Our last preview of Destiny’s Rise of Iron expansion looked at the weapons that you’ll be using to take down the enemies of the City. While weapons are a necessity, you’re going to need more to be able to survive. This time, we take a look at the new Destiny: Rise of Iron armor. When you’re wandering The Plaguelands trying to take down the forces of evil, it helps to have armor on your back that can take the hits. It also doesn’t hurt if it looks good to boot.
In an interesting turn of events Bungie hasn’t shown any of the new Exotic armor that will be released with the new Rise of Iron content. Instead, they’ve shown some of the full sets that you can acquire for all three classes. Of course, these won’t be the only new Rise of Iron armor pieces that you can acquire throughout the game. I mean, you can’t expect Bungie to show all of their cards right off the bat. That’s honestly fine, as it’ll leave a lot of the surprise intact when we finally dive into Destiny: Rise of Iron when it comes out this week.
Iron Lord
This is one of the initial armor sets that Bungie has shown off. It’s unknown at this time how it’ll be acquired. Most likely this is a set that a lot of us will be wearing as it will probably drop the most frequently playing through the normal game. As mentioned in the Rise of Iron weapons preview, the Iron Lord armor and weapons are being modeled after Vikings and Arthurian knights. Note the fur accents combined with the chainmail and metal plates. It shows an interesting mix of medieval material with futuristic design.
Wrath of the Machine
These Wrath of the Machine armor pieces will only be obtainable in the new raid. Note the angular patterns and rigid lines. The contrasting black-and-red color scheme effectively matches up with the color theme of SIVA. While I’m not a particular fan of the look of the raid set so far, I will be interested to see what perks they come with. The PVE raid gear always comes with specific traits that help with certain mechanics of the raid. Some examples are increased damage, faster agility, or quicker reloading under certain conditions.
Trials of Osiris
This new armor is the top-tier PVP gear earned through intense combat in the Trials of Osiris. Keeping with the Egyptian theme, each class is modeled after a notable animal. The Hunter after the lithe cat, the Warlock after a fierce cobra, and the Titan after an armored scarab. What’s also new is the move away from gold and black styling. The past few Osiris sets followed that color scheme, but the royal blue influence takes it in a new, more regal direction.
Iron Banner
Back with a vengeance is the PVP gear that started it all. Modeled very similarly to the Iron Lords gear, these sets distinguish themselves with colors of the Iron Banner. Gold and green permeate the armor pieces, which provide more of a contrast to the gray and silver of the Iron Lords sets. While the models are the same, the lack of fur and increased chainmail accents help distinguish it further from the regular armor.
Ornaments
As mentioned in the Rise of Iron weapons preview, a new function coming to both armor and weapons was Ornamentation. With weapons, it will provide different colors or skins and even some new effects. With the Rise of Iron armor, it’s a lot more visible, and quite frankly, amazing. The two examples provided so far can be seen in the Trials of Osiris and Iron Lords gear.
With the Trials gear, so far the ornaments we’ve seen provide a translucent orange overlay. You can see in the image above that it accents the royal blue and gives the gear a massive pop of color. The ornaments give the Iron Lords gear a much different look. The Darkness fears our thrash metal.
Through the fire and flames, oh bearer mine…
This was just the appetizer of the feast to come, Guardians. We can only imagine what’s out there to discover when Rise of Iron finally drops. What other sets or unique ornaments will we find? Will there be brand new Exotics or other gear we haven’t even seen yet? It’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun finding out. Eyes up, Guardians: good armor will stop the first bullet; great armor will stop the all the other ones after that.
Destiny: Rise of Iron is available Sept. 20 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.