The new Destiny DLC “The Taken King” is dropping on September 15th. Many legions of diehard fans of Bungies latest IP are excited to finally get some fresh new content for the universe that they have grown to love. The release of “The Taken King” actually marks the beginning of Destiny year two. For many this is a time to rejoice in a new year of Destiny content. However for many gamers the release of “The Taken King” is just a reminder of the bad taste they had in their mouths after Destiny was released last year.
The initial release of Destiny saw a mixed bag of reviews for the new IP. Many saw it as a work in progress that would get better with time. Many saw it as a product stripped of much of its originally planned content in favor of breaking up much of the game in order to earn a quick buck via DLC downloads. In the end both sides are right in their own ways. Those that said Destiny would get better as time went on have been correct. Both “The Dark Below” and “House of Wolves” made the Destiny universe a much more fleshed out experience by adding both more story and strike mission content. On the other hand the side that says Destiny is a stripped down hollow shell of itself is also right, because we now know that much of “The Dark Below” and “House of Wolves” content was stripped from the base game.
However, it’s not just Bungie and Activision that have stripped their games down before in order to sell more content via DLC. This has actually been a common practice that started during the last generation and it has only gotten worse. Frequently titles are released the same day as a bunch of DLC add ons for the same game. Which makes it plain as day to the consumer that they are subtly getting ripped off with content that is probably already on the disc and is only unlocked when paying extra.
With an industry obsessed with making money by nickel and dimming consumers via DLC it is refreshing to see a developer like CD Project RED release a huge game like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Not only was the game released with hundreds of hours of on disc content but over the past few months there has also been over a dozen free updates that have added content that extends the games life and improves the games performance.
This kind of support is unheard of in todays industry and CD Project RED should be commended for doing such an amazing job of supporting a game post launch. Unlike Destiny the base game was loaded with over 200 hours of well made content. The game came out of the box rather polished for an open world game of this scale. Usually we would expect all kinds of game breaking bugs for a release this ambitious. However, the developers of The Witcher believe in and love their game and have treated it as such.
CD Project RED have given gamers a gift in 2015. The gift of being able to get lost in an amazing world that contains some of the best story telling and graphics ever seen in a game and on top of that they have continued to refine and add to the game when most gamers would have probably never once complained of the initial release. Other developers need to take note. This is how you release and support a game.
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