Destiny’s Enemy Factions Ranked Worst to Best

6. Devil Splicers

The latest enemies to come climbing out The Darkness in hopes of snuffing our Guardians out of existence happen to be the most disappointing. After the triumph that was The Taken King, these mechanically augmented Fallen had everything going for them from design, to backstory, to a wealth of mechanics that could have been implemented. Sadly, what we got were lame reskins of The Fallen that lacked any real specialty outside of very minor, almost insignificant changes to their kits. The only real alteration comes in the form of their heads exploding and releasing a slow moving, tracking grenade at players. While this is a cool idea and subverts the player’s idea for how to kill enemies it just isn’t enough to justify the entire redesign of these enemies.

It also doesn’t help that their lore is rather mixed at times, with the resurrection of Sepiks Prime being the most intriguing aspect. Yes, the mechanical virus known as SIVA is a unique concept, but never feels like Bungie properly displays that through mechanics. Even in the Wrath of the Machine raid, this all powerful infestation is pretty much a mild inconvenience at best. If we had more time and better focus with Rise of Iron, the Devil Splicers could have been one of the coolest enemies in the game. After all, who doesn’t love the Destiny equivalent to mad scientists?

5. Cabal

The problem with the Cabal isn’t that they lack a rich culture or design, but that Destiny has never taken the time to properly explain their history. Sure, this militarized foe has popped up in a multitude of expansions and strikes, but they’ve never had the spotlight shown on them. What has resulted from this is a vague, somewhat explored culture based around honor, war, and serving their Emperor’s commands without protest.

While this is cool, we don’t know much beyond these base concepts and it turns the Cabal into just an army of dumb armored brutes we need to shoot. This is a shame given they are one of Destiny’s four main races introduced and yet users know so little about them outside of their impact on Mars and brief skirmishes in Oryx’s Dreadnaught.

In terms of combat mechanics, the Cabal are nothing special outside of being frustrating bullet sponges that will make you waste entire clips killing them. They lack original attack patterns, which is surprising for a militarized alien race who seem to only know how to jump high in the air and run forward at players. This trickles into their boss design as well, with the majority of them lacking anything new or exciting in terms of gameplay. As it stands, the Cabal are really just known for soaking up as many bullets as humanly possible.

4. Hive

Perhaps the most frequent faction Destiny players have had to fight against, the Hive had two expansions and a rather lengthy inclusion into the primary story. This has helped produced a rather horrific foe who is a blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror tropes. Their entire culture is based on pain and suffering, which makes sense given this entire “race” is all undead. Not only does this make the Hive different than the other factions, but helps them offer interesting locations to fight them in.

Mechanically the Hive are hit or miss, with most of their base enemies offering up some different attack patterns and weaponry. The problem is that the Hive are a rather easy enemy to defeat unless they wheel out a few Ogres for players to fight against. Given most of their enemies (unless a modifier is active) lack shields this makes them fairly easy to dispatch. While the Hive does have a few cool bosses, too many of them are just bigger versions of Knights or Ogres with no real changes to their attack patterns. Yet, the Hive are still incredibly fun to fight and macabre designs behind their raid and strikes allow for incredibly memorable experiences.

3. The Fallen

The Fallen are by far the most common enemy in Destiny, but thankfully they are also one of the most explored in terms of lore. One of the most unique  aspects of the Fallen is that they are made up of a plethora of different houses all of which have a variety of motives and relationships between each other and the player. They also have a rather personal relationship with The Travel, as it abandoned their society after a massive destructive event sent their planet into civil war. This gives the Fallen a rather tragic backstory which helps flesh out their motives and desires clearly.

In terms of gameplay the Fallen are hit or miss as they have fantastic visual designs but sometimes feel a bit too generic when compared to other species. The Dregs and Vandals really only serve as base foot soldiers, however, this is made up with the plethora of variants each one has. Vandals alone can use sniper rifles and blades, which can help add some variety to combat.

However, it’s their rather intimidating bosses and more powerful vanilla units that make them a fun foe to fight. Servitors add buffs to units while the Fallen Captains can be tricky to nail down thanks to their teleport ability. We may have killed these aliens hundreds if not thousands of times, but it doesn’t make them any less entertaining to shoot.

2. Vex

The Vex were the big baddies of the original Destiny and are perhaps one of the most interesting enemies in the entire game thanks to their design. Not only is this faction utterly relentless in their attacks, but their ability to just warp more and more reinforcements into battle makes the Vex incredibly deadly. The only real problem with the Vex is that they lack a multitude mechanics for their base units such as the Harpy and Goblin. While their uncommon enemies or ones found in the raid offer some great changes, there just isn’t enough variety in the Vex’s arsenal to always make them a compelling foe.

Yet, where they lack in complex mechanics the Vex offer an complex lore that makes these machines far more terrifying and intriguing. While their true origin is unknown, this time hopping cyber race is believed to be from an alternate reality. However, their ability to change entire planets into machines frames them as far more a threat than the Hive or Cabal as we’ve seen the results of their work thanks to the loss of Mercury. The Vex actually gets things done, which is more than can be said about a fair amount of Destiny’s enemies.

1.  The Taken

The Taken are not only the most complex enemies in all of Destiny, but are by far the most dynamic introduced in this game. A creation of Oryx’s magic, the Taken are made up of different enemies from all of the other alien races. Each one may be a reskin in visual design, but when inspected closer the twitches and jittery movements give all of the Taken a sense of being tortured by Oryx’s magic. Their glossy, warped design allows them to feel more like nightmarish versions of foes you’ve previously conquered.

However, where the Taken truly excel is in their gameplay mechanics as each unit offers a new and gripping challenges. Taken enemies have a large collection of different abilities that when combined together makes them excessively deadly to fight against. Vandals can produce powerful shields to block incoming damage, while Taken Centurians hurl slow tracking projectiles that deal massive amounts of damage. Their sheer variety of powers that syngergize masterfully with one another has made them the most memorable enemy to fight against in all of Destiny.

Even though we will rarely ever see them again, there is little doubting the sheer power behind this dark force that consumed the entire game for months. While everyone may have their favorite enemy faction to fight against, The Taken are unique and fascinating in a massive way.