It’s been a long wait, but Bungie today released The House of Wolves, the second significant downloadable content package for Destiny since the original game’s release in September 2014.
Five months in between DLC is quite a while when it comes to major IP such as Destiny, but one should go back to the first DLC package, The Dark Below. That was released in the winter of 2014, but unfortunately, it didn’t get the best of reviews. That’s probably the reason why Bungie waited so long – simply wanting to make sure that it releases the best product possible when time comes to roll out the new DLC offering.
A review from Forbes explained the changes Bungie made on House of Wolves, and one of the most significant things the company did differently had nothing to do with the gameplay itself. That was the way Bungie promoted House of Wolves, as it had three live announcements featuring content from the DLC. And one of those separate reveals was centered on the new gear upgrading system, a big improvement from Dark Below and a common complaint gamers and reviewers alike had with that package.
Still, reviewer Paul Tassi of Forbes did stress that a lot of what Bungie did right didn’t relate in any way to House of Wolves’ gameplay. The company launched over the weekend a bounty-hunting Queen’s Wrath event that offered players encrypted engrams, giving them incentive to purchase House of Wolves as they turn them in starting today and access their item collections. Players also got a chance to win prizes for completing the bounty-hunting activities.
Relating his first-hand experience with the promotional engrams, Tassi talked about how he went to the Reef social space to turn in about 100 engrams across three characters – for his efforts, he got two legendary weapons and two new increased light armor pieces. “Turning in a literal truckload of engrams is probably one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever done in Destiny, and even the chest farming that yielded that collection is patched (it probably should be), it was a hell of a weekend,” said Tassi. “But after decrypting and vaulting and dismantling, the real fun begins.”
Destiny has gotten a lot of flak for its storytelling, which Tassi believes “has only (gotten) worse in time.” However, he was pleased with how Bungie changed things around with House of Wolves’ storyline. Granted, storytelling was still a problem, but Tassi felt more satisfied by the new DLC’s story, where players can play five different missions, “almost none of which feel scarce in the least.” He didn’t like the fact that Bungie went with voiceover narration, but gave the thumbs-up to the company’s decision to use simple, more straightforward language instead of resorting to sci-fi jargon. The armor and weapon format was another strong point cited on the review.
So far, this is one of the very few reviews we’ve come across so far for Destiny‘s new House of Wolves DLC. But reports do seem encouraging, even for those who were critical of the original game.