Destiny’s House of Wolves DLC impressions: A better loop, endlessly retold

The Dark Below, the first expansion for Bungie's shooter Destiny, broke me of an addiction. The base game had (and still has) its share of flaws, but I pumped hundreds of hours into the game across two characters in spite of those flaws. Not bad for a game that was often maligned for not having enough content.

That obsession disappeared with The Dark Below. The expansion compounded the original game's problems by making the base game's hard-won gear obsolete. It felt like the grueling, unfriendly, and often completely random leaps of progression before the expansion’s release were all completely meaningless. This knowledge was enough for me to excuse myself from those months of daily play and wait for the promised second half of the game's first season of extra content.

That second update, House of Wolves, is here, and it carries the unenviable baggage of needing to expand on the game proper while also fixing the problems its predecessor introduced.

Remix culture

The first major indicator that Bungie had this in mind is The Reef. Seen only in cutscenes during Destiny's base game, The Reef is now a new social hub akin to the previously accessible Tower. It also has most of the amenities of The Tower—bank terminals, a bounty officer, and a new Cryptarch—plus a few new NPCs used in the fresh content and story missions.

You may recognize the areas these missions take you to, but House of Wolves reframes most of them in some interesting ways.

One mission, for instance, takes you into the Vault of Glass—the site of the game’s first raid—where you actually interact with some of that area's unique objectives (e.g. Oracles) with some added story context. Another brings you back to the very first abandoned freeway area in the game, only now it’s speckled with Fallen snipers and little cover.

There's also one new strike, The Shadow Thief. It's a real standout, if for no other reason than it allows you to chase the zone's boss throughout the level rather than making you just slug through halls of enemies on your way to one big fight as in every other strike.

Once you've cleared those more pedestrian quests and received the first of the game's new "Sidearm" special weapons class (a semi-automatic handgun with elemental damage), it's time to head back to The Reef for House of Wolves' main attractions.

Instead of a new raid, House of Wolves includes the Prison of Elders, operated by Variks, the last friendly Fallen on The Reef. It's the wave-based survival mode that this Destiny should have had since its release, especially given the game’s focus on repeated content.

The Prison of Elders comes with two very important distinctions from all the other modes in Destiny's gamut of time sinks. The first is that it's actually repeatable rather than run on a daily or weekly reset like the rest of the game's pillars. Previous raids and weekly strikes only allowed players to siphon a limited number of loot drops per week, with no guarantee that said drop wouldn't be a useless cape or armor shader. But there's nothing stopping anyone from burning through the Prison's five rounds (one for each enemy species and a boss) over and over again.

While the Prison isn’t limited by time, it is somewhat limited by the Ether Key, the latest in a never-ending string of Destiny currencies. This one allows you to open a massive, third chest in the Prison's vault, showering you with legendary equipment, currencies, and one guaranteed piece of "exotic" equipment per week. If you don't have a Key, there are still smaller chests to plunder, though they're usually only full of more materials and currency.

Keys are rare, but not so rare that I wasn't able to find three in about a day's worth of playing. They have a chance to drop in the Prison of Elders' treasury, and a small stipend will supposedly be offered once every week.

You can also get Keys from the new world events on most of the planets. These events are vast dog piles of humans and NPC opponents that bring players together en masse in the wild, as Destiny’s previous events have. House of Wolves’ events are much more effective at drawing players, though, since Keys are currently so coveted.

The new endgame

While the cooperative challenges are likely still Destiny's biggest draw for most, Bungie has given competitive multiplayer some attention as well. There are new maps, of course, but the bigger addition is that of the Trials of Osiris.

Half new game mode, half special event, the Trials are accessible to fireteams between Friday and Tuesday mornings. To enter, you must buy a punchcard-style "Passage Coin" that records your wins and losses. Every win (up to a limit of nine) means better rewards, while three losses will lock that coin's rewards for exchange at The Reef.

It's another good way to earn loot—and in fact the only way to earn House of Wolves' new, Egyptian-themed weapon and armor sets—though the requirements are pretty steep. You'll need five wins to earn a piece of armor and nine wins without a single loss for the truly special stuff.

The good news is that you can try as many times as you want within the four-day window, and level and equipment benefits are turned on, as in the Iron Banner multiplayer event. That means all that gear and grinding will actually pay off competitively every week rather than every once in an irregularly scheduled blue moon.

You won't have to worry about vanquishing the hardest levels of Prison of Elders to gain the advantage of the best gear and levels, either. House of Wolves also introduces an "ascension" system, which allows every piece of armor and weaponry to be leveled to the new maximum caps.

There is no "best" gear, anymore (though some items will certainly stand above others). You can pick and choose which weapon and armor abilities you value and pump them up. This adds a mercifully simple means to advance your gear and a much needed dose of variety to the endgame.

Of course, you'll need yet another new currency (Etheric Light) to do this, which can only be attained by engaging with the new modes (or through weekly drops). Thus Destiny's heart as a loot-based game is preserved, but with more variety in what you can repeat and more opportunities to do so.

Oh, you’re still here

Variety, guaranteed loot, fewer roadblocks—House of Wolves fixes so many of Destiny's self-inflicted issues that it's a shame there are still some lasting problems that refuse to evaporate.

Currencies, for instance, are officially out of control. There are now more crafting materials and coinages in Destiny than there are slots to carry them on a character, leading to trade voyages between one vendor, the bank, and back again when upgrading or purchasing gear.

More egregiously, Bungie still hasn't entirely learned its lesson about multiplayer matchmaking—specifically that it's a good thing to have. The Prison of Elders can be entered with strangers on its easiest difficulty without issue. Bump it up to one of the three higher levels, however, and you'll be forced to go it alone or find two likeminded friends to search for the better loot and stronger bosses.

That's better than the Trials of Osiris, which are locked away completely unless you have two collaborators from your friends list handy. Or you can jump through the hoops of a third-party matchmaking website, just as everyone has done since the Vault of Glass.

Bungie must know about these services, but it still refuses to create a similar in-game solution. To paraphrase one fellow player, it's as if Bungie built us a desk without a chair and told us it's better for us to stand. I don’t have anything against standing desks, but sometimes I want to sit down (to torture the metaphor a bit).

So House of Wolves doesn't "fix" Destiny completely, as we may have all vainly hoped. Nor does it change it in any way that will wrangle those who weren't already roped in by its loops. Etheric Light and keys have turned that loop into "play more to play more" rather than "play enough and wait seven days."

What House of Wolves does is make that loop more interesting and enjoyable. For the first time since The Dark Below, I want to play more Destiny.