I was saying recently on 3DGames PC, that in an industry where games-as-a-service rules, Bungie has found a niche thanks to (in part) being a true master of anticipation. Over the past few years, Destiny 2 fans have kept an eye out for every change in the world, big or small. From characters starting to whistle the tune of Savathûn, to the collapse of a huge cabal ship on the Tower. That shows that not only are we comfortable with the shooting mechanics, the art or the story; but we actually look engaged with the universe of the game. Interested in seeing and discussing what’s going to happen next – the places we’re going to visit, the enemies we’re going to face – like someone hooked on a Star Wars series.
In a context like that, the recently released. expansion The Witch Queen stands out both for the quality of its contents, as well as for that “TV side” I was talking about above. Bungie had already commented previously that the first narrative arc of the franchise extends to The Final Form (2024) which means that this fantasy and science fiction universe is coming to the climax. Any of us who already frequent the game, the subreddit or the dedicated servers on Discord are in for a treat: we have a hive goddess telling us end-game-defining statements…. every week! Crazy. But what about the rest of us, is it advisable to checkout if you’ve been offline for a while or you’ve just arrived?
I have to ask myself that same question year after year, as new expansions come in, and I almost always come to the same conclusion, “okay, but. you need a lot of commitment to get the most out of it. With The Witch Queen, that (finally) ceases to be a problem because the campaign and the other content has enough going for it to satisfy just about anyone. All in all, I think the general idea I’m trying to convey is that Destiny 2 is in its best moment. Quite simply, we haven’t had a release this well rounded and accomplished since The Taken King (2015). There aren’t many possible gripes for this expansion, and of those, we’re talking almost exclusively about things that simply could have surprised more. Let’s take a look.
Subclass redesign stars in Year 5.
I know what you’re thinking, “how is it even going to be passable in a game that removes content I paid for?” I too see the game’s content rotation as a problem, and I honestly think you are right to share your opinions. In fact, I encourage you to do so. With order and respect, mind you, because on the other side of the screen we have flesh and blood people. Most of them don’t even make these decisions. That said, I think Year 5 hasn’t proved particularly damaging in terms of content. Bungie has given the Tangled Coastas well as its campaign contents or similar. That encompasses the events that transpired in The Renegades (2018) with its eight renegade baron missions, plus the exceptional Presage mission, which is one of the most celebrated of the entire game. On a constantly evolving world level, this means that Prince Uldren’s story is water under the bridge: there are still some references or dialogue from retired characters in the more established raids, but it’s what we have.
Forging equipment is a great way to reward the most dedicated.
Bungie has been wise to preserve the Spider’s inventory through master Rahool, and the randomization in the rolls of Moon Hawk and Dead Man’s Tale with Xûr. Relevant material still, and more knowing that the Gambit game mode now prioritizes the role of the invader more than ever. The changes greatly energize the activity, reduce the amount of “free” casualties and detoxify the pre-DPS phase in which the best coordinated team is often the one that comfortably sweeps mages for damage boosts. Wrong shots? There are, too: reducing the curvature of the rocket launchers with tracking is a decision that affects the entire sandbox from Destiny 2, but in Gambit there are always new ways to truncate the rules in favor of the invader and in this case it’s the hand cannons. In short, they are balance problems to which we are more than used to: the real question is how long we will last without new maps sweetening this modality… plus the Crucible.
One more year, we stand idly by waiting for news in that sense. We have back a couple of rescued maps from the content chamber, and also some interesting weapons – pending seeing them all, from what has been previewed in weekly bulletins it seems certain that the Iron Banner HC comes out on top: 180 RPM and 100% stability. Chasing it will be exciting, but we’re back to business as usual, a PvP dominated by similar weapons. PvE wins, in good measure, thanks to the arrival of Void 3.0 subclasses. There is a lot of good news in this regard, such as that the acquisition of skins and shards is quite convenient, or that you don’t need to spend dozens of hours gathering new exceptional parts to take advantage of them. This is just the kind of thing that feels good in a game of character building as Destiny 2 is. It’s hard to believe that at this point we still don’t have a system of loadouts implemented, because right now jumping between stasis and void (as a wizard, at least) is a joy.
Vacuum 3.0 subclasses are satisfactory and useful from the first minute.
As an RPG, Destiny 2 has gained quite a bit. Each of the three debuting void skins is unlocked from the first minute, and the shards you don’t have can be purchased from Ikora Rey in the Tower. It’s enough to have two or three exceptional pieces to assemble an action-ready character, and while Season of the Reborn may not be particularly challenging at the moment, at least the debut activity (PsiOps) does offer possibilities to take advantage of any combination of powers we can think of. In my case, I’ve oriented my character around exploiting the void soul and have found the boss fights much more rewarding in 3 vs. 3 activities where up until now the more static solar healing well commanded. We have a really interesting year ahead of us if the redesigns of the remaining subclasses come out this well.
The Witch Queen, the best campaign of the saga.
It didn’t take more than a few hours to wait for the Destiny 2 community to reach the same consensus: The Witch Queen has a really good campaign for the standards of a game as a service. So much so, that for many it has already become the best of the series; above even that of The Taken King (2015) that used to have that privilege until now. A good part of the things explained through the Books of Sorrow back then has been recovered in style in the campaign: Bungie has been able to review the most important events, give them the prominence they deserve through cinematicsand even bring a novelty that changes many things. But beyond the story, enjoyable for the experienced and newcomers, it is the presentation that takes anyone’s breath away: we are facing a “case of The Renegades” in which the music and especially the art surprise even above the standards of the company, which is already among the best in the industry in that sense. The throne world of Savathûn is a seeing is believing.
If the starting point in this expansion is “the hive has. stolen the Light” then it makes sense that there are certain artistic and thematic twists and turns. We have gothic ivory cathedrals (i.e. white instead of black) and new moth-like enemies, because in the end they are insects naturally drawn to the light. Subtle ideas, perhaps, but they feel unique and different from what we’ve seen in Destiny – or any game, really. The main campaign knows how to walk the player through breathtaking, exhilarating scenarioswith an unquestionable attention to lighting. It is a demonstration that traditional aesthetics have nothing to envy to the most modern and realistic ray tracing system, at least in terms of global illumination. Certainly, other areas such as the quality of dynamic shadows or texture resolution admit some room for improvement: it’s a 2017 game that has had to slowly adapt to the ways of the industry, and it shows. But of course, any small technical flaw sinks a thousand feet under the ground in the face of the weight of this display of artistic talent so charming.
The difficulty is so well chosen, it should be the model to follow
Not only are we talking about such a beautiful campaign that is often forced to give us a break to take a screenshot of the scenery, but it’s also a lot of fun. One of the big new features of the expansion is the debut of the. legendary difficulty for the main missions, super steeply scaling the lethality of opponents as we add players to the squad. I agree with the many fans who have taken to Twitter to say it’s “the best difficulty there is in the game” because it has just the right point to get us through the screen of game over often, but without making us pound on the keyboard out of sheer frustration. If you fail at something, you can almost always figure out what you did wrong and how to correct it. You may have progressed too far, or too little; you may have been killed by an opponent that should be prioritized, or by a group of enemies against whom it’s good to equip an elemental damage resistance mod. Even the seasonal artifact provides solutions to some of these problems, including the modifiers associated with the guja.
On paper, this new weapon archetype is a real hit in Destiny 2: a blade for melee combat, which deploys a shield and also shoots. Although I personally have only been able to use Enigma, the one you unlock in the first hours (hopefully I’ll get Ruin of Lubrae soon) I understand that the damage of the shots, the speed at which combos are executed and even the complementary lock-on are surprisingly well adapted to the usual gameplay. Even the level design seems to me ideal to take advantage of during the main playthrough. Once we enter the realm of post-credits materialthen some repeatable tasks are more challenging. There, Bungie has also managed to drive the novelties well because the progression of the throne world of Savathûn is directly tied to the area’s merchant, the Fynch hive wraith. Instead of complicating the economy with new currencies and materials, they have organized the progression in such a way that things like opening chests or collecting resources increases the reputation level. Reputation, in turn, unlocks new puzzles or modifiers of difficulty for the activities.
The exceptional missions are convincing without more, but the rewards are worth it.
The campaign trail to the raid is a joy.
There are a few new ones, such as a exceptional mission called Vox Obscura, which is not bad. That one takes me quite a bit away from the length, charisma and budget that Zero Hour and The Whisper (both retired) had, but all the associated rewards are worth it. Overall, the race to complete the Disciple’s Oath raid during challenge time has been incredibly enjoyable for me: the campaign on legendary difficulty is super fun and rewarding, we’ve had a reasonable amount of side objectives that don’t err on the side of tedious and provide interesting story information, a steady stream of rewards with valuable perks and new weapons to use, and I might even reward the stability of the servers during the first days. I did not expect to be able to play without crashes at all. Of course, the icing on the cake is that raid I mentioned before. No stability, unfortunately, but Bungie has led us to a pyramid full of secrets where Rhulk, the first and last enemy of the planet Lubrae, awaits us.
As a follower of the series, I am compelled to give thanks for a character that feels like a breath of fresh airOn a mechanical level, we were starting to get tired of bosses designed as static torsos with puzzles associated with them; this one, on the other hand, moves around the map with a certain autonomy, hitting anyone who approaches him with his Darkness imbued guja. From a narrative standpoint, he’s also one of the most well-rounded enemies in the franchise, with some text and dialogue fragments. that deserve every second of attention on our part. Somehow, it gets more interesting the more you learn about it, and it allows for some flexibility in terms of the weapons we use in the encounter. I think one of the reasons so many teams got stuck in that match for the first few hours is that the optimal DPS was still unclear and there were so many options to choose from. For better or worse, the community found a way to exploit Izanagi’s Charge damage with the new Palmyra-B rocket launcher, so right now that phase is too defined. Maybe when the patches arrive, the matter will change.
Destiny 2 The Witch Queen has been and is being. the best version of the game to date, without any doubt. It puts at the player’s disposal numerous new tools (interesting, useful and ready for action) from the first minutes of the adventure and challenges him with levels with a fairly rounded design in general in which losing to rise again is fun and rewarding. The campaign is a success in length, gameplay and immersion; all this, perfectly well spun with the post-credits material and the path to the raid, which is the finishing touch. You don’t need to be a game addict or make it your second job to get the most out of it as you did in 2020, but if you decide to squeeze it by learning from the story or the RPG side, the improvement becomes exponential. My only complaint, and it’s not a particularly negative one, is that I’ve only ever surprised with the final cinematic. In part, that’s because Bungie has had so many years of experience with the same game that it has the quality bar set and very well mastered, so the improvements are less striking than those implemented seven years ago. All in all, it’s great content. Let’s hope that what’s to come is just as good.
