Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Review - Queen's Gambit

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Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Review - Queen's Gambit

For as long as there have been Destiny and Destiny 2 expansions, those expansions have followed a specific formula. The add-ons have always been standalone offerings with new guns and a new playable destination, dropping players into a new story more or less independent of what came before. Each included a pile of new content and a fresh story campaign, but they were less like subsequent chapters for a living game than semi-discreet new modules bolted onto an existing, sprawling whole. The Witch Queen changes all that; rather than connecting something new and separate onto Destiny 2 with no context, it instead is an organic, evolutionary outgrowth. This is Bungie's live game molting, emerging from a cocoon as something better, smarter, and more complete than it was before.

Back when it was first discussing The Witch Queen, Bungie called the expansion's new story "the definitive Destiny campaign." Despite being marketing speak, that statement has turned out to be true--Destiny expansions are largely built on multi-mission story offerings, but The Witch Queen's campaign stands alone among its predecessors. It is, without hyperbole, the best campaign Bungie has released for the game, eclipsing even the most-loved releases of the past, like Forsaken or The Taken King. This is what people like about Destiny, boiled down into approachable missions you can play alone or with friends.

Destiny campaigns lean toward the simple end of the spectrum, giving players an on-ramp into the more complex offerings that really define the game: its six-player raids and three-player dungeons. The problem with this approach has always been that, while the early parts of any given Destiny 2 expansion feel good--the game is nothing if not extremely satisfying in terms of straightforward shooting mechanics--they aren't really indicative of what makes the game good. Destiny 2 has really been defined by its raids, which are full of brilliant mechanics that require adept teams to learn the rules, establish roles, communicate intentions, and work together like the intricate components of a clockwork device. You don't really get a sense of what's great about Destiny 2 until you play its best content, which is always the high-level stuff that can be tough to get to.

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