New Destiny: The Taken King Details Emerge In Latest Bungie Video

We’ve been posting new details about Destiny: The Taken King all month in support of our blowout cover story on Bungie’s next big step for their sci-fi/fantasy franchise. Today, Bungie released a teaser to announce a live stream tomorrow. However, even in this brief video, some important new details are apparent.

The live stream is set for tomorrow, August 19, at 11 a.m. Pacific time, and it’s meant to address investment and leveling in The Taken King, including more specifics regarding light, the improved Tower, and additional gear details. Tune in to Twitch for the full feed. Bungie community manager Deej, executive producer Mark Noseworthy, and senior design lead Tyson Green will all participate. It’s worth noting that despite Tyson Green’s title, he is the person at Bungie most responsible for investment design. 

During our visit for our recent cover story, some of the investment systems were still being finalized, and we were unable to share all the details regarding how they work. It appears that at least some of those mechanics have now been set in stone, and the team is ready to share them with the world. 

Even in the brief trailer below, there’s a good bit of info to take away. One of the coolest is the brief flash of Exotic Weapon blueprints, which seems to indicate a way for players to recraft existing exotic weapons, though it’s unclear exactly how the process might work – perhaps you’re able to recraft any exotic you’ve already obtained on your account? 

In another moment of the video, we also get confirmation of exactly how light works in The Taken King. According to the pop-up tip when hovering over a character’s gear number: “Your light score is an average of the Attack and Defense values across all of your currently equipped gear. A higher light score improves both your damage output and your defense." On the same screen, we can see that there are now 10 gear slots – 4 armor pieces, 1 class item, a ghost shell, and what appears to be the artifact slot, which is mentioned later in the teaser video.

We also got some new details about Faction Badges, which allow you to pledge allegiance to one of the game’s factions, and thus acquire that faction’s reputation instead of vanguard or crucible reputation. You can only purchase a new allegiance once a week, and it costs 2,500 glimmer.

Another pop-up offers details about how legendary marks are earned, which are the new replacement for Crucible and Vanguard marks. Legendary marks are obtained from completing daily heroic and daily crucible playlists, and you can also dismantle legendary gear to get these marks. In turn, these new legendary marks are used to purchase new legendary gear from vendors.

We also see mention of nameplate collections (perhaps this is the new term for emblems?), and what seems to be confirmation that the previously announced character boost will allow players to jump a single character to level 25. Finally, we also see mention of the infusion mechanic, which is likely the same as the mechanic described in our cover story, in which players are able to infuse the power of one piece of legendary or exotic gear into another. 

Check out the trailer, and tune in tomorrow at 11 a.m. PST to get the full scoop from Bungie. 

Our Take
I'm pleased to finally see Bungie shedding some more light on questions of investment and leveling. It has to be one of the most challenging aspects of developing a game like Destiny, so I can understand why it's taken the team a long time to finalize all these features. Some of the above-mentioned mechanics were in-progress during our recent visit to Bungie, and it's good that the developer is offering details to its players about how these important game systems work prior to launch.