Just in case you didn't hear about "The Taken King", the upcoming expansion for Destiny, Bungie has released a bunch of screenshots alongside a lengthy vidoc and E3 developer interview on Youtube.
The vidoc describes the genesis and details of "The Taken King", with an ancient hive king named Oryx who is bent on revenge. Players investigate a Cabal distress signal on Phobos, where they are fleeing from Oryx. There, they confront the corrupted Taken, battling through enemies similar to those that we've faced previously, but changed by the Oryx's corruption. These corrupted foes have new powers and abilities, forcing players to rethink their tactics. To set the corrupted Taken enemies apart from their predecessors from this dimension, the developers have added a persistent flame to them as well as stutters in their animations and other movement changes.
You'll also travel to Dreadnaught, Oryx's personal space fortress, to confront him and learn what it means to face "The Taken King". A millions-of-years-old space castle, Dreadnaught houses dark rituals, new puzzles, and loot, lots and lots of loot.
We see more action for the three new subclasses: the Hunter's Nightstalker class, the Titan's Sunbreaker, and the Warlock's Stormcaller. The Nightstalker is a support class for the hunter, making them slightly more group-centric than previously, with the ability to trap enemies with a Void bow so that the group can finish them off. The Warlock's Arc-based class, Stormcaller, is all about destruction, infusing him with lightning so that he can electrocute everything in sight. For the Titan's solar class, aptly named Sunbreaker, you'll call forth a flaming hammer, becoming a one-stop-shop for all things pain for his or her foes. We've seen screenshots, but now you'll get to see these in action.
The new crucible modes, Mayhem and Rift, are shown as well. In Mayhem, which is essentially a deathmatch cranked up to max volume, players' ability and super energies recharge more quickly, leading to... mayhem. If you think that Bladedancer is cheap, wait until you see this as the supers will be popping off like fireworks in Mayhem. Rift is a riff on capture the flag, where players grab the enemy team's spark and attempt to score it in the opponents' rift. You can score by going straight in, or for added style points you can back-flip the spark into their rift. Check out the full vidoc below to see everything in action.
If that wasn't enough, we also have an 11-minute interview with David Dague, Bungie's community manager, direct from E3 live coverage. Since we've already covered the highlights of "The Taken King" in the wall of text above, I'll just let you watch the video below if you'd like more insight into the minds at Bungie.
Last but not least, we have some more screenshots from the expansion for you below.
For those wondering about whether Bungie is listening to feedback, I'd like to leave you with this quote:
We've listened. We know, Vallus Tarek has too much health. We get it. .... We're on the forums. We're reading Reddit. We're reading Neogaf. We're seeing what people like, what they don't like.
Destiny's "The Taken King" releases on Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 on September 15th.
We've got the full list of Destiny trophies - check the list for guides to unlocking them.