A Decade Ago, The Taken King Saved Destiny–And Then Cursed It

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Today, September 15, 2025, marks the 10-year anniversary of *Destiny: The Taken King*. This expansion was a turning point for the *Destiny* series and helped shape the future of ongoing, live-service games.

Ten years ago, Bungie performed a miracle. It also, unfortunately, invoked a curse.

In 2014, the creators of the popular Halo series released Destiny, a game that aimed to combine their signature action-packed campaigns and multiplayer battles with the large-scale, community-focused elements of online role-playing games. Despite a lot of initial hype, Destiny didn’t quite live up to expectations. The initial release felt unfinished and lacked substance-something later confirmed by reports-but the game survived thanks to a series of smaller, less impressive updates. It wasn’t until The Taken King, Destiny’s first big expansion, that the game truly found its footing.

Destiny felt lost before the release of The Taken King on September 15, 2015-and it’s no exaggeration to say this expansion completely changed the game for the better. While Destiny’s environments were visually impressive and expansive, they felt empty and lacked a strong sense of community. The characters felt like a random collection of familiar tropes rather than a unified team, and the story was incredibly weak. Despite excellent shooting mechanics, a beautiful art style mixing science fiction and fantasy, and well-designed missions, the game lacked direction. The Taken King finally gave Destiny the focus it needed.

The Taken King expansion was a huge improvement over the original Destiny. Even after 10 years, I’m impressed by the first mission, where you defend a base on Phobos. It felt so much more dynamic than anything in the game before. Little details, like enemy ships appearing over the hills and distant explosions, really brought the world to life and broke up the slow, static feel of the original destinations. It completely changed the atmosphere, like creating ripples in a calm pond.

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Before The Taken King, Destiny felt directionless and undefined. This expansion changed everything by introducing Oryx, a compelling villain whose influence continues to be felt throughout the game. It revitalized existing characters like Eris Morn and filled the Dreadnaught with intriguing lore. Even simple features, like a quest log, were added! The Taken King didn’t just improve Destiny; it expanded its scope and finally delivered on the promise of an epic battle between light and darkness – letting players truly feel like they were living out a grand adventure in a vast universe with incredible powers and weapons.

Destiny had effectively turned things around. With a clearer story and positive community support, it seemed ready to keep improving. So, what problem was I hinting at before?

Destiny has always felt like it’s been in need of a rescue. Those who have followed the game and its developer know it’s had a rocky history. While there have been definite highs – expansions like Taken King and Forsaken, which both arrived at similar points in Destiny 2’s lifespan – they’ve been matched by significant lows. Destiny is known for its impressive turnarounds, but also for periods of struggle, often caused by constant changes and attempts to reinvent itself, which made it hard to build a solid foundation. Like Rainbow Six Siege and No Man’s Sky, Destiny showed that live-service games *can* recover, but it also demonstrated just how unpredictable and unstable that model can be. It perfectly illustrates the dramatic ups and downs inherent in games that are constantly evolving.

Destiny has always struggled with consistency. Although Bungie continued to develop the game, it often lacked new content, which frustrated players multiple times over the years. To fix this, Bungie created a regular schedule and format for updates – including major expansions, smaller updates, and seasonal events – to keep players engaged and maintain the game’s momentum.

We frequently discuss the drawbacks of “live-service” games from the player’s point of view, which is important for understanding how they can be problematic. However, we don’t often talk about how this constant cycle of updates and new content affects the developers who create these games. While some games, like Fortnite, have plenty of resources, many development teams do not.

The frequent release schedule for Destiny seems to be wearing out the developers, especially with the pressure to always deliver more ambitious content. However, the demanding live-service model isn’t the only problem. Combined with past poor management, a difficult work environment, and repeated layoffs and restructurings – some successful, others not – it’s understandable why Destiny has faced so much internal instability throughout its history.

Destiny’s frequent updates had a mixed impact. While expansions like The Taken King significantly improved the game, others, such as Rise of Iron and Beyond Light, felt rushed or incomplete despite good intentions. The introduction of Seasons in Destiny 2 offered temporary solutions to storytelling and content problems, but ultimately created new issues with repetitive gameplay and disappearing content. Some major changes, like class overhauls, were positive, while others, such as the Portal, weren’t well-received. Overall, Destiny’s progress felt uneven – for every two steps forward, it often seemed to take one step back, leaving players wanting more.

So, how does The Taken King stack up when looking at Destiny expansions? It really raised the standard for what future releases *should* be like. While Bungie has sometimes met that high expectation over the last decade, trying to achieve such ambitious goals has also led to some disappointments alongside the successes.

Bungie has fallen into a frustrating pattern: they fix mistakes with impressive skill, but then quickly make new ones that create even bigger problems. For over ten years, this cycle has repeated itself in Destiny – they recover from errors, only to create fresh issues through their own actions, leading to a constant need for further corrections.

It’s wrong to criticize The Taken King – one of Destiny’s strongest early expansions – for the game’s later problems. In fact, The Taken King was so well-received, it’s absurd to blame it for anything. However, it did inadvertently start a pattern that ultimately wasn’t sustainable for the developers or the game’s future.

While The Taken King revitalized Destiny and was a huge success, it’s created a difficult standard for future expansions. It represents both the peak of what Destiny could be, and the constant struggle to recapture that magic, leaving a lasting impact on the game’s development.

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2025-09-16 01:40