Yesterday, Bungie announced something we were all expecting, a May release date for Destiny’s House of Wolves DLC, and something no one was, that the new expansion would not contain another Raid.
Rather than introducing another complex, six-man activity, Bungie instead revealed a few details about another type of mission called the “Prison of Elders.” They describe it as “a new cooperative end game activity focused on variety, replayability, and skill.”
They refer to it as a “battle arena,” which many fans have taken to mean that Prison of Elders is some sort of co-operative Horde Mode type activity where players (in groups of three, not six) will work together to survive waves of enemies. Though Bungie says in the statement they are working on a new Raid to be released later this year (which jives with a timeline anticipating a big new content drop in the fall), House of Wolves will not have one.
The community seems pretty stunned by the decision, given that the Raid has always been the ultimate endgame of Destiny content, both in the original game, and now recently in the first DLC, Crota’s End. Without more details about what the Prison of Elders will contain, it can be hard to tell if the decision is a wise one, but obviously many fans are making up their minds already that this is a very bad thing.
I’m not so sure, and I think once again the most engaged, vocal fans about an issue like this are forgetting the true make-up of the Destiny playerbase.