Destiny Dev Explains Why The Taken King Is Worth $40

Destiny is getting a new expansion, called The Taken King, next month, and it'll cost $40, while the last two expansions cost $20 each. Developer Bungie recently explained why The Taken King is priced two times higher than the last two content drops.

In an IGN podcast, community manager Eric "Urk" Osborne laid out the reasoning behind charging $40 for The Taken King. According to him, the expansion includes much more than the past content packs, and its included content more than justifies the price tag.

"You've got a full campaign, [and] I think people are going to enjoy the cinematics, the characters, the missions. We're taking you to the Dreadnaught, to Phobos, up into colony ships. Nathan Fillion [Firefly, Halo 3: ODST] is talking to you, Lance Reddick [The Wire] is talking to you, it's good stuff."

Osborne continued: "I don't have any trouble saying that The Taken King is well more than twice as much content as the Dark Below. The story's great, there's seven Crucible multiplayer maps, there's three brand-new Strikes, and they're the best Strikes we've delivered to date... We've got the Dreadnaught, which is not just a big new destination to explore, it's really deep and layered, there's tons of little secrets and things you can collect... [and] riddles and clues and stories and quests and quest logs and more guns and more gear and exotics. We've got three revised Strikes that are existing [Destiny Year One] Strikes but with the Taken infused in them to change them up for the first time. We've got the [King's Fall] Raid, we've got a bunch of stuff we aren't talking about but will about our in-game content."

For comparison, the Dark Below pack featured a short campaign, a Strike, a Raid, and three Crucible maps. House of Wolves, the most recently released pack, had three Crucible maps, a new cooperative mode called the Prison of Elders, a Strike, a second social space, and a handful of story missions.

The Taken King launches on September 15, and it'll come alongside a host of changes to the base Destiny formula. The Light level system has been scrapped, replaced by more traditional experience-based progression. The quest and bounty systems in the game are also getting a big overhaul. In addition, Bungie is replacing Peter Dinklage with Nolan North as the voice of the Ghost companion in the game.