Destiny's April update detailed with 335 Light, high-level Prison of Elders and more

Destiny developer Bungie provided a glimpse of the game's upcoming spring update in a Twitch livestream today, showing off new content such as a redesigned strike and a tougher Prison of Elders.

The April update will bring Destiny's Light cap up from 320 to 335, and will introduce new challenges like a Prison of Elders exercise that's designed for high-level players. The Reef is the base of operations for the April update, and Variks the Loyal, the warden of the Prison of Elders, has been throwing Taken foes into the arena. This mission supports matchmaking, and it is marked as a level 41 challenge with a recommended Light of 260. Plus, Variks will offer Prison of Elders bounties that give you House of Judgment reputation, and Prison of Elders enemies will now drop engrams.

Obviously, 260 well below the current Light cap, so Bungie is also adding a new Prison of Elders mode called Challenge of the Elders. It will offer "four months of varying challenges that won't repeat," said Bungie community manager David "DeeJ" Dague, and will keep track of your progress on scorecards like the Trials of Osiris. The recommended Light for Challenge of the Elders, a level 42 arena, is 320.

Challenge of the Elders is a fireteam-oriented mode that's scored and timed, so it's about maximizing your score through time management using assists, kills and precision kills. Taking down enemies will obviously raise your score, but if you spend too long farming adds without defeating the boss, Variks will grow impatient — and your score will drop. You'll work toward a score of 30,000, which will reward a high-level weapon, and a cumulative score of 90,000 will reward high-level armor. The game tracks this on an Elders' Sigil, a scorecard that you must purchase once a week from Variks.

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The April update will bring an Eververse Trading Company outpost into the Reef, and Variks will be your point of contact for the update's new quests. He wants you to study the Taken, as he's tracking a new Taken power that's rising up in the vacuum created by Oryx's death. Petra Venj will offer a new quest line of her own, but it will be exclusive to Destiny players on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.

Another piece of the April update is the Winter's Run strike, which has been updated to endgame levels and is now infested with Taken enemies — including a Taken version of the Archon Priest. The update will also include a new strike, Blighted Chalice, featuring a powerful boss: a Taken prince named Malok. Blighted Chalice will be the culmination of Variks' quest line. And in a page on its website for the update, Bungie said the update increases the difficulty and rewards for King's Fall and the Court of Oryx: Rewards in the normal raid will drop at 320, those in the hard raid will drop at 330, and artifacts in the Court of Oryx will drop at 335.

Destiny's April update, which requires ownership of The Taken King, will be released April 12. Bungie will run two more Twitch livestreams over the next two Wednesdays with further details about the version 2.2 patch.