That reminds me, even Halo 5 had a giant worm cameo on one of it's MP maps... can't remember the name, but I remember playing it with Loftus. It was pretty cool, for what it was.

The Rig.
Activating the whole thing took a few steps (which was neat), and made the entire map slightly more terrifying as a result. I commend 343 for getting that right, at least.

For those who skipped the game, that thing that the worm is eating is a giant drilling rig, identical to the one that you're on... way out in the open desert.

Like the megaladon in Battle Field.

Or the thing that swims by when you're inside the Arcology.

Or the giant squid in Assassin's Creed (Revelations?).

I love games that stick a giant thing that could theoretically eat you without you standing a chance (yeah, I've heard of Subnautica).

The Dreadnaught was cool with its secrets, but it was a pain to get around, and the dark got really tiresome.

Mars has a fantastic aesthetic. I liked Mars in the original Destiny a whole bunch--that barren red desert is just striking, especially with the future city buildings as a stark contrast. They cranked that up a notch with both the ice and the buildings. The Warmind aesthetic has always been some of my favorite stuff, and it definitely doesn't disappoint here. I love the server room, and of course the Warmind core. Seeing Rasputin shoot off new Warsats every so often is really neat.

And that skybox . . . I'm a sucker for starry scenes, and this one is beautiful.

The locations are fun to move around and fight in, there's a decent variety of public events and enemies roaming about. There's enough little things to find with the Data Caches (I hope this is a trend that continues going forward--I miss hunting for dead Ghosts).

All in all, I'm really enjoying this expansion. It's honestly better than I anticipated after Curse of Osiris (and I thought that was mostly fine).

Can't wait to see the raid lair!

Maybe we will get one of the bigger ones as a raid. I really like the idea of the raid being on top and inside this giant worm. Maybe at the end you set off a massive bomb and have a Halo style run on sparrows down its back to get away.

This would be awesome. And to open up the raid your fireteam has to go into the sand and walk with rhythm.

Giant worm on a desert planet. So much lost opportunity for some nods to Dune. I wish I could have some stillsuit hunter armor at least.

That reminds me, even Halo 5 had a giant worm cameo on one of it's MP maps... can't remember the name, but I remember playing it with Loftus. It was pretty cool, for what it was.

Like the megaladon in Battle Field.

Yep. The Dreadnaught was Akka. And Xol was said to be the least powerful of the worms. Personally, I wanted Rasputin to use Warsats on Xol instead of use chunking Valkyries... Maybe even an ending cutscene where Rasputin nukes a fleeing Xol from orbit to be sure.

People keep saying that we killed Xol, but can't the worms have some sort of throne world like the Hive? Xol could totally still resurrect himself for the raid...

Maybe we will get one of the bigger ones as a raid. I really like the idea of the raid being on top and inside this giant worm. Maybe at the end you set off a massive bomb and have a Halo style run on sparrows down its back to get away.

This would be awesome. And to open up the raid your fireteam has to go into the sand and walk with rhythm.

Giant worm on a desert planet. So much lost opportunity for some nods to Dune. I wish I could have some stillsuit hunter armor at least.

The Dune Universe is so fucking cool. I wondered why nobody had made a Destiny style game out of it… but then I realized it's so fucking cool there'd be no way to do it right.

Maybe we will get one of the bigger ones as a raid. I really like the idea of the raid being on top and inside this giant worm. Maybe at the end you set off a massive bomb and have a Halo style run on sparrows down its back to get away.

This would be awesome. And to open up the raid your fireteam has to go into the sand and walk with rhythm.

Giant worm on a desert planet. So much lost opportunity for some nods to Dune. I wish I could have some stillsuit hunter armor at least.

Maybe we will get one of the bigger ones as a raid. I really like the idea of the raid being on top and inside this giant worm. Maybe at the end you set off a massive bomb and have a Halo style run on sparrows down its back to get away.

This would be awesome. And to open up the raid your fireteam has to go into the sand and walk with rhythm.

For all the buildup in the lore, I just think the worms should be killed in raids. I was disappointed to see that I could kill one with a sidearm if I wanted too. It should have at least been immune to everything but the Valkarie.

Maybe we will get one of the bigger ones as a raid. I really like the idea of the raid being on top and inside this giant worm. Maybe at the end you set off a massive bomb and have a Halo style run on sparrows down its back to get away.

Now that I think about it, Kings Fall was technically inside a worm.

haha! Technically! I keep forgetting about that!

Maybe we will get one of the bigger ones as a raid. I really like the idea of the raid being on top and inside this giant worm. Maybe at the end you set off a massive bomb and have a Halo style run on sparrows down its back to get away.

Now that I think about it, Kings Fall was technically inside a worm.

Remember in Gears of War 2 when you have to kill that huge worm, by going inside of it in a whole mission and chainsaw its heart? Thinking about that, it seems like Bungie could have done way cooler things when it comes to killing Xol.

Man, that was a good mission. It would have been cool to do something like that! Overall I liked the final encounter, it just came too quick. I would have liked a couple more missions and cutscenes to establish Xol as a worthy opponent.

At this point, I feel like Destiny just decided to go Prison of Elders with their baddies: No (or very few, like one every two years) villains, lots of bosses. Which is fine from a gameplay point of view, but doesn't lend itself to interesting storytelling.

The only real disappointment for me is Xol. That whole arc seemed really half baked and poorly executed. Zavala says Rasputin isn’t the only thing that woke up on Mars and the mission ends. Then you go to Earth and Zavala drops his name and gives us basically no information, like we’re already supposed to know what he’s talking about.

There was such a disconnect between the two missions you mention that I honestly thought I had missed something. When were we told the name of the worm god? Did Zavala know that the thing we awoke was a worm god? How did he know his name/weakness/etc?

Those are serious questions, btw. I need some help filling in the gaps!

It's a Hunter helmet that gives you life back, and immediately starts health regen on dodge. It's really really good. I lost count of how many times after a firefight or in the middle of one where an opponent assumed my health was low and engaged only to die. Nope. I regained it all back!

If you take a few shots, you can dodge to go back up to full like nothing happened.