In its Weekly Update this week, developer Bungie detailed the upcoming changes to bounties and quests, revealing a dramatic overhaul to the tasks. First of all, The Taken King’s creative director Luke Smith stated that the studio is making the expansion’s new quests more in line with the base game’s Exotic Bounties. These bounties are multi-step, difficult challenges that rewarded players with Exotic weapons upon completion. Destiny power leveling can get the Exotic weapons.
“These Bounties took you on a journey through multiple activities–which in the best cases had flashes of unique moments–and ended with rewards players cared about,” Smith explained. “In many ways, these were the earliest tendrils of how we’d come to think about Quests in Destiny. Quests are an arrangement of activities and challenges that tell a story and represent a journey for the player. We want Destiny to provide more experiences like that.”
He also revealed that in-game organization of quests and bounties would be different in the expansion. Upon release of The Taken King, the tasks will be organized in a menu tab called “Quests.” This will consolidate all story missions, bounties, and other activities into one page.
Additionally, quests and bounties will now be tracked in the HUD, allowing you to follow your progress without having to go into a menu. Just press a button on the directional pad and your progress will pop up. You’ll also be able to hold even more bounties, up to 16 at a time.
Finally, players will no longer have to go back to the Tower social space to turn in bounties. You can complete them from the Quests page in the menu.
On Tuesday, Bungie revealed a special perk for loyal players. If you finish every task on this page, you’ll receive a unique emblem. In the Weekly Update, the studio shared some stats about player activity following this incentive. As compared to last week, there’s been:
- 39% increase in Public Event completion
- 74% increase in Skolas kills in Prison of Elders
- 40% increase in Crota’s End Hard Mode participation
- 10% increase in Vault of Glass Hard Mode participation
The Taken King launches on September 15 and will cost $40. Recently, Smith stated that Destiny has a “huge amount of potential that we haven’t met at all in a bunch of ways.” He also hinted that the studio is already working on something else for Destiny following The Taken King.