Destiny 2: The Witch Queen

The Witch Queen will introduce a new location, Savathûn's Throne World, within the Ascendant Realm.[1] In addition to world activities, a new raid associated with the Throne World will be introduced.[2] Two additional dungeons will also be added over the course of the expansion.[3] New and existing story content will be expanded with a new "Legendary" difficulty, designed to be challenging for single players but with improved rewards for completing.[4] At the same time, some content from Forsaken (2018) will enter the Destiny Content Vault and be removed from the game; this will include the Tangled Shore destination and its activities, but not the Dreaming City, the Last Wish raid, the Shattered Throne dungeon, or the strikes. Ahead of this, Forsaken's campaign will be made free-to-play for all players on December 7, 2021 with a bundle pack available to purchase to access the endgame content for players who do not already own Forsaken.[5] While the other seasonal activities from Beyond Light (2020) will be removed with The Witch Queen, the Battlegrounds activity from Season of the Chosen (Season 13) will remain as a Vanguard Operations with the other existing strikes.[6]

Savathûn's Lucent Brood, Hive warriors that carry the power of Light, will be a new major enemy within The Witch Queen. They will have similar Light-focused abilities within the Arc, Solar, and Void classes as the players' Guardian characters as well as their own Ghosts that can resurrect them unless the Guardians can destroy the Ghost within a limited window.[7]

Beyond Light introduced Stasis as a power of Darkness which, unlike the other three powers of Light which each had three subtrees that could be selected, used customizable Aspects and Fragments to give the player more customization of how Stasis could be used. Over the course of The Witch Queen, Bungie will bring similar Aspects and Fragments to the original Light powers, starting with Void at the launch of The Witch Queen. These changes will maintain the basic abilities but allow players to modify and mix effects atop these powers.[8] Bungie does plan to introduce additional Darkness powers but does not plan on adding these until after they have completed the Light power conversion within The Witch Queen.[9]

The Witch Queen will introduce a new weapon type, the glaive, which will have both melee and short-range attacks as well as defensive capabilities. Unlike most other weapon drops which have randomized perks, glaives will have abilities that can be customized by the player. While Bungie had not yet described the system, game director Joe Blackburn stated it will not be similar to weapon crafting in massively multiplayer online games, it will not favor experienced players with numerous existing resources over novice players, and will not have pay to win-style mechanics.[10] Blackburn stated this crafting system will allow players to customize a weapon to their playstyle or to shift a weapon within the game's changing meta without having to "farm" for a new version of the weapon.[11]

The Witch Queen centers on Savathûn, who along with her siblings Oryx, the Taken King, and Xivu Arath, God of War, lead the Hive, an undead species that serve the Worm Gods. The Hive follow the Sword Logic, a religious-like belief that living beings can only justify their existence to live through combat, a tenet that is diametrically opposite to that of the Light, the Traveler and those that have allied with it, including humanity and the Vanguard, and which has been more closely aligned with the behavior of the Darkness and the Pyramids of the Black Fleet.

Unlike her siblings that focus on combat, Savathûn's methods to serve the Worm Gods has been based on subterfuge and trickery, and had taken steps to prevent the Vanguard from contacting the Darkness as it entered the Solar System (as depicted during Season of Arrivals from Shadowkeep). During Beyond Light, Savathûn had further manipulated the Vanguard. She claims to have rescued a weakened Osiris from Xivu Arath within the Ascendant Realm. She then took his form to influence the Vanguard into strategic alliances with factions of the Cabal and Fallen. During the final season of Beyond Light, Season of the Lost, Savathûn has revealed her true form but held captive by Queen Mara Sov of the Reef, providing Mara help to recover the lost Techeuns within the Ascendant Realm in exchange for Mara's help protect Savathûn from Xivu Arath and potentially free her of control from the Worm Gods, a deal that the Vanguard are wary of.

Within The Witch Queen, Savathûn has been freed and found home in her Throne World within the Ascendant Realm. She further has been able to wield the power of Light and used that to infuse her Hive warriors, known as the Lucent Brood, with powers similar to that of the Guardians.[12]

Since Forsaken, Bungie had found a pattern of holding a large major expansion each year along with four seasonal segments within that year for Destiny 2. The Witch Queen had been planned to start Destiny 2's fifth year of content with a target release in late 2021. However, in February 2021, the company confirmed that a combination of delays from the COVID-19 pandemic and the busyness of the late-2021 release calendar, they had opted to move The Witch Queen to February 2022.[13] For the Beyond Light expansion, which would be extended by six months due to this delay, Bungie announced a special series of events within the game to celebrate the company's 30th anniversary featuring weapons, armor, and other cosmetics inspired by their other games including Marathon and Halo, to start in December 2021.[14]

The setting for The Witch Queen, Savathûn's Throne World, was designed to provide a setting for the players as Guardians to solve the mystery of how Savathûn came to gain control of the Light for her Lucent Brood. Inspired by the television show True Detective, the Throne World is based on a swamp-like setting to provide a moody landscape, according to Blackburn, who also said that the campaign would be the action game equivalent of a mystery game.[4] While Bungie does not plan to have a large alternative reality game as they had during Season of Dawn (Season 9), Blackburn said that Bungie does want players to work individually and together to solve the season's mystery.[4]

The Witch Queen was originally announced alongside Beyond Light (2020), with The Witch Queen and the following expansion, Lightfall, announced for a late 2021 and 2022 release, respectively. When it was announced that The Witch Queen had been delayed to February 2022, Lightfall was also delayed to early 2023, and another expansion, The Final Shape, was announced for early 2024. This will conclude the first major arc, the "Light and Darkness Saga", that Bungie has planned for Destiny 2, and prepare them to introduce a new arc after The Final Shape.[13]