One month ago today, Bungie finally released Destiny's first expansion, The Dark Below. It, like the rest of Destiny, was immediately divisive: some found that the new expansion was poorly designed and didn't feature enough content for the asking price, while others praised the new Raid's focus on environmental challenges and decent loot. If one thing is for certain, it's that The Dark Below is still seeing a lot of traffic, even if its reception was relatively lukewarm.
A divisive fan reaction isn't the only thing The Dark Below has in common with its full-game counterpart. Bungie is already hard at work fixing glitches, loot systems and general playability of the expansion. In the developer's latest Weekly Update, Bungie detailed a large number of changes that are already on their way.
The first major change coming to The Dark Below's Raid (also known as Crota's End) is the addition of Hard mode. Despite the fact that the Raid was just released, the mission has already been cleared over a million times. Many of these players are looking for an even greater challenge, and fans were surprised when Crota's End was released without difficulty options.
Bungie has confirmed that Hard mode is well on its way to distribution, and also mentioned that the new difficulty setting would come with a few surprises and tweaks. The developer hasn't gone into any further detail regarding said surprises or an official release date, but it did say that "Hard Mode for Crota's End is going through the final few stages of deployment. It's almost ready."
Other, smaller changes are also being implemented in a standalone patch: the infamous 'Crota Crouch' glitch is being removed, and one of the better loot rewards has been switched from an out-of-the-way chest and is now tied to a mini-boss. Other fixes include glitches in enemy respawns, physics and status effects.
Bungie also took time to announce another series of Crucible challenges and events; the most notable was the return of the Iron Banner playlist. From Jan. 13-19, players can take their best gear into the Crucible for a true test, but those looking for something more casual should be happy to know that three maps - Asylum, The Anomaly, and The Burning Shrine - are being added into the Clash and Control playlist.
Finally, Bungie shared a massive amount of weapon information: for each class of firearm, Bungie analyzed every player over Level 20 in order to find out which guns were the most popular. It's surprising to see how many Rare weapons made it on the list, and while the rest of the list is far more predictable (Legendaries and Exotics), it's still surprising to see how much variety there is in players' arsenals.
For even more information on The Dark Below, weaponry and upcoming patches, check out Bungie's Weekly Update.
