluxes protected.

Ultimately, there’s still a lot more of the Vault of Glass to complete, including the Oracle phase, fighting the Templar, the Gorgon Maze, the Gatekeeper section, and then beating Atheon. But, even just a small skip is worth highlighting for players who regularly run this raid. Not to mention, this is one of the longer timed sections.

Yes, we know the loot isn’t great, but the shot at exotic weapons is still there, and the Fatebringer and Vision of Confluence are still really great Destiny weapons. Also, we highly doubt Bungie will patch this out; they’re too busy focusing on future content.

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 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.

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.

Senior gameplay left Bungie to join Fallout and Elder Scrolls studio from Destiny

Destiny senior gameplay designer Josh Hamrick has left Bungie to join Fallout and Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda. He announced the news on Twitter, expressing gratitude to Bungie, and wishing the developer all the best as it continues to work on Destiny going forward without him.

Hamrick did not announce his exact title at Bethesda, nor did he say what project at the developer he’ll be working on. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim team Betheda Game Studios is currently working on an unannounced game.

Some are suggesting this game may be announced at E3 given that Bethesda is–for the first time ever–holding its own press conference at the show.

 

During Hamrick’s nearly six years at Bungie, he also worked on the developer’s final Halo title, Halo: Reach. Prior to joining Bungie in 2009, Hamrick worked at Midway Studios Austin on BlackSite: Area 51, among other titles.

Destiny launched in September 2014 and Bungie has continually supported and expanded game since then. The game’s first add-on, The Dark Below, was released in December, while the next expansion–House of Wolves–will be released before the end of June. Bungie is also working on “Destiny 2.”

 

Will Support PS4’s Suspend/Resume Feature After Patch 1.1.2 From Destiny

Yesterday, Sony released PlayStation 4 firmware 2.50, which added the long pending “Suspend/Resume” feature. This feature will be supported nearly all PlayStation 4 gamers, however PlayStation 4 owners will need to turned it ON manually as it is not Turned ON By Default In Firmware 2.50, and requires PS4 owners to select “Keep Application Suspended” Setting. Check out our guide on how to activate PS4 Suspend/Resume feature.

destiny

Destiny players will have to wait a bit longer to make use of this Suspend/Resume feature on PlayStation 4. According to details shared by Bungie, Destiny will work with the Suspend/Resume feature after the patch coming in April 2015. The message from Bungie reads:

“The PlayStation 4 2.50 Firmware update will implement a Suspend and Resume function on 3/26. This function will not work with Destiny at this time. For the time being, when suspending the game to Rest Mode a message will read: Cannot enter rest mode with the following application suspended. The PS4 will close this application and then enter rest mode.

There will be an icon of the application and then underneath a prompt: “The PS4 will automatically close the application in 30 seconds” with an OK and a Cancel button if you do not wish to close the game.

Functionality for the Suspend and Resume feature will be enabled for the 1.1.2 Update.”

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.