In Destiny 2, the release of the first premium DLC “The Black Armory” is approaching. Our author Sven explains what he is particularly looking forward to regarding the Black Armory.

The Black Armory launches today, on December 4, 2018. It is the first of three DLCs for owners of the Annual Pass.  The scope and individual contents of this DLC are currently being extensively discussed by numerous fans.

Here you can find out what our Destiny author Sven thinks about the first premium content delivery.

Forsaken was important for Destiny 2, but not everything

That’s why Forsaken was important for the game: One thing upfront – in my opinion, the major Forsaken expansion was an enormously important cornerstone for the future of Destiny 2.

Its most important task has been fulfilled for me by Forsaken, as it addressed and eliminated numerous core problems of the game:

• Random Rolls
• exciting loot
• new lore
• collections
• titles
• numerous quality-of-life features.

All of this and more was clearly missing from Destiny 2 before Forsaken.

I never really warmed up to Forsaken: However, even though the major fall expansion probably saved Destiny 2 and the game made an enormous leap in the right direction, I was not happy with all the content of the big fall expansion.

With the setting of Forsaken – especially in the Dreaming City – I never really warmed up. I mostly felt more like I was in Lord of the Rings and not in Destiny.

What I’m looking forward to with the Black Armory

Even though I have not played the DLC yet, I noticed during the presentation of the Black Armory that a lot of what I have been missing in Destiny 2 is now coming into the game.

The look is right again: With the Black Armory, Destiny 2 finally gets the look I have wanted for a long time. Until now, my Guardians often seemed like medieval knights or fantasy figures from a Tolkien novel and not like highly technological warriors from the future.

Really cool mechanical armor designs, which I would have liked to equip my Guardians with, have so far been scarce and only available in isolated cases.

Furthermore, most of these examples became worthless with Forsaken, as they dated back to the first year of Destiny 2, such as the Escalation Protocol gear. Only the remake of the “Prison of Elders” armor for the Hunter caught my attention in Forsaken.

But those times are soon to be over for me.

I love the new armor design of the Black Armory. Finally, I am getting at least one armor set per character that truly matches my taste and my idea of aesthetics. I am placing further hopes in the yet unknown new raid armor.

The weapon design of the Black Armory is moving more in the direction of Destiny 1 and distancing itself from the WW2 look from Gambit or the Iron Banner, which I have never really understood.

I am a Guardian in the future. Why should I run around with weapons that my grandfather could have fought with?

The raid setting is interesting again: The Forsaken raid “Last Wish” or activities like the Broken Throne I have not really played extensively. Not because I found them too difficult or did not have a group for them – the setting completely failed to resonate with me.

I much preferred fighting against the mysterious Vex in the Glass Chamber or against SIVA-modified Fallen in Wrath of the Machines.

And with the new raid “Scourge of the Past”, yet another big wish of mine is fulfilled. Finally, I can fight Fallen in a tangible setting, the Last City, and no longer have to chase a dragon that I then have to slay like a knight in a fairy tale.

According to Bungie, the action-packed fights in the new raid are said to be similar to those in Wrath of the Machines. This also made me very happy. After all, Wrath of the Machines was one of my absolute favorite raids, and I have been wishing for a similarly structured activity for a long time.

While I enjoy challenges, even in the form of mechanics, I would prefer to fight against enemies and bosses rather than just primarily against the mechanics, as was very much the case in the Year 1 raid encounters.

Cool new exotics: Most of the new exotics have also caught my attention. Although we will have to wait and see how the new weapons perform in practice, at least on paper, the new exotics look really exciting and, in my opinion, are worthy of the designation “exotic”. The gameplay of the new weapons also looks really strong.

Additionally, with the exotic hand cannon The Last Word returning, I am one of the happiest Guardians in the world. And honestly – which Guardian does not get excited about new exotics?

Matchmaking in the new group activity: Group activities like the Blind Well are among the most enjoyable activities for my Guardians in Destiny 2. I particularly enjoyed the Escalation Protocol. Therefore, I found it unfortunate that Bungie has not yet managed to establish a player search feature for such activities.

Although you sometimes meet other Guardians there or can try to find more players by changing instances, I have always wished for a matchmaking system for these types of group content.

In the new 3-player activity “Forging the Chain,” Bungie now offers integrated player search – without any detours. This is something I and certainly many other fans have been waiting for a long time.

That’s why the Black Armory is worth €11 to me

New content plan: With the start of Season 5, Bungie is now taking a different approach to provide players with content. While all owners are provided with some free content during the respective seasons of Destiny 2, additional premium content like the Black Armory comes at an extra cost.

This premium content is not available individually, but only as a bundle as part of the Annual Pass – a kind of season pass for the second year of Destiny 2. This can be purchased either in some Forsaken or Destiny 2 bundles, or also individually for €35. A premium DLC therefore costs approximately more than €11 (or €10 if you purchased the season pass at the same time).

This is why the Black Armory convinces me: Although I do not yet know how the contents of the Black Armory will play, this DLC is already worth this money to me.

Because Destiny is and remains my great love and a real hobby. So I will continue to stay loyal to the game. And the Black Armory brings me for €10 more of what I have wished for in the near future:

• more legendary loot
• a new raid with a fresh setting
• new exotics to chase
• a new 3-person activity that will drop items up to the new max power level after a certain point

In principle, the Black Armory mainly brings one thing: More endgame content. And indeed the only new endgame content. There will be no further substantial content – at least not without the Annual Pass.

The DLC offers more than expected: So I can already say that I will definitely get my money’s worth with what is being offered here for €11. Even if the content is stretched or may not fully convince in the long run.

Because just a trip to the cinema for a two-hour movie costs me more money. The new Destiny content will certainly entertain me longer. Personally, I expected much less value for €11 than what has already been announced with the Black Armory DLC.

Regardless of whether this new content policy from Bungie is right and player-friendly or not – as a huge Destiny fan, I am certainly willing to spend this money for the announced content, rather than standing still without new content until at least March 2019.

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Destiny 2: The exciting part of the ViDoc is the many new faces

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What do you think? Are you excited about the Black Armory? Is the DLC worth the money to you in advance? 

In Destiny 2, a new ViDoc has been released. The most exciting part here are the many new faces among the Bungie developers, says our author Schuhmann. You can see that Bungie has restructured behind the scenes to satisfy the content hunger of the Guardians.

This video is about: On November 27, Bungie released the ViDoc: “The Path to the Future”.

In the video, Bungie presented what the next year will be like, from now until September 2019, when either Destiny 3 or the next “real” expansion comes

The time is to be bridged by 3 episodes included in the Annual Pass.

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The exciting part about the video is: Most are certainly focused on what the Bungie employees are presenting there and which images of new Exotics or locations we recognize.

For me, the exciting part is how much personnel is visible in the video. A total of 13 Bungie employees present the individual features and speak.

Thus, we get an insight into how Bungie exactly works, or at least hints of it.

Almost only “Directors” or “Leads” are visible, meaning team leaders at Bungie – similar to “senior department heads” in other companies.

The following are visible in the video:

• Justin Truman, Production Director – has been with Bungie for 9 years, originally from the tech side
• Eric Osborne, Head of Community – the direct boss of DeeJ, a long-timer
• Steve Cotton, Creative Director – basically the strong man in Forsaken
• Scott Taylor, Production Director – first seen at Rise of Iron, now the partner of Steve Cotton. The two also worked together in Forsaken as a “Creative/Producer” duo

• Jason Sussman, Art Director – has been with Bungie for 12 years, promoted to “Art Director” in October 2018
• Evan Nikolich, Design Director – has been with Bungie for 6 years, also recently promoted in November
• Chris Barrett, Creative Director – Barrett was the hope after the failed launch of Destiny 2, who promised new features and improvements
• Sam Jones, Production Director – has been with Bungie for 9 years, responsible for working with external studios
• Danielle Morales, Art Lead (Vicarious Visions)
• Chris Degnan, Design Lead (Vicarious Visions)

• Brian Frank, Design Lead – has been with Bungie for 9 years
• Josh Hamrick, Design Lead – the famous “hat guy”, friend of all Hunters
• Greg Peng, Senior Designer

Many New Faces and Promotions

What does this mean? We can derive a lot just from the personnel:

• There are many “leaders” at the Director level, often with the same job title. Three Production Directors and three Creative or Design Directors can be recognized alone
• Bungie has apparently slowly completed the restructuring and formed three teams with their own leaders, who work on different DLCs
• Also, Vicarious Visions will be working on the Annual Pass. This is the Activision studio that handled the PC port. However, no one from High Moon Studios was in the video. They had probably led the campaign for Forsaken.

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• Many of the people who are seen here for the first time have long worked on Destiny but have been promoted and shifted into new roles – as LinkedIn reveals
• It is particularly noticeable that in October/November 2018, some were promoted to higher roles, probably because independent teams have been formed
• Many “familiar faces” like Luke Smith, Mark Noseworthy, or Lars Bakken are not visible – they are probably already working on “the next big thing”
• Instead, the former B-Team with Scott Taylor and Steve Cotton is visible. Chris Barrett is also recognized from the past – all in leadership positions

What lies behind it: Bungie has struggled in the first years to develop multiple new DLCs and expansions simultaneously while continuing to maintain the base game. The ambitious master plan for the game could not be fulfilled. Thus, there have been repeatedly long content droughts.

In 2016, an internal restructuring apparently began with a hatchet:

• That was when the president of Bungie, Harold Ryan left
• and probably also the actual Game Director of Destiny 2, CJ Cowan
• Destiny 2 was also rebooted

Evidently, this restructuring has now been completed: Many have been promoted and now own “Platoons” formed, which are supposed to drive the content of Destiny 2 forward, while others are already working on future projects.

We will have to wait and see if Bungie can satisfy the content hunger of the players with this technique. Because behind each face in this trailer, there is surely a host of developers working to ensure that the game content this time offers more depth.

We will find out more on Tuesday when the DLC “Black Armory” is released.

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