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Destiny – The Dark Below Review for Xbox One

Destiny – The Dark Below Review for Xbox One

Brave The Dark Below

It is no secret that Bungie’s Destiny has been one of the biggest things that they have thrown at us since Call of Duty . Destiny has successfully combined the gameplay styles of many other popular titles to create something that’s fresh and new but at the same time still feel vaguely familiar. Borrowing from games like Halo , Borderlands and World of Warcraft , Bungie has created a world that we all know, but in a time we hope never comes. The ultimate battle between light and dark has happened and only a remnant of the light remains to protect what’s left of the Earth and its people. But while the guardians look to the heavens to seek out threats to humanity, something stirs in the Dark Below .

The first of two promised expansions for Destiny has finally released. I don’t know about you, but I could not have been more ready. I was one of the few who opted to not level cap my character prior to the expansion because of rumors of how things were going to work. And I am so happy I decided to yield my course until the Dark Below hit.

Within the first few minutes of play, you realize that things have changed. Not only is there a new face at the Tower, but there are enemies that were not in certain places before. Powerful enemies that try to swarm and over power you. For example, going to Earth (to the Cosmodrome) for the first time after loading the expansion yielded a surprise I was not expecting. The Hive had come to Earth. And not only had they come, they brought the Swords of Crota with them. But even the sudden shock of an elite knight rushing at you with his sword drawn gave way to the rush of glee and adrenaline once you realize that you get to use his sword for a short time after killing him. And for those of you that enjoyed the Sword of Crota mission as much as I did pre-expansion, this was just awesome.

Destiny - The Dark Below Screenshot

After tooling around the Cosmodrome for a time, I headed back to the Tower to see what had changed there. I hung a left after materializing in the common area and headed to where Eris Morn had her ship moored. I approached her and examined all she had brought to the table in the way of gear and weapons for purchase. I was surprised to find that she not only had new gear for sale as well as materials you could buy, but she also had her own series of bounties for her quest strings that would earn you points for the Crota’s Bane faction.

The first of the quest strings I went on proved to be nearly more than I could handle alone. So I phoned a friend and setup a fire team to go in and mop up the mess that lay ahead. What we found was that a huge host of enemies awaited us. They forced us to use more focused tactics than I or any of my other high-level friends had used previously, and often times, it would take one of us turning a Hail Mary play into a suicide mission so that the rest of the team could advance and drag our dead carcasses along for the ride until we could be respawned. In short, the new story missions are seriously no joke.

Destiny - The Dark Below Screenshot

The Crucible has some new areas to battle in as well. A vast new arena called Skyshock is my personal favorite. It offers something that none of the battle arenas have so far, lots of sniping points. Oh sure, there have been some in the Clash arenas prior to the expansion. But Skyshock makes you stay frosty as you try and switch between close-quarters combat and long-range run-and-gun tactics. There are even vehicles and gun emplacements to contend with that make the map all the more challenging… and fun.

As far as the new gear is concerned, I was impressed with the way that you could upgrade your exotic equipment to the next level. And I also like that in the interest of fairness, once you purchased the leveled up version, you had to start over with the upgrades you already had in place for that piece of gear. I also liked the way that the new armors pieces did not carry over the level-ups from the old gear. Also, the new weapons for the expansion are also every bit as awesome as the ones you found in the original game. My favorites of which at this moment are the fusion rifle called “Murmur” and the pistol called “The Devil You Don’t.”

Destiny - The Dark Below Screenshot

All in all, this expansion was well worth the wait. For fans of the game it gave us all an opportunity to recapture a little of that new feeling as we tried to regain our levels with the new gear and weapons, but at the same time it gave us a new level of challenge and difficulty in addition to the increased level cap. My favorite part of all of it was the way that Bungie forces you to employ new tactics and new styles of play. They force you to break out of your comfort zone to try and new load-out or a new way to play through a level you have been through a hundred times before.

The only real drawback that I saw in the expansion was the stability of the server connections. The first day, there was a lot of glitching and lag. But as the week went on, it seemed like the glitches started to subside. There were still lag issues, but I also could attribute that to the bad weather in my area affecting the connection locally. But apart from that, the controls were the same, the graphics were no less extraordinary on the PS4 and everything felt every bit as solid as it did when I loaded the original game onto the system for the first time. All around it was a solid expansion with plenty to do that made it feel like you were getting your money’s worth.

So is it worth buying the pass to get the Dark Below expansion? Absolutely. And if the second expansion (which your purchase of the pass gets you as well) is anything like this one has been, I cannot wait to see what Bungie has up their sleeve for expansion number two of Destiny . So grab the expansion pass and then suit up in your favorite gear and become a legend, because the Dark Below will put your skills to the test.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 5.0 Graphics
Clean, no apparent glitches, very smooth. 4.5 Control
Same as original, pre-expansion game. 5.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Excellent musical score, Spoken audio is flawless. 4.5 Play Value
Redoing levels could get monotonous to some gamers. 4.8 Overall Rating – Must Buy
Not an average. See Rating legend below for a final score breakdown.

Review Rating Legend
0.1 – 1.9 = Avoid 2.5 – 2.9 = Average 3.5 – 3.9 = Good 4.5 – 4.9 = Must Buy
2.0 – 2.4 = Poor 3.0 – 3.4 = Fair 4.0 – 4.4 = Great 5.0 = The Best

Game Features:

  • New weapons, armor, and gear to earn, including Legendary and Exotic items.
  • New Cooperative Strike: The Will of Crota nests in the Cosmodrome. Eliminate this horror and purge its spawn.
  • Light Level cap raised to 32 and five additional Bounty slots added
  • New Tower Character, Eris, with new Hive-themed weapons and gear to earn by completing her quest lines.

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