‘Destiny House of Wolves’ Trailer And Release Date Announced, Will Not Feature New Raids

For hardcore fans, the wait for the "Destiny" expansion has seemed interminable. Finally, Bungie has announced a release date of May 19 for the long-awaited “Destiny House of Wolves.”

The news comes via a gorgeous new computer-generated prologue trailer on the official Destiny YouTube channel. The one-minute-and-thirty-second trailer confirms what many fans have long suspected, that The Reef will feature heavily in “House of Wolves.” Guardians will take up arms with the Awoken Queen of the Reef in battle against the traitorous Fallen.

Rather controversially, the developer has also announced via the Bungie blog that “House of Wolves” will not feature any new raid activities. The team states that this wasn’t an easy decision to make, as they’re well aware of the popularity of raids in “Destiny.”

“Our team has been humbled by the reception of raids in ‘Destiny’ and we are creating a new Raid for a release later this year. 'House of Wolves' will have a new cooperative end-game activity focused on variety, replayability, and skill – a new battle Arena called The Prison of Elders,” said Bungie's community and marketing relations manager, Eric Osborne.

The decision is likely to prove highly unpopular with the highly raid-centric “Destiny” playerbase, at least until they get their hands on the expansion, or until the developer reveals more of its plans for “House of Wolves.” Not much is known regarding The Prison of Elders battle arena and the as-yet-undefined Trials of Osiris, another end-game event mentioned by Bungie.

Bungie has stated that over the course of the next month leading up to the release of “House of Wolves,” they’ll be detailing many of the new expansion’s new features. The developer will start next week by detailing the upgrade path for Guardian’s existing Exotic and Legendary gear. The full schedule for the “House of Wolves” reveal is listed below:

Wednesday, April 22
Tour of The Reef area, where the developer will host a live discussion revealing upgrade paths for fear

Wednesday April 29
Live gameplay and reveal of the end-game activity, Trials of Osiris, as well as its collection of end-game gear

Wednesday May 6
Live gameplay reveal of the three-player multiplayer co-op arena and raid replacement: Prison of the Elders

“House of Wolves” is the second major expansion for “Destiny” following “The Dark Below” in December. The new expansion will be released on May 19 for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.