Eyes up, Guardians. Rob Crossley here again reporting from GameSpot's UK base of operations, relaying messages sent via our in-game Destiny war correspondent Erick Tay.
The Queen is dead (well, gone at least). Her Emissary no longer stands at the fl oral garden at the furthest end of the Tower. Instead, catching eyes nearby is Lord Saladin of The Iron Banner, standing in front of a majestic, giant coin set ablaze.
All the bounties one can find here, at least from Erick's experience, are PvP-based. Meanwhile, the game's galaxy map now has an Iron Banner icon on the left-hand side, replacing the Queen's Wrath challenges. Activating this new icon will transport the player to a six-versus-six game of Control (and there doesn't appear to be any variation on this, at least for now).
Bungie has said that the key differentiator with Iron Banner Control, as opposed to Crucible matches, is it takes your level into account.
Yet Erick's early data suggests the e ffect is less-than-subtle, at least in his experience. His message, sent via c arrier pigeon, reads: "I'm level 29 now and even when playing against a level 24 player, I couldn't really tell the difference. I also asked people I was playing with if they could tell the difference, and none of them said they could."
Erick has a suspicion that this effect may become a bit more pronounced when Bungie resets the servers early on Tuesday, but this is but a mere hunch from a man on the front lines.
Meanwhile, another downer: The rewards, while aesthetically pleasing, apparently aren't the most incredible items to find at the high-twenties. In Erick's case, they all aided strength stats too. Here's some images to lust over:
< p style="">However, the manner in which you are rewarded has changed, with only the winning team enjoying reputation boosts. One common complaint about Crucible matches is you could technically go on a ridiculous thirty-person-kill-streak and still not get anything special. This time, it's winners take all.There's an unforeseen by-product to this, says Erick. When his team were g aining a meaningful lead over the opposition, players began to abandon the match and try their luck elsewhere.
The theory being, if you're not likely to win anything, why fight for it? This, more than anything else, will infuriate Lord Saladin.
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