Destiny: Rise of Iron | Updates Galore! | Part 02 – Beyond Rise of Iron

Rise of Iron - Concept Art - IronLordsSocialSpace_FelwinterPeak

In my previous article I talked about a couple pieces of important information that came out of Game Informer last week. Namely, an increase in light level as well as the addition of 8 new artifacts that can be equipped by any class and come with a wide range of new abilities.

This time, though, I wanted to touch on another piece of the pie that Game Informer left out for us: the future. What is happening after the release of Rise of Iron?

If you enjoyed the Festival of the Lost last October, you will be pleased to note its return this coming October. This Festival is basically this time period’s version of Halloween, and it was an amusing sight to behold as the NPCs at the Tower all dressed up. Well, most anyway… Zavala and Eris Morn were both being sticks in the mud. Raisins, Eris? Seriously? I still have them too.

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One of the many masks you could obtain from 2015’s Festival. This is of Skolas.

Ultimately the Festival didn’t do much for me last year. While it was mildly entertaining to see everyone dressed up, and other Guardians wearing skull or pumpkin heads throughout this past year, the short event had no real benefits for me. With no major armor or weapons to gain from the event, it just didn’t hold my attention all that much. That said, respawning in a cloud of bats was always fun. According to Game Informer’s intel, we will be seeing new masks as well as other “surprises.” Whatever those surprises are, I hope they can boost my light level and give me new guns to play with. Or even better, new Halloween-inspired ships and sparrows, or maybe shaders! How epic would that be?

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One of many starting screens I experienced while playing the SRL last December.

What I am more excited for, however, is seeing the return of the SRL—or Sparrow Racing League—in December! I am not generally a huge racing game fan, but I very much enjoyed racing my sparrow last year. I also loved the new sparrow designs, horns, armor pieces, and shaders you could win from each race. Sadly, though, racing just those two maps became insanely tedious after the hundredth time I zipped around the tracks… And despite my familiarity with those maps, that damned slow-moving windmill on Mars still managed to kill me more often than I care to admit. I will have my revenge!

SRL Fail

Bungie is promising more tracks and updates to the two currently existing tracks. In addition, though, Bungie has said that they want to expand the SRL experience. What this means, we are not entirely certain yet. But they did indicate that they realized “some people didn’t like racing” and they wondered if they could do something more with the event that would allow those people to still be involved without having to race. Apparently we’ll be seeing a non-racing component to the SRL winter event this December. I have no idea what that might mean, but I am eager to find out!

As we get closer to Rise of Iron’s release, more and more information continues to unveil itself. Who knows what more we will see in the coming weeks as September 20th approaches. If you have not played Destiny yet, now is your time to jump on the bandwagon. Despite all the naysayers out there, the game has improved vastly since its debut, and Rise of Iron is only going to make it better.  If you are currently a Guardian and have been battling against the Darkness and your fellow Guardians in Crucible… what are you most looking forward to?

Be sure to check out Game Informer’s articles for more information on the upcoming expansion! Destiny: Rise of Iron comes out for the PS4 and Xbox One on September 20th, 2016.