"Destiny," from the makers of "Halo," revolves around the idea of killing aliens to get more powerful, which enables you to kill even more powerful aliens.
Right now, the maximum level "Destiny" players can reach is level 40. You can achieve that level in several hours, just by playing the game's campaign missions and multiplayer modes.
But Bungie, the developer of "Destiny," is now letting new players immediately boost up to level 25 — but you'll need to buy that level booster for a whopping $30.
As of Tuesday morning, we haven't seen listings for the level boosters on the PlayStation Store, but Microsoft's Xbox Store is currently listing each consumable pack for $30.
And if you create alternate characters — which is commonplace, since players can create three separate "Destiny" characters to try out the three unique subclasses (warlock, titan, and hunter) — you'll still need to pay $30 to level boost each character.
Granted, these $30 level boosters will also level up your character's special "subclass" powers, and it will also offer telemetries for you to quickly level up your weapons and gear. (It doesn't work automatically. It just adds bonus experience while you play). So the idea is solid — Bungie offered a similar level-boosting consumable for new players when it launched its last expansion in September — but the price isn't worth it for what you get.
First of all, you can buy "Destiny" and all of its expansion packs for just $36 on Amazon. That's just six dollars more than what Bungie is asking new players to pay, just to save some hours of gameplay.
I can understand new players wanting to quickly level up so they can partake in some of the fun end-game activities their friends are already playing — things like raids, and the weekly and monthly multiplayer tournaments. But boosting to level 25 doesn't get you there. You'll still need to play the game a lot to get to level 40, and even then you'll need to spend hours attaining new gear to be eligible to play some of these activities.
All this level booster is doing is saving you maybe five to seven hours of gameplay. And to pay what's essentially the price of the entire game just to get there is a bit insane. We've reached out to Bungie to learn more information about this pricing scheme for level boosters.
Level boosters are just one of many microtransactions in "Destiny," which were introduced back in October. Since then, players have been able to spend money — $5, $10, or $20 at a time — to acquire cool cosmetic items like dance moves, vehicle skins, and more. But it's truly disappointing to see Bungie try to sell a way to advance more quickly in "Destiny" for such a substantial amount of money.
