Destiny Rise of Iron – Archon’s Forge and Felwinter Peak

Yes all the rumours are true, there is a brand new social space in Destiny Rise of Iron and it’s called Felwinter Peak.

Felwinter Peak

It’s based on earth and is the end point of your first mission in the new Rise of Iron campaign which makes this the first social place you’ve have to fight to takeover.

And it’s a beautiful, snow capped, mountain area with some wolves wandering around that you can dance with and all the usual suspects that you expect from a social spot. Well versions of them at least. We have a new Cryptarch who will hopefully be a bit more generous on the decoded engrams, as well as new bounty hunter, postman and the sole remaining Iron Lord who will guide you on your journey.

Take a look at me wandering around Felwinter Peak, and dancing with wolves here.

Am I excited about a brand new social space in Destiny? No, not really. I don’t really care to be perfectly honest. It looks awesome and yes the new central pit with the statues of the Iron Lords do add to the gameplay in multiplayer with their artifacts but apart from that it’s just a social spot. A part of the game I could probably do without.

There is the one thing I hope the community figures out extremely quickly and that is the secret of the bells. Behind the Iron Lords are massive bells that you can ring and you just know there is an easter egg just waiting for the correct tolling of the bells.

Oh I take it you noticed that everyone is wearing medieval styled clothing in the trailers etc and we have wolves wandering around… and we are in a snowy mountain… and it’s called Felwinter Peak.

Not Winterfell from Game of Thrones obviously.. obviously.

The Plaguelands

As mentioned in my previous article there is a new area added to the world of Destiny in Rise of Iron called The Plaguelands and this is where you are going to be spending a large portion of your endgame time as with a new area comes a whole bucketload of new patrol’s to perform and bounties to collect.

The design of The Plaguelands will make you feel right at home as it’s very much based of the Russian Cosmodrome environment with the exception of signs of the SIVA plague all over the place

And to be honest that’s the part of the whole expansion that I’m not absolutely loving. Everything has been lovingly crafted by Bungie and it all feels exactly like Destiny has always felt. I think I would have preferred a whole new area in space with a new enemy to fight. But it’s artistic licence in the end and you may feel differently.

Archon’s Forge

One of the best things about Destiny and the thing that keeps on making people come back and endure the grind is that sweet sweet loot. Now Obviously some places are better for loot than others and certain loot will only appear in some places.

Previously we endured the Trials of Osiris over and over again hoping for that yellow ball of pure awesomness to pop out of the bad guys and well now we have something new.

Archon’s Forge is very much the embodiment of that idea whereas you offer up an offering to the Destiny Gods in the form of a SIVA offering that you will need to find out in the plaguelands while destroying people. It’ll be dropped as loot so make sure you check what you get as you go.

Once the offering is accepted the side wall of the cave will open and you will have a short time to get as many of your friends and squad mates into the Forge before the wall closes again. At the event we entered with 6 people which made the event pretty simple to be honest.

However doing it by yourself is going to be a real challenge and a standard team of three should enjoy  the horde mode offering which comes in 3 varieties or levels. I was only allowed to test the first level where the majority of the enemies were your standard foot soldiers with a few higher powered guys thrown in for good measure.

I suspect once you hit the higher levels you are going to start getting trounced by Wizards and Ogres like it’s going out of fashion.

Around 70% into the event a large dome opened on the floor and proceeded to offer us flaming axes to take out the enemies with which was a whole lot of fun.

However you need to be careful with your life as if you die and aren’t resurrected in time you will respawn back in the cave area where you won’t be able to do much other than watch your friends get massacared.

Unfortunately I lost my video footage for Archon’s Forge so you are going to have to deal with IGN running around as badly as I usually do.

PvP New Game Mode, Map and Options

PvP is being given quite the shake up with a brand new mode being added.

Supremecy is Destiny’s take on the classic game mode Kill Confirmed (Tags) where the idea is to not only defeat your opposing guardian but to then collect his Crest that he drops upon death.

The Guardians Crest is his pride and joy so have no doubt that once you take someone’s they are going to be coming back after you to take yours. Mind you they were coming after you to take yours anyway so not that much changes.

Personally this mode is easily my favourite Team Deathmatch mode as it helps weed out the lone wolf’s and the spray and pray players and rewards proper teamwork and planning far more.

Along with the new mode there is a brand new map called Skyline which has you playing in an abandoned outpost on Mars. The map takes you inside for some tight corners and corridors that are going to want to make you bring out your shotgun to the confusing interlinked tunnels that are going to make you want to go outside.

Once outside there are bridges and stairs to hide away from the numerous long range assault and sniper shots that you can expect to be flying around.

I really enjoyed this map which always felt huge but in reality with someone being around every second corner I suspect it was a lot smaller than initial impressions led me to believe.

Bungie have also finally added a custom game mode option to Destiny which is going to allow you to setup some custom games with your friends to practice or mess around on. There is also the option of tournaments in the future but at the time of going to press I’m still not sure if Destiny has any chance of moving into the eSports scene as the largest portion of the game is about grinding for better loot and then using that in the PvP modes.

Going into a tournament and someone has a more powerful weapon than you do in your armory sounds like a real problem that I just don’t think Destiny can fix in this iteration of the game.

But the community is smart so maybe they will be collectively able to comeup with some great ideas.

Some placeholder gameplay until my amazing video completes being uploaded

Last Updated: September 14, 2016