Destiny players will be able to test out The Taken King's new competitive multiplayer content, for free, for one week before the expansion launches, developer Bungie announced today.
The Taken King includes a wealth of additions to Destiny's Crucible. The expansion comes with eight maps (with one of them available exclusively on PlayStation), and brings in two entirely new modes, Rift and Mayhem. In addition, Bungie is making the Elimination gametype from Trials of Osiris available in its own playlist, even when Trials is offline.
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Bungie will update Destiny to version 2.0 next Tuesday, Sept. 8, one week prior to the Sept. 15 launch of The Taken King. When the 2.0 update goes live, all Destiny players will have the opportunity to try The Taken King's new Crucible maps and modes for seven days.
This isn't the first time Bungie has offered a preview of an expansion's content before the launch of that add-on itself. In fact, the studio did something similar for Destiny's first two expansions, The Dark Below last December and House of Wolves this past May.
With Destiny's version 1.1 update, enemies called Blades of Crota began spawning on Earth and the moon, a limited-time world event that served as a preview of a mission in The Dark Below. And Destiny's version 1.2 patch in mid-May brought back Queen's Wrath bounties, giving Guardians the chance to pick up House of Wolves loot during the weekend before the expansion's debut.
It's unclear at this point if loot from The Taken King will drop for people trying the new Crucible content, but we'll find out for sure in a few days. For more on The Taken King, check out our everything-you-need-to-know StoryStream.
Update: Bungie also provided some details on the 2.0 update. Incomplete bounties will be discarded once the patch goes live — except for in-progress exotic weapon bounties, which will be automatically completed. Eris Morn won't offer her own bounties anymore, but Guardians will still be able to earn Crota's Bane reputation by completing certain quests in The Taken King.
Bungie noted that Destiny's three new Guardian subclasses won't be available during the Crucible preview, since players will have to unlock them in The Taken King. And as for the Queen's Wrath bounties from House of Wolves, well, the wolves will retreat permanently "in anticipation of the arrival of Oryx in your solar system," according to Bungie.
You can watch a trailer for the Crucible preview event above.
