Price: $29.99

ESRB Rating: T

Pegi Rating: 16+

Genre: Shooter

Multiplayer: Online

Co-op: Online

Platforms: Xbox One, PS4

Publisher: Activision

Developer: Bungie

Release date: September 16, 2016

Rating: 9.6/10

Features:

• New Story Campaign & Quests
• New Armor and Gear
• New Weapons
• New Raid
• Maximum Light Increase
• New Strike
• New Plaguelands Zone & Social Space
• New Crucible Mode & Maps
• New Enemy Faction and Bosses

Specifications and Requirements:

• 1080p Graphics
• Requires Destiny Game and The Taken King Expansion
• 30fps

Pros and Cons:

+Intrepid crucible maps

+ Custom multiplayer games

+Continued Relevance

+The Gjallarhorn and Thorn return

+Weapon customization (appearance & stats)

– Short campaign

– Little to no explanation

– A lot of content re-skins

– Several Disadvantageous Nerfs and Buffs

Destiny: The Rise of Iron Expansion is the fourth expansion in the post-release content lineup.

I would have to say my favorite part about this new expansion is the fact that during the Iron Banner Event you can buy “Dusty Iron Engrams”. They have a class item symbol on them but don’t worry, they will give you any armor piece that is Iron Banner armor, whether it be past, current, or alternate Iron Banner gear. You can get those “Dusty Iron Engrams” from Lord Saladin in the new Felwinter’s Peak social Space.

Basically, this new expansion focuses on the new enemy type; Siva Splicers. Fallen Splicers are the specialized fallen that are essentially hackers.

They have put several new mechanics into the game. Some of them more enjoyable than others.

For one, they added a seeking energy grenade that pops out an enemy after you kill them with a headshot. It’s an interesting addition. It doesn’t proc every time, but it certainly adds a challenge to skilled gamers attempting to make the game easier by killing enemies faster.

They also added active Siva piles as tall as a player that have Siva swarms around it that hurt you when near them with aoe dot. These are honestly some of the most annoying. They spawn in randomly and in the most inconvenient locations  which was most likely Bungie’s intention.

Along with those mechanics, they added in the highly anticipated Iron Lord’s flaming ax. It has two attacks, RB and RT, like the exotic swords. The RT attack is an AOE plus DOT damage that is a ground pound with the base of the ax that sends a rippling flame surge that travels out about three meters. Plan on using the RT attack wisely because it costs five swings worth of ammo. The RB attack is a regular swing although, when you get a hit, it regenerates two swing’s worth of ammo. At first it will be hard to remember to charge up your attacks by getting hits with RB but after a while, you will get the hang of it. This is probably my favorite new mechanic. I secretly wish they had actually made the ax a heavy weapon but that would be way too OP.

Now backing up to the Siva. The Siva was created in the golden age by scientists and could take the form of anything, so they used it to build colonies and expand wide and far. The only problem with the Siva was that they couldn’t control it. Later, in the dark age, they Iron Lords discovered the Siva. They too sought to build back what the humans once had, although even they weren’t strong enough to control it. Seven of the Iron Lords locked themselves in the Warmind bunker and sacrificed themselves to destroy the Siva.

But hold on, plot twist, the Siva wasn’t destroyed. This outcome was very predictable.

Several years later, a new threat rises.

This is where the Splicers come into play, they have hacked into the Warmind bunker, stolen the Siva, and imbedded the Siva into themselves making them Siva Splicers.

Later on you find out someone is controlling the splicers and also doing certain things to the hive. Very cliché.

I won’t ruin the rest, you’ll have to play it to find out and I highly recommend you do play this expansion to find out the rest.

Over all it was a very good expansion, the only problems I had with it were the fact that it is so hard to level up your light level past 365 due to the fact that decrypting legendary engrams only went up to 365 and decrying blues only went up to 340 and so after you hit light level 340 through blue engrams, you had to do the Heroic Siva Strikes which even then the strikes only gave you blues up to 365. After that you’re stuck leveling up through faction packages and infusing exotics into your gear. The other problem I had was the fact that there are so many things left unexplained. Although it was an extremely short expansion to the story, so far it has been really a great experience.

Sadly I was really hoping for a re-skin for Her Supremacy which strangely enough looks like the Cheytac Intervention.

The rest I will let you explore and figure out yourselves. Good luck, fellow Guardians!