House of Wolves, Destiny’s second DLC expansion pack, won’t feature a new raid, Bungie has confirmed, disappointing fans who had hoped for a more substantial expansion after feeling let down by the game’s previous DLC, The Dark Below.
In a blog post on the official Destiny website, community manager Urk confirmed the decision, instead saying that the developer was focusing on adding variety to the existing experience with new game modes: “House of Wolves will not have a Raid activity. We didn’t make this decision lightly. Our team has been humbled by the reception of Raids in Destiny and we are creating a new Raid for a release later this year,” Urk explained.
“House of Wolves will have a new cooperative end game activity focused on variety, replayability, and skill – a new battle Arena called The Prison of Elders.”
The Prison of Elders takes the form of cooperative multiplayer arena, where teams of 3 players take on increasingly difficult waves of AI opponents. Perform well enough, and you’ll manage to net yourself increasingly attractive rewards, though it’s not currently known whether any of the new Legendary weapons or armor will be obtained by playing the mode.
Speaking of Legendary items, Urk mentioned that new upgrade paths for existing exotic and Legendary items will be revealed next week. Bungie has been criticized by many players due to the existing system’s confusing upgrade paths and a lack of upgrades for existing Legendaries in The Dark Below. “Next week we’ll be kicking things off by revealing the upgrade path for your existing Exotic and Legendary gear,” Urk said. “We know this is an important subject for you.”
Also included in House of Wolves is a new competitive multiplayer mode called Trials of Osiris, details of which will arrive after the new upgrade pathways. But leaks have surfaced since the expansion’s announcement on Monday which suggest that the Trials require a Strange Coin to enter, with rewards for success offering end game gear.
Destiny currently features two raids, Vault of Glass and Crota’s End. Vault of Glass shipped with the game at launch, while Crota’s End was added in the previous expansion, The Dark Below. Many had expected Bungie to include a new raid in House of Wolves, but it’s now been confirmed that this isn’t the case.
Last, but not least, update 1.1.2 is finally now out. The new patch makes some minor improvements to gameplay balancing. Bigger storage vaults and the game’s heavy ammo bug fix are also in the patch.
Kyle Barrows reviewed Destiny for Continue Play, awarding it 6/10 and bemoaning the lack of content and variety, poor writing and shallow gameplay, but musing that sufficient post-release support could see matters improved over time.
“Bungie built an amazing and unique universe for us to explore, but filled it with the most uninspired and standard content possible,” Kyle wrote in his Destiny review. “Will DLC save Destiny in the end? Perhaps… but take all promises with a grain of salt.”
