Aug 25

Aug 25 Here's a Rundown of Everything At Bungie's The Witch Queen Showcase [24/08/2021]

Hive Ghosts, tall queens with wings, the return of the King Gjallarhorn, and more. Today, Bungie revealed its future plans for Destiny 2 with its next expansion, The Witch Queen, releasing on February 22nd, 2022. This stream covered a lot, so here we go.

2021 has been a good year for us tall lady appreciators.

Bungie first covered The Witch Queen DLC itself, showing some story details, weapons, new systems, and other updates to existing systems.

HEY! THOSE ARE THE MAGIC AURAS I’VE BEEN EMINATING FOR THE LAST SEVEN YEARS, WHAT GIVES?

The Hive, one of Destiny’s original enemy factions, have managed to capture and control the Light, creating Hive Guardians, called the Lucent Brood. Which is such a sick name that it appears to have given them the power to use Guardian’s own supers against players. The Hive being imbued with the Light adds a twist to gameplay, requiring Guardians to destroy the Hive Ghosts to make sure they stay dead.

I don’t care if this is more accurate, Dark Sector will always be the true king of video game glaives to me!

After a cinematic teaser, Bungie introduced a new weapon archetype: Destiny’s first first-person melee weapon, glaives. Glaives are energy weapons that utilize a melee combo, and a ranged energy blast to fight enemies, and a shield to protect the wielder. The team were eager to push the status of these weapons, clarifying that glaives won’t drop from enemies or chests. Instead, glaives will be created using the new weapon crafting system that is being introduced with The Witch Queen. Players will also be able to craft weapons other than glaives, though Bungie has not provided details beyond saying that all raid weapons and several classic weapons will be obtainable through this system.

While many speculated that the swamps of Old Chicago would be the new destination introduced in The Witch Queen, the swamps shown in pre-release teasers actually belong to Savathun’s Throne World, a pocket dimension which she has dominion over.

This sucks. This swamp doesn’t even have good deep dish.

I mean this does actually look a bit like something out of DOOM: Eternal

Bungie also made it clear that with The Witch Queen, they are focusing heavily on the campaign experience, comparing it to Titanfall 2 and Doom, both of which are big shoes to fill. Perhaps most exciting is that they are introducing optional endgame higher difficulty modes to the campaign that scale based on whether the player is alone or in a fireteam, adding some solo endgame content that the community has been asking for a while. The way this new difficulty option was presented seemed somewhat reminiscent of Halo’s skulls for campaign missions.

Beyond The Witch Queen, Bungie reaffirmed its plans for the expansion following the upcoming release - Lightfall - in 2023. However, it also revealed the title of the next major expansion coming after Lightfall, The Final Shape, that is said to bring an end to the 10 year plan for the Destiny universe and the “light and darkness” saga. Despite this, Bungie confirmed that Destiny will continue with further releases after The Final Shape, and these final expansions represent more of a “transformative moment” than a true ending, which makes sense considering it has been confirmed that Bungie now sees the Destiny IP as a multimedia property.

Do you think Mara Sov is still salty that no one ever bothered going to her social space in the first game after a few weeks of it dropping?

On top of news about The Witch Queen, Bungie revealed details about the final new season before the expansion, Season of the Lost, which begins today. Story-wise, Season of the Lost represents the end of the current year’s narrative arc and serves to set up the coming conflict in The Witch Queen. There’s a new six-player matchmade activity, new story content, new exotic quests, and other changes and updates that have now become standard in seasons since Beyond Light’s launch. Oh, and Destiny 2 is also getting its long-awaited crossplay today, meaning players on all platforms can play with each other… Yes, even Stadia players.

If that all wasn’t enough Destiny news, Bungie also announced the Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack, a paid content pack releasing in December that celebrates Bungie’s 30th anniversary. The celebration will also involve a free six-player matchmade activity. On the paid side of things, the pack will come with a new dungeon, which is essentially a three-player raid. The new dungeon takes place in the fabled Loot Cave, which OG Destiny players will remember. Bungie will also be releasing armour sets based on their previous games like Marathon and Halo. Most importantly, the 30th Anniversary Pack will mark the re-introduction of Gjallarhorn to the series, perhaps the most iconic weapon in Destiny history, which until now has been trapped in the first game.

Bungie’s presentation packed a lot of news into a half-hour, and there are still many details left unknown about the future of the franchise, The Witch Queen, the 30th Anniversary celebration, and even Season of the Lost. It gets said a lot, but the future of Destiny is very exciting, and Bungie seems to have a solid vision of where they want to take the series going forward.