When The Taken King launched, players were granted a “spark of light” item to immediately boost their characters to Level 25. This enabled new players to breeze through older content and returning players to start a new Guardian character without the grind of well-tread material. Now you can purchase more of those.

Available now in the Xbox Games Store and rolling out on the PlayStation Store in other territories are new character boosts. There are different types for each of the three classes (Warlock, Titan, and Hunter). Each includes a subclass booster and telemetry items to rapidly level up weapons in a bundle for $29.99.

Taking a character to Level 25 allows access to The Taken King content. Parallels can be drawn to World of Warcraft’s $60 level boost that immediately allows players to experience the newest material.

Earlier this year, when Bungie announced it was introducing cosmetic items available for real money purchase, users datamined unannounced items. These included starter packs (now known to be true, of course), and also drop boosters for raids that could be purchased with silver (the real money currency).

The Taken King creative director Luke Smith quickly denied that the studio was planning to sell raid drop boosts for real money. At the time, Bungie did not comment on the other items.

We’ve reached out to Bungie for any additional comment on these new add-on purchases. We’ll update should we receive a response.

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[Source: Xbox.com via Reddit]

Our Take

I’ve seen some call these boosters “pay to win,” but that doesn’t seem accurate at all. This is more in line with pay-to-progress transactions that exist in free-to-play games and, as mentioned above, paid MMOs like World of Warcraft. Getting to Level 25 isn’t cumbersome.

It’s the subclass progression and making sure you have the gear to boost your light level that is the real barrier. Depending on how the subclass booster works, that might be the real reason impatient players might purchase one of these.