Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is a major expansion for Destiny 2, a first-person shooter video game by Bungie. Representing the sixth expansion and the fifth year of extended content for Destiny 2, it was originally planned for release in late 2021, but due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the expansion was delayed by three months and was released on February 22, 2022. Prior to release, Bungie reported that The Witch Queen had over 1 million pre-orders, "on track to becoming the most pre-ordered expansion in Destiny 2 history".
The expansion revolves around Savathûn, The Witch Queen, the sister of Oryx, who was the antagonist of the original Destinys (2014) first major expansion, The Taken King (2015). The expansion adds new content across the game, including new missions, Player versus Environment locations, Player versus Player maps, player gear, weaponry, and a new raid. Two new dungeons and a reprised raid, "King's Fall" from The Taken King, were released over the course of the year. The Witch Queen had four seasonal content offerings for Year 5 of the game: Season of the Risen, which was available alongside the expansion, Season of the Haunted in May, Season of Plunder in August, and Season of the Seraph in December, which ran until the launch of the next expansion, Lightfall, on February 28, 2023. With the release of Lightfall, this seasonal content was removed from the game with the exception of the respective battlegrounds activities from Season of the Risen and Season of the Seraph, which were incorporated into the Vanguard Operations playlist.
Gameplay
The Witch Queen introduces a new location, Savathûn's Throne World, above Mars within the Ascendant Realm. In addition to world activities, a new raid, "Vow of the Disciple", was released on March 5, 2022. Two additional dungeons were also added over the course of the expansion, but requires the purchase of a dungeon key. The "King's Fall" raid from the original Destinys (2014) The Taken King expansion was added on August 26, 2022, during Season 18 and is free for all players to access. It features the same story as the original, but accounts for differences in Destiny 2, such as gameplay mechanics and Champion enemies, as well as a new starting instance to replace the absent Dreadnaught destination that had been present in The Taken King (players begin the raid in the Court of Oryx area like the original, but cannot explore the Dreadnaught beyond this area). New and existing story content was expanded with a new "Legendary" difficulty, designed to be challenging for single players but with improved rewards for completing. At the same time, some content from the Forsaken (2018) expansion was removed from the game and placed in the Destiny Content Vault; this included the full Forsaken campaign, 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, Forsakens campaign was 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 did not already own Forsaken. While the other seasonal activities from Beyond Light (2020) were removed with The Witch Queen, the Battlegrounds activity from Season of the Chosen (Season 13) was merged with the existing strikes under one playlist, named Vanguard Operations.
Savathûn's Lucent Brood, Hive warriors that carry the power of Light, is a new major enemy within The Witch Queen. They 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.
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 Year 5, Bungie brought similar Aspects and Fragments to the original Light powers, starting with Void at the launch of The Witch Queen, followed by Solar in Season of the Haunted (Season 17), then Arc in Season of Plunder (Season 18). These changes maintain the basic abilities but allow players to modify and mix effects atop these powers. Bungie stated that additional Darkness powers would be introduced after they had completed the Light power conversion within The Witch Queen (the next Darkness power was introduced with the next expansion, Lightfall, the following year).