When developer Bungie announced Destiny’s next expansion, The Taken King, I was skeptical of its story. I was not particularly impressed with the narrative in the base game. But I was able to go hands-on with the first mission in The Taken King, and I came away believing that Bungie is pushing hard to make this expansion’s story special.
When the mission started, I dropped onto Mars’ moon, Phobos, a new location in Destiny. The sky was full with ships and in the distance and the red planet hung in the sky. I started running along a cliff toward a structure. A massive Cabal ship rose up over the cliff, only a few feet from me, but it quickly flew away. As I rounded the corner and came into view of a Cabal war base, sounds of fighting and destruction rose in my ears. I spotted forms of Cabal and my mind prepared for combat. These Cabal, however, were dying. One crawled for a few seconds and then fell prostrate at my feet. Another was just a heap by the building. Something ominous was happening and murdering all of the Cabal. Something had shifted in Destiny’s world; I was not fighting the normal enemies any longer.
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This is just the opening of the next chapter in Destiny’s story, and the sinister atmosphere weighed heavily across the entire thing. Later in the level, I encountered the new enemy type, the Taken, for the first time. The black-and-white enemies shudder and shift, as if they’re caught in between worlds. They take on forms that you’ve seen before, but they behave in very different ways. Salvos of rockets join the familiar guns and melee attacks, and some of the foes split into two.
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