Map Quest – A Look At Destiny: Rise Of Iron’s New Crucible Battlefields

Bungie has always tried to highlight interesting corners of our solar system with Destiny’s multiplayer PvP maps, and the upcoming Rise of Iron expansion will give players four new corners of the universe to visit. During our trip to the studio for our recent Destiny: Rise of Iron cover story, we talked with the Crucible team about these four new maps, and we have a breakdown for each one.

At the beginning of each new map pack, Bungie graphs out all the PvP maps it currently has in rotation. Using this data, the team is able to see where their holes are and where they might need to create new content. For example, if the team notices they have an imbalance of larger maps, they might begin working on some smaller combat spaces. This time around, the team felt it needed to explore Venus a bit more and started developing two new play spaces on that planet, and also focused on making all the maps multi-purpose and ready to support a broad range of game modes. Here’s a full breakdown of all four new maps.

For more on Destiny’s Crucible, be sure to check our our breakdown of Rise of Iron’s new mode, Supremacy.

Last Exit
Location: Venus
Details: A subway terminal on the Ishtar Sink of Venus that has been eroded away by the ocean. It provides players will a lot of close-quarter combat opportunities as they explore abandoned maintenance hallways along the tracks.

Bungie says: “Last Exit is pretty interesting. There’s an outdoor plaza, and a lot of mayhem happens out there. When you traverse down an escalator, you’re in the main public subway station area. On the far side of the map there are some collapsed buildings, and you can run through their basements to get back into the larger courtyard outside that’s falling away into the ocean. We don’t try to make one area fit any type of gameplay, other than maybe confining the space a little bit more or leaving it open a little more. We want all of the game modes to work on as many maps as possible, so we don’t really design one for one game type.” – Derek Carroll, senior designer.

Skyline
Location: Mars
Details: Clovis Bray was an exoscience group that performed technical research and engineering in a variety of fields. Years ago the group built this waystation, which overlooks Mars’ vast landscape, as a kind of welcoming center for human colonist looking to settle on the planet. This map features a lot of vertical combat space.

Bungie says: “The map is kind of broken up into two parts. There’s the interior lobby/welcoming center for the Clovis Bray, and that has a huge hologram of Mars with the Traveler hanging up in the front, which is the main light source in the lobby. It’s got a bit more of a hotel vibe on the inside where people would get acquainted with Martian life. Outside is this big courtyard overlooking the buried dune city out in the distance. One side of that balcony is kind of like the elevated rail car that would bring people into the facility. The other side of that is a shipping/receiving cargo area.” – Leif Johansen, senior designer.

Floating Gardens
Location: Venus
Details: This map focuses on the Vex. Players will be treated to a stunning sunrise as they do battle in a massive circular shrine, which the Vex built on top of a huge spire in Venus’s upper atmosphere.

Bungie says: “The map originally started out with this concept where the Vex would basically fall through this well and crack open so they could get their milk back – their life blood. That morphed into this shrine that the Vex would go to and sacrifice themselves if they were past their repair point. So you’re running through these trenches of Vex parts and Vex milk as it’s falling off the side and being recycled into the next set of Vex. It’s basically a shrine and a recycling center. It’s also a good map for capture modes. There’s a bridge in the middle of the map in-between all three capture zones. It’s fairly exposed, but if you can hold that down you have good control of the interior quarters of the map, allowing your guys to run in and start attacking whichever point you want.” – Derek Carroll, senior designer.

Icarus
Location: Mercury
Details: Icarus is the name of a massive Golden Age solar collector that has been built into one of the craters on Mercury’s surface. The sun looms large in the background as players duke it out in Mercury’s harsh elements. The solar collector is also full of mirrors used to collect the sun’s energy. This map is also a PlayStation-exclusive.

Bungie says: “Remember the final sequence in Goldeneye? Think about that. Like a map sort of in the center of a huge crater. You’re in the crater, but you’re not walking around on the crater’s edge. You’re more in the central point where all these mirrors are sort of reflecting off the tower. One side of the map has some of those super-heated Sol tanks that you see off in the skybox. There’s a hub room in the center that you can use to quickly connect from one side to the other. But it is set up as this big radial exterior facility around the tower in the center where everything is being concentrated. It’s definitely one of the more circular maps. A lot of the gameplay occurs while roaming the circle, and this blitz across the center basically gives you an advantage if you think you can get pass your opponents. We’ve called it the meat grinder a couple times; it’s pretty brutal going through there.” – Lars Bakken, lead designer.

Stay tuned later in the month for more about Destiny: Rise of Iron where we interview the Raid team and provide a detailed look at the new Devil Splicer enemies. Click on the banner below to enter our constantly-expanding hub of exclusive content.