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Destiny: Rise of Iron First Impressions

Destiny’s fourth expansion Rise of Iron isn’t as big as their last expansion – The Taken King. But it adds enough with new weapons, armor, a raid, and so much more keeping the game fresh. After playing a lot of destiny the first couple months of release, I couldn’t get myself into the other expansions. Now that the annual Destiny DLC is upon us with Rise of Iron, I can see myself enjoying it as I did the first couple weeks of release.


I enjoyed my time with vanilla Destiny, even though there wasn’t a lot to do the gameplay loop was hypnotizing. The raids, strikes, and the gun play still is amazing – it kept me coming back. The storyline didn’t create the impact an engaging narrative should have. Bungie wasted an opportunity in providing a great story. Over the last two years they fixed a lot of those problems with Destiny.

 Rise of Iron didn’t have the big impact on the game like The Taken King did. Keep in mind that this DLC was made in just nine months. That’s a crazy short amount of time for developing a game. Rise of Iron improved on what the Taken King did well. They added new enemies – well reskins of old enemies. The enemies may look similar, but they react differently and have different abilities. The difference between the enemies are just enough to make each encounter feel new.

Like in any other expansion, new equipment was also added. The Taken King was the first expansion that made some weapons obsolete. For example, the Gjallarhorn (rocket launcher) was the best heavy weapon before The Taken King. Now it’s back with a new name and look, called Iron Gjallarhorn. Adding the Gjallarhorn back into action creates incentive to keep un-updated weapons for the future.




The biggest thing from Rise of Iron is the raid. The raids in Destiny is well designed from the esthetic down to the mechanics. Every raid is completely different, whether going to the Vault of Glass and travel in time or Fighting the Son of Oryx, Crota in Crota’s End each experience will be different. Completing a raid is the most difficult, stressful, and rewarding accomplishment in the game. The Rise of Iron’s raid (Wrath of the Machine) was delayed until today Friday the 23rd. Delaying the raid allows other players too catch-up and prepare for it. This time around I want to give the raid a shot.

Wrath of the Machine raid Trailer


Rise of Iron is not The Taken King, but it gives a good glimpse of what is next to come. Bungie is making the right choices of late for Destiny. With new content coming every year and the improvements bungie made the replay ability is almost endless. I enjoy Destiny and releasing content every year makes me more inclined to play. The Taken King made big changes last year, fixing all the issue makes it my favorite expansion. Let me know what expansion was your favorite in the comments.

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