Since September, Destiny’s Prison Of Elders has laid dormant and useless, filled with encounters and gear that were rendered obsolete by The Taken King. Next month, that could change.
Last night, when Bungie announced the release date for Destiny’s big spring update—which is April 12!—they topped it with the above picture. Hardcore fans immediately noticed that those three guardians were wearing Takenified versions of gear from the Prison of Elders, Destiny’s cooperative PVE arena. The not-so-subtle hint here is that one of the “New PVE Challenges” listed in Bungie’s blog post is a refreshed version of the prison, complete with challenges and gear that will actually be worthwhile for post-Taken King players.
Bungie says they’ll reveal more about the April update on Twitch streams in the coming weeks. It wouldn’t be surprising to see them offer refreshes not just for Prison of Elders but for the other endgame content they’ve left behind, including the Vault of Glass and Crota’s End raids.
This will be the first significant PVE update to hit Destiny since September, so expectations are high, especially after recent months of malaise in the hardcore community. After staying quiet for a while about future plans for the game—likely because they weren’t sure what those plans would be—Bungie is now offering more transparency, promising that after this April update there will be an expansion in the fall, with a full-sized sequel to follow in 2017.