Destiny: The Taken King is a major expansion for Bungie’s first-person shooter, Destiny. Released on September 15, 2015 (a year after Destiny) the expansion revolves around Oryx, The Taken King and his plot for revenge after players slayed his son Crota in Destiny’s first DLC, 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, and weaponry. 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 DLCs.
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.[1] 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.
