Huge Destiny Deal Arrives Ahead of House of Wolves Update

Gamers who purchased last year’s Destiny multiplayer game for the Xbox One and Xbox 360 still don’t have access to the exclusive content that Sony locked up for PlayStation buyers. That doesn’t mean Xbox owners aren’t getting a few perks for the game. Ahead of next week’s House of Wolves launch, Microsoft is slashing prices on the digital version of Destiny.

For the next week, Destiny for the Xbox 360 costs users $29.99 in the Xbox Store. Destiny for the Xbox One, Microsoft’s current generation console and competitor to the PS4 is also $29.99. Xbox One and Xbox 360 owners who take advantage of this Destiny deal will still have to pay separately for the House of Wolves content update that’s arriving next week. That being said, Microsoft has also slashed the price of the Destiny: Guardians Edition version of the game to just $60.29. It’s the Guardians Edition that gives users free access to the House of Wolves expansion pack and the first Destiny expansion pack, The Dark Below.

Microsoft says users don’t need an Xbox Live Gold subscription to take advantage of these Destiny deals either. Normally, big discounts in the Xbox Store require an Xbox Live Gold subscription at a cost of $9.99 a month or $60 a year.

Read: More Destiny Details Arrive

Users who pickup Destiny this week can purchase the House of Wolves add-on content separately for $20 through the Xbox Store. The Xbox Store also offers Destiny: Expansion Pass that lets users get the House of Wolves update and The Dark Below update for $35, which works out to be about $5 in savings.

All told, it’s a smart move on Microsoft’s to part to discount Destiny now. Activision, Destiny’s publisher, and Sony have an agreement that means that only PS3 and PS4 buyers get certain pieces of content, even though gamers on both platforms paid the amount for the Destiny: Expansion Pass. With House of Wolves, that trend continues. The new Timekeeper map is exclusive to PlayStation owners until at least this fall, according to the PlayStation Blog.

House of Wolves adds a new system of weapons updates to Destiny. Following the update, players can harness different materials to upgrade their armor and weapons on a regular basis. This might sound small, but Bungie raised a lot of eyebrows when The Dark Below basically nullified a lot of the work users had put into earning their weapons and gear.

Destiny focuses heavily on competitive and co-operative multiplayer modes, some would say to the detriment of single player campaign lovers. House of Wolves sheds light on the problems The Fallen have caused throughout the solar system. Having opened her home to The Fallen, The Queen invites Guardians – players at home – to help her get her revenge for their treachery. House of Wolves adds a completely new social zone for players, called The Reef. Guardians get new trading opportunities and story missions from the inhabitants of The Reef.

House of Wolves increases the Destiny level cap to 34. That’s only slightly up from the previous cap of 32, but it means players who complete this new content will get to keep their experience points and extras. Finally, there’s Prisoner of Elders. Prisoner of Elders isn’t a new map, but a multiplayer game mode that lets users team up with their friends. It behaves similar to survival modes from other games; it’s your team’s job to live as long as possible. Make it through and the game rewards you with a trip to the Queen’s Treasure Room. Memorizing tactics gets players no where with Prisoner of Elder’s since what they experience is dynamically generated by the game itself. Anything and everything can change.