Destiny the Dark Below

                Destiny has been quite the talk, some people love it some people hate it. Either way I think we were all a tad disappointed with a few elements such as the inability to trade or a lack of a matchmaking system for weekly events and raids etc. Right now I’m here to talk about the Dark Below DLC and is it worth the $9.99.

                So what comes with the DLC? Well it comes with 4 story missions, 1 new strike (2 right now for Playstation players,) 1 new raid, 3 new PvP maps, and new gear which can increase your light level to 32. Now while it doesn’t sound like a whole lot when compared to other games DLC’s I can guarantee that you’ll spend a lot of time doing all of the above because Destiny is still a grindfest, a 10 dollar DLC is not going to change that.

                So the story is apparently this big all powerful Hive creature named Crota is going to awaken soon and it’s up to the Guardians (aka the players) to stop it……that’s pretty much it, if you want to know more you still need to quit the game and look up the grimoire cards at bungie.net.  The story drive here is even worse than the core Destiny experience and that is saying something. The game again fails to get the players to care about what’s going on. There isn’t even cut scenes this time round, just a woman known as Eris Morn spouting exposition similar to the ghost in the core game, though admittedly the woman they got to do the voice over does a much better job than Peter Dinklage. The story missions themselves are really more of the same except now there are hazardous areas on the floor which will damage you if you stand on them. Bungie still seems to think horde mode is the best thing ever.

Um hot?

                Speaking of Eris Morn she is also a new vendor and another person to hand out bounties. She mostly offers cosmetic changes, but there are a few upgradeable materials you will need from her for the higher level gear but she is also another faction so expect to grind for reputation. Her bounties all have to do with the Hive enemy type and thus grinding for reputation for her is even more tedious than the vanguard faction which at least has you going up against all enemy types.

Remember these guys? Yeah you'll be shooting them a lot.

                So as you can see you aren’t getting much, so you would think you could pass on this DLC and keep enjoying the core game right? Wrong! The DLC has been out for a few weeks now and it seems the weekly strikes and Nightfalls all seem to be catered to the new DLC missions, meaning unless you shell out the 10 bucks for the DLC you will not be able to do the weekly missions causing you to miss out on some rewards. This even applies to the Daily story missions though that one does allow access to the core missions more often than not but still there will be a few days where even that will be locked to vanilla players. It’s just more evidence that Bungie just wants your money.

                So as you can see the new content is really just more of the same so some may think it’s not worth 10 dollars and you can just go on ahead and enjoy the core game. However with Bungie locking content that was already available it feels like you HAVE to get the DLC at least if your one who likes doing the weekly missions. We gamers should not find this sort of practice acceptable. Many of us have already shelled out 60 dollars for Destiny and expect everything about the core game to still be accessible, and now they lock content from us unless we give them more money? When all they added was more of the same? If this is the planned future of Destiny than it will more than likely die off before the 10 year contract is even up.

I know it is only 10 dollars but due to other games with their DLC’s in the past, we as gamers expect much more. When other games such as Borderlands hands us DLC’s such as Tiny Tina’s assault on Dragon’s keep for the same price, Bungie should be downright embarrassed about their final product, but we know now that they just want our wallets and unfortunately they are getting them because Destiny is still a fun game to play and we will keep giving them cash so we can still play their entire game. I guess we should just be thankful they don’t ask for a monthly fee.

If you’re a fan of Destiny you should get it just so you aren’t locked out of the weekly events. If you were hoping the DLC would address some of Destiny’s core problems well keep dreaming. Destiny could be phenomenal and even dethrone Borderlands as the perfect blend of FPS and RPG, it just needs a few more tweaks. They clearly nailed the FPS aspect with solid gunplay and fantastic PvP but you can tell that Bungie lacks the proper knowledge and experience to add in proper RPG elements. Many of us are still hoping that Destiny can be the game it was supposed to be but the Dark Below has taken away some of that hope.