Destiny: The Taken King is a major expansion for Bungie's first-person shooter, Destiny. Released on September 15, 2015, as the third expansion of Destiny, it revolves around Oryx, The Taken King and his plot for revenge after players slew his son Crota in Destinys first downloadable content (DLC) pack, The Dark Below. Players must face the "Taken", Oryx's army of corrupted aliens forced to fight for him. The Taken King adds content across the game, including new missions, a Player versus Environment location, Player versus Player maps, player gear, weaponry, and a new raid. Upon the expansion's release, retailers also issued Destiny: The Taken King Legendary Edition which includes Destiny (base game), The Taken King, and the previous two expansions, The Dark Below and House of Wolves.
Two days after its release, Sony announced that the game broke the record for the most downloaded day-one game in PlayStation history, in terms of both total players and peak online concurrency. Its release coincided with patch version 2.0 for Destiny, which made fundamental changes to the core functionality for all players to mark the start of "Year Two" of its lifecycle, including a new quest system and revisions to the game's leveling system among others. Through the development of The Taken King, Bungie sought to address criticisms from players and critics; many changes to the game were direct responses to this.
The Taken King and its associated patch received positive critical reception, with reviewers citing the more coherent storyline of the content contained within, as well as other changes across Destiny as a whole that improved its overall systems and gameplay mechanics.
Gameplay
In comparison to the previous two expansions of Destiny, The Taken King features a "full campaign", three new multiplayer "strike" missions, and seven new Crucible maps. Three new Crucible modes were also added, "Rift"—a capture the flag-like mode, "Mayhem"—which greatly lowers cooldown times for abilities, and "Zone Control"—a modified version of Control where points are awarded only for capturing and maintaining control of zones.
The expansion introduces a new faction of enemies, the titular Taken—the slaves of Oryx. Taken enemies are variations of the existing enemies seen in other parts of the game as a whole, but have a darker, undead-like appearance, and have new abilities and attacks. The Dreadnaught, a Hive ship situated within the rings of Saturn, serves as a new playable environment in The Taken King; Bungie described the location as being "an inscrutable loot-filled fortress", emphasizing secret treasures and bosses contained within. At the Dreadnaught's Court of Oryx, players can use special runes to summon enemies for public battles; defeating its enemies requires the use of distinct strategies. All participants in Court of Oryx battles receive rewards, but the player who initiated the battle will receive higher-valued rewards. The runes correspond to three difficulty levels, ranging from easier fights to "just below Nightfall". A new raid mission, "King's Fall", was opened on September 18, 2015 at its lower difficulty; the hard version became available on October 23, 2015. Beginning December 1, 2015, the raid also contains a weekly bonus challenge, in which defeating one of the bosses in a specific, specified manner will yield additional rewards.
Each of the three character classes feature a new, third sub-class. Each focuses on an element that had not been represented among each class's preexisting sub-classes, and features a new super ability. The Hunter class's new Void-based sub-class "Nightstalker" includes a bow-like super known as the "Shadowshot" that tethers enemies together, limiting movement and preventing enemies from using abilities for a short time. The Titan's "Sunbreaker" sub-class features a solar-based super, the "Hammer of Sol", creating a flaming hammer that can be thrown at enemies, or used for close-quarters combat. The Warlock's new sub-class, the arc-based "Stormcaller" includes the super "Stormtrance", which produces lightning bolts that chains between enemies.