Destiny: The Dark Below (2014): The Review

Overview

Destiny: The Dark Below feels like a major missed chance, a patchwork of recycled ideas and reused content that does little to refresh Destiny or tackle its most pressing issues. The raid is genuinely strong, and the gunplay remains as satisfying as ever, but the added progression systems are shallow and ultimately unrewarding. It leaves an uneasy question hanging in the air: if this is the direction forward, where exactly is Destiny headed?

Score: 6 out of 10

The Positives ✅

Destiny remains mechanically solid, and The Dark Below doesn’t undermine that foundation. Gunplay is still tight, responsive, and satisfying in that unmistakable Bungie way. Shooting aliens continues to feel good, even if the context around it barely changes.

The clear highlight, and frankly the crown jewel, of the expansion is Crota’s End. Just like the Vault of Glass did for the base game, this raid introduces objective-driven encounters that demand coordination, timing, and strategy. It’s more creative and engaging than anything else offered in the DLC.

Crota’s End also reinforces what Destiny can be at its best. Moments of tension, teamwork, and mechanical complexity shine through, offering a glimpse of a deeper, more varied endgame experience. When it works, it works brilliantly.

A couple of new toys do manage to stand out, at least briefly. Hive Knights dropping swords brings back one of the most enjoyable mechanics from the base game, and the new hoverbike with aerial tricks is undeniably fun to mess around with, even if it’s largely novelty.

Finally, the Hive-themed atmosphere still carries weight. Their eerie design, audio cues, and overall presence maintain Destiny’s darker tone. Even when revisiting familiar locations, the Hive themselves remain one of the franchise’s strongest enemy factions.

The Negatives ⚠️

Calling The Dark Below an “expansion” feels generous. In terms of new content, it’s shockingly thin, closer to a minor add-on than a meaningful addition. If it were installed without notice, it might take hours to even realize something had changed.

Outside of the raid, there’s very little to do. Three short story missions and a single new strike can be completed in under two hours, and nearly all of it reuses environments players have already explored countless times. The sense of déjà vu is overwhelming.

The new strike in particular is a letdown. It lacks the urgency, challenge, and replay appeal that made earlier strikes ideal grinding content. Instead, it feels like a recycled mission with a different coat of paint.

Storytelling remains one of Destiny’s weakest aspects, and The Dark Below does nothing to fix it. Bungie once again relies on pre- and post-mission exposition dumps rather than meaningful narrative delivery. The result is forgettable and hollow.

Eris, the expansion’s new NPC, offers little more than repackaged bounty grinding. Her tasks boil down to familiar “kill X enemies” objectives with minor conditions, and the rewards, mostly cosmetic, hardly justify the effort.

The Experience 🎮

My time with The Dark Below (back in 2014) felt frustratingly hollow. I moved quickly through its limited content and came away feeling like I’d seen almost nothing new. Familiar locations, familiar enemies, familiar routines, it all blended together into a blur of reused assets.

The grind becomes even more restrictive at higher levels. New raid gear requires an entirely new upgrade resource that can only be earned by repeatedly running Crota’s End. That design choice funnels players into a single activity, shrinking the game’s already-limited endgame loop.

While Destiny’s core combat remains enjoyable, The Dark Below fails to build on it in any meaningful way. New mechanics are introduced without content that truly supports or demands their use, leaving them feeling unnecessary.

The lack of raid matchmaking continues to be a major barrier. Crota’s End may be excellent, but it’s effectively locked behind the requirement of coordinating five other high-level players outside the game. That alone will shut out a huge portion of the player base.

Ultimately, The Dark Below feels like a missed opportunity. It highlights Destiny’s potential without delivering on it, offering one excellent activity surrounded by a sea of recycled, shallow content. As an experience, it’s more reminder than revelation, a glimpse of what Destiny could have been, rather than what it actually is.