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Destiny’s Crimson Days Promises New PvP Mode
Destiny players have been struggling in recent weeks to find new content to explore, and Bungie was on a break from formal communications during the New Year. That changed yesterday with the return of the Bungie Weekly Update, in which we learned several interesting nuggets of info about the game.
The biggest news is that of the impending Crimson Days event. Said to be of a similar scope to Festival of the Lost, this Valentine’s Day-themed event sees the Tower decorated in red, as well as the introduction of a new PvP mode entitled Crimson Doubles. Bungie stops short of detailing the new mode, but declares that it has new gameplay twists we haven’t seen before. Crimson Days is set to launch on February 9th.
The update also had a surprise regarding Iron Banner. For the first time, high-level guardians will be trying to impress the Lord Saladin in games of Rift, which promises to be…chaotic, at the very least. Tenacious guardians can look forward to both the iron banner scout rifle and fusion rifle as rewards at higher Iron Banner reputation tiers.
Finally, we got some new details about Bungie’s recent approach to matchmaking. According to the update, the PvP team at Bungie has implemented a new skill evaluation system, which secretly premiered in the Control list back in October. Following that, the new matchmaking algorithms went into effect in other PvP modes, and by December, the new matchmaking was being used in all the Crucible playlists.
[Source: Bungie]
Our Take
Destiny continues to struggle with a player base that is voracious for additional content. With no formal expansion packs since the release of The Taken King, and none on the horizon, it’s getting harder to invest time and energy in the game. Anecdotally, I’ve certainly seen a dramatic drop-off in players on my friends list playing Destiny in recent weeks. I’m hopeful that the new Crimson Days event has some fun mechanics at play – I’d love to have some novel activities to master and rewards to obtain.
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