Destiny 2: The Witch Queen brings so many changes to Destiny 2, and I love all of them! Last year’s expansion with Destiny 2 Beyond Light where is a good expansion and introduces an entirely new sub-class called Stasis while also cementing new that The Darkness is neither friend nor an ally of ours. Destiny 2: The Witch Queen shows us that things aren’t as simple as good or bad.
The story for the new expansion starts off by returning one of the vaulted locations at the launch of Destiny 2 Beyond Light back to us; Mars returns and with it the arrival of a new artifact from The Darkness.
This Artifact not only is a primary story element in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen but also a key piece of Destiny 2’s ever-changing game structure as it gives the players the ability to craft their very own weapons. When the story starts at the beginning of Destiny 2 The Witch Queen all players even if they don’t own the expansion are then thrown into the first two-story missions to unlock this artifact so they can unlock not only weapon crafting but, this season’s story.
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen not only brings this new game mechanic by allowing players to craft their own weapons, but it also brings a complete overhaul to the original Destiny 2 ability structure allowing for more customization options; besides the cool-downs on abilities.
They’ve completely reworked the Void sub-class into “Void 3.0” so it now acts more like the previous expansion in Beyond Light by allowing player customization of how the abilities to function. This gives players a more detail-oriented feel in combat when fighting enemies, and lets them approach combat in a more personalized style.
If you play a Hunter like me; you can now run around like an idiot permanently invisible and it is as dumb as you would think it is. I absolutely love it and shall keep doing it well into the future even after a new sub-class has been updated.
Warlocks can even permanently weaken enemies if they have a high enough discipline stat or can keep their void grenades up and Titans can play better support roles by having barricades that heal allies when they’re close by.
The combinations are now limitless and Destiny 2 is starting to feel like a proper massive-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Because, Destiny 2 is beginning to allow extensive customization that you would only find in such games as World of Warcraft, Black Desert Online, and so on.
Weapon crafting itself allows players to even customize and create their own personalized weapons which they can take into battle.
So instead of waiting for their ideal weapon to drop, players can now customize and create their own for the perfect “God Roll” that fits their play style.
Now, I personally like using the ability Vorpal weapon on my guns to increase damage against bosses, but I also like reload perks like Outlaw and Fourth Time’s the charm. But, getting them from drops during Strikes, Gambit, or Crucible is a crap-shoot as they could have hundreds of different combinations. Because of this, it could take weeks if not months to get the version of the weapon you want to drop.
So what Bungie has done is given the ability to unlock weapon patterns by collecting materials from weapons with a Red Border and then in doing so, you can craft those weapons with all the available perks as you level those weapons up.
Now you can create the roll you want, and I can create the weapon I want with Vorpal weapon, Fourth Times the Charm, and so on so I can maximize weapon damage or if you’re not a maximize damage person like I am, you could easily give it Headstone and Demolitionist to maximize ability regeneration, with massive Area of Effect damage!
But, where Destiny 2: The Witch Queen shines the most is its story and with it, they introduce two separate versions of the story a means to choose the difficulty the player wants to play at the Classic mode where players can breeze through the story without much of a challenge, or the players can play on Legendary mode that is much harder but, also gives double rewards for completion and gets harder with more players brought along for the ride.
It’s here that Destiny 2 The Witch Queen shines the most as it gives us a glimpse of what is to come but, it also takes the known Destiny 2 lore and completely retcon’s it.
During Season of the Lost the final season of Destiny 2 Beyond Light we have humanity’s greatest enemy Savathun The Witch Queen, God of cunning encased in crystal and using the host body of Osiris she makes a deal with us. Help her remove the Worm Parasite in her, and she will return Osiris to us unharmed.
She keeps her word as near the end of the Season of the Lost the worm is exorcised from her body, and Osiris is left waiting for us alive, but unconscious. But what we don’t know until Destiny 2 The Witch Queen is what happened to Savathun after she escaped her crystal Prison until the story continues.
Now, this next part if you haven’t played Destiny 2 The Witch Queen this is a spoiler-heavy review so if you’ve somehow managed to avoid spoilers until now, and don’t want to have the story spoiled then stop reading.
At the start, as I said earlier Mars returns to us and with it not only the Artifact but the arrival of Savathun’s ship in the sky as well. So being the trouble-makers we are we sneak aboard the ship belonging to Savathun only to find out she has the powers of the Light just like us.
Destiny 2 The Witch Queen then begins a deep-dive into the reason for this and we begin to connect the threads like detectives to discover how and why Savathun the Hive God of cunning has access to the same powers we were blessed by The Traveler.
At first, we believe she stole them just like she has done many times in the past during Destiny 2’s main story with The Red War on Titan.
But as the story progresses, we learn not only what happened to Osiris and his Ghost Sagira, but the events that lead up to Savathun acquiring the Light in the first place. We learn the truth that the Hive, aren’t as evil as we thought they were and that Sathona before she became Savathun, was tricked by a higher power who controls The Darkness.
Because The Traveler was going to choose the Hive instead of humanity and she was tricked into embracing the worm Gods who are pawns of the true villain behind the scenes; the being with a thousand names but whispers only one, “The Witness”.
The revelation of the true villain comes at the cost of learning the truth about Savathun, which is that The Traveler chooses her and the Hive willingly with her dying breaths reflecting the Speaker from all the way back from Destiny 2’s Red War story.
“What is it the Guardians say? Devotion inspires bravery; bravery inspires sacrifice, and sacrifice.”
Just before she collapses on the ground staring off at The Traveler as the light from her eyes fades into darkness. Before a Hive Ghost finds her and resurrects her turning her into a Queen of the Lucent Hive.
The story reaches its climax when we have to confront Savathun with the truth that she was manipulated as she’s trying to banish The Traveler to a different dimension using the same powers she learned from The Witness, to protect the Traveler from its arrival with her dying breath Savathun, tells us that she miscalculated that we wouldn’t let her protect it, and telling us that the game is ours to play now.
It’s not until later through side-quests that we learn what Savathun truly meant by that, as we learn from her old world that Savathun incidentally saved all of humanity after the collapse. It’s this incident that then leads to the birth of the Guardians and by extension us.
So now the story leaves off with Savathun dead, her ghost vanishing into thin air alongside The Traveler as it returns back to Earth and our Guardian preparing for the arrival of The Witness and preparing to stop the next collapse that happens upon his arrival. It’s then at this point we are given a preview of this ominous being as he commands an Army of The Darkness vessels as he makes his way towards Earth and The Traveler. What will happen in the Seasons to come, and will The Witch Queen make her return from the dead again, only time will tell if the Hive will become an uneasy ally or will they use the Light for evil.
An autistic gamer with opinions on games who also enjoys making dumb videos on the internet!