Destiny is something of an enigma. As a gameplay experience, it's right up there with Bungie's other efforts: finding new guns and gear is just as addicting as ever, the various weaponry are incredibly fun to play with, the different Supers are an absolute blast to use and battling through the different Raids and Strikes is almost worth the price of admission on its own.

On the other hand, Destiny is a deeply flawed experience. Player-versus-player modes are completely unbalanced, there's not nearly enough content to keep players engaged and fighting the game's different bosses can be downright boring. More so than any of Bungie's other modern games, Destiny is something of a mess.

However, if there's any one issue that's dogged the game since launch, it's the story. On Day One, players are presented with a mess of a plot - and, sadly, the game's DLC didn't help much. With Rise of Iron now officially out in the open, it's time to ask: can Bungie finally give Destiny a story worth caring about?

When looking at Destiny's narrative, it's easy to find a long list of reasons as to what went wrong - but when you really boil it down, Bungie failed in two major ways: context and presentation.

Context, Or Lack Thereof

Destiny's first major shortcoming is how it handles context: simply put, the game throws way too much at players without really taking the time to explain it.

Most other first-person shooters don't feature much of a plot. Destiny, on the other hand, features its own glossary of different terms, events, concepts and characters. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as many games feature something similar, it's just that Bungie never takes the time to explain what's going on. The game just keeps building on itself, regardless of whether or not the player has had time to understand what's happening.

For instance, an enemy known as the Vex can manipulate time itself. Normally, that'd be a big deal - but, not only does Destiny barely address the fact that the enemy can travel through time, but the story immediately starts adding layers on top of it. Soon, players are being told that the Vex can move through time and change how things happen and improve themselves by learning in the future - needless to say, it's all incredibly confusing.

So, what does any of this mean for Rise of Iron? Well ... that depends on Bungie.

The Taken King was basically Destiny 1.5: aside from all of the major story improvements, Bungie made some radical changes to how the game itself functioned. It wasn't necessarily enough to call it a sequel, but The Taken King was clearly more than just a content update.

Of course, House of Wolves and The Dark Below were very much about adding in new content. Yes, they brought their fair share of changes, but Bungie was obviously more focused on giving players new content than changing how Destiny worked. Sadly, this meant that the story ended up being more of the same, and players were quick to criticize the expansions' flawed narrative.

From what fans have seen, Rise of Iron seems to be more on par with the game's first two DLC packs than something like The Taken King. Hopefully, that doesn't mean that Bungie is giving up on the techniques it implemented in the game's third expansion - otherwise, players could be stuck with yet another boring, confusing, ultimately disappointing story arc.

At the very least, let's just hope that Nathan Fillion gets some more screen time in Rise of Iron.

Bungie may have shown off some of its next expansion a few days ago, but fans should expect to see more of Destiny: Rise of Iron at E3 2016. At any rate, a full sequel is due out sometime next year.