

My Destiny fanatic friends spent the campaign gabbing about obscure tidbits of lore that added a few things here and there to the game's torturously convoluted backstory, but you don't really have to care about that. As the most casual of casual Destiny players, even I had a good idea of what was going on. Rise of Iron's campaign story is certainly told better than any before it. The never-ending gear treadmill seems to be the biggest thing that keeps Destiny's true believers hooked, but it's also the thing that keeps other players away. There's a brief campaign, some post-campaign story missions, new Strikes, a few additions to the PvP Crucible, and a new raid that launches on Friday. We're still in wintry Russia, albeit with a new area to patrol and a "new" foe to fight (more on that later). Rise of Iron takes us back to Earth, but not to a new, exotic location. Is Rise of Iron the final expansion that will bring all the kids back to the yard and get us pumped for Destiny 2? It's now been a year since there were any meaningful additions to the game, though, and the player base has been wearing thin. Bungie's post-Halo project has had plenty of highs and lows, culminating in last year's The Taken King expansion, which presented a compelling vision for this MMO-shooter that probably should have been there from the start. Destiny has been a long, strange journey.
