Destiny's hinting at bigger roles and story for the Cryptarch and Xur

Remember back when Cayde-6 was little more than a merchant inexplicably voiced by Nathan Fillion? Thanks to his central role in the many quests, cinematics, and mid-mission transmissions of The Taken King, he became every Guardian's best friend. Destiny's last expansion gave us the opportunity to get better acquainted with several of Destiny's non-player characters, and you can expect Rise of Iron to further explore some familiar, possibly tentacled faces.

"When I look at the universe of Destiny, I see a lot of opportunity to tell stories about these characters that - you look at the Cryptarch and Xur, we don’t know much about them, but they’re cool characters", Rise of Iron executive producer Scott Taylor told GamesBeat. "I’m curious about them. I want to know more about the Cryptarch. He seems mean. What’s going on with Xur?

"We’re trying to create these opportunities, and then the expansions are a great place to dive in. You see Cayde and you smile now because you know who Cayde is. I feel like I have a good sense of who Eris is. After this release you’ll know about Saladin, and we’re introducing more characters in the new social space that we hope people are curious about too".

So Saladin is definitely going to be a Big Deal in Rise of Iron, but we may have to wait for another expansion to see what's ticking inside Master Rahool's big blue noggin. Then again, I'm not sure I want to get to know him better - if it turned out he spent all of his downtime volunteering at The Last Orphanage I might feel bad about cursing him out for decrypting engrams into exotics I already own.

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Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.

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