With the release of Destiny: The Taken King Bungie is mixing things up a bit. Not even the game's most popular merchant, the mysterious Xur, is immune to the changes in Year Two. Today, on the official Bungie blog, the team behind Destiny explained how his role is changing.
Every Friday brings a flurry of activity as Destiny devotees try to find out what Xur will have in stock. That leads to players endlessly debating the value of what he's selling, including Polygon's own Jake Lear. But it appears his stock of hard goods will be more limited going forward.
"Xur was a community 'loot drop,'" said senior design lead Tyson Green. "A shared rallying point that everyone could cheer or curse. In Year Two, Xur’s offerings have been changed so that he will select either a specific Exotic Weapon or an Exotic Engram for sale every week. This change is due primarily to our desire to give players more direct paths to acquiring the Exotics they want through Quests and gameplay experiences, and to avoid repetition in his inventory."
The change lines up with Bungie's earlier statement that they want to "breathe more life into the exotic game going forward" by making the acquisition of high-level gear the result of hard work, rather than sheer luck.
"Xur will also sell a new consumable," Green said, "called the Three of Coins, which gives bosses a chance to drop Exotic Engrams, including Weapon Engrams. These consumables have a cumulative luck effect, so even if one doesn’t net you a drop, the next one has a higher chance to do so.
"Lastly, Xur will also choose a Legacy Engram every week. These Engrams contain Year One Exotics (at Year One Attack and Defense levels) for players who want to finish up a Collection. They strongly bias towards Exotics not already in your Blueprint Collection, to help fill in the blank slots - excluding Mythoclast and Necrochasm, which are still only available from their Year One sources."
For more on Destiny's biggest expansion to date, see Polygon's feature on our first 15 hours with the game as well as our extensive play session on YouTube.
