A new major expansion for the Destiny player base is now out with new additional content and story – so we did a Destiny 2: The Witch Queen review. Take your guardian to new a new location to face the biggest threat yet to the Light. References to the first Destiny game can also be found in this story that features ties to your own Vanguard.
New mechanics like weapon crafting lets you customize weapons with chosen mods, shaders, and different stat combinations. Taking a new weapon type, Glaive, you can defeat enemies with an array of tools it holds. Lastly, your story will take you to the Witch Queen, Savathûn’s Throne World, where you uncover mysteries and revelations. Find out what we thought here with our Destiny 2: The Witch Queen review.
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Bungie
Platform: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Stadia, Microsoft Windows (Reviewed)
Release Date: February 22, 2022
Players: 1-3
MSRP: $29.99
The planet Mars has reappeared in the Solar System, along with Savathûn, the Witch Queen who has a new trick up her sleeve. With her reappearance and upon boarding her ship, you find that there are foes that share a commonality with you. Savathûn has stolen and used the Light to create her own Guardians to fight.
Traveling to Savathûn’s Throne World to investigate leads you to uncovering more secrets about her past and yours with the Vanguard. Learning that Savathûn has gained the Light, she has created Guardians that have their own Ghosts and can respawn, just like you. Her past can be discovered through proceeding through the depths of the swamp on the Throne World and fighting through other witches.
There are tricky puzzles and lots of story segments that catapult this to being the best Destiny 2 has ever been. The amount of content for story has been a treasure, even linking back to the original Destiny for those inclined.
The content in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen can be accessed at any time with friends and adds more lore that is easy to follow. Even if you’re new, you can still grasp the basic concepts of the story but it would be advised to play the base game up to this point.
Catching up with Destiny 2 may be what most players who haven’t been keeping up may do before going into this expansion. Relearning mechanics and leveling up your Light level will be useful for the difficulty of the expansion, but is not required.
A word of advice for those looking to get back into the swing of things, learn your weapons and take your time modifying gear to match your playstyle. The Legendary difficulty, obviously, is tough but almost impossible with just casual playing.
Participating in other open world quests and strikes will also aid you in the gameplay loop for moving forward, and will even help you identify enemies later on. A thing that helped in progressing through our Destiny 2: The Witch Queen review is having someone assist me with understanding quests, tracking them, and learning about weapon drops and their attributes that can vary.
Some additions included with this expansion is the new raid along with the new Throne World that you can traverse and find new strikes in. From inside of the palace to the swamp and its hidden caves and pathways, you can uncover more lore and enemies to defeat. The new Glaive weapon type is a useful new addition that allows melee damage, strong projectiles, and a rechargeable shield.
Along with the Witch Queen, there is a Deluxe Edition that includes the season pass for Seasons 16-19, two Year-5 Dungeons and exotic items such an SMG, catalyst, ornament and Sparrow. Destiny 2 will still keep the 30th Anniversary content with this new update but have also removed Destiny 2‘s Forsaken expansion which features Cayde-6’s conclusion from the story.
After completing the main campaign for our Destiny 2: The Witch Queen review, I found you can now select missions you wish to revisit. A few other additions are the weapon crafting system that has been introduced to allow you to create custom weapons. You can add in perks that can control impact, range, handling, reload speed, etc.
Selecting up to 4 perks will enhance your weapons capabilities and sculpt it how you wish for it to be. Finding certain weapon blueprints will allow you make those weapons, most times they’re legendary weapons so you can customize them to your liking without the massive grind. It’s a great addition especially for newer players that want to make the game play the way they want to with their weapons.
One note about the already impressive graphics in Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is the Throne World. It’s a very white structural palace with shades of red, maroon, and burgundy shrubbery.
The swamp is murky, green, and brown and definitely feels gross while traversing it. I enjoyed seeing all of these locations in the Throne World and in 4K, especially with the sense of distance with far away waterfalls and even larger structures.
All in all, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is packed with a ton of not just new, but good content. That’s what’s most important when it comes to a live service game like Destiny 2 and it’s good to see Bungie doing what they have done before. Bungie was acquired by Sony just a month ago but it still has its independence here and it’s great.
Destiny 2: The Witch Queen was reviewed on Windows PC using a copy provided by Bungie. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is now available for Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.
