Destiny 2's fourth year is just getting started, but many players are already eager to see what Savathun's arrival in The Witch Queen will bring after Beyond Light's divisive results. Many changes Bungie has already promised will pave the way to the next expansion as they are implemented throughout Year 4. However, there is still a lot riding on The Witch Queen's shoulders, which Joe Blackburn might address next season.
Along with Lightfall and Beyond Light, The Witch Queen was announced during a major Bungie livestream where the studio revealed its plans for Destiny 2's foreseeable future. This trilogy of expansions will shift the game to a more "true" MMO state and hopefully usher in a new age for Bungie's shooter, so here is where Destiny 2 must improve in the near future to stay healthy.
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One of the critical changes Bungie made with Beyond Light was how drastic the content vaulting/sunsetting felt. Moving forward, the studio should be more delicate about sunsetting content related to older zones. Most importantly, it should decide on how to properly sunset paid DLC zones.
These are currently The Tangled Shore, The Dreaming City, the Moon, and Europa. Newcomers might unwittingly buy these destinations’ respective DLCs thinking that they’ll get relevant gear out of them, while, in reality, those zones offer mostly legacy loot. This creates an awkward environment where seemingly current activities give outdated rewards sometimes. Raids are exempt from this, offering relevant loot all the time, as they are the pinnacle of Destiny activities.
With Beyond Light, Bungie consolidated the PvP experience into a handful of similar modes. This most likely allows the PvP team to make more accurate balance changes as it provides a more manageable Crucible environment to work on. However, right now, PvP feels one-note and uneventful.
Trials is still happening, but it is increasingly becoming an exclusive place where high-end players brawl. The Crucible in general needs more map and mode variety to be an interesting alternative to PvE. Bungie showed how they can create lively PvP communities with Halo’s varied and fun mode/map selections. At the very least, the studio can consider reintroducing Destiny 1 match types such as Combined Arms.
PvP would also benefit from specific achievements players can go after, unique rewards to chase, and ultimately more ways Guardians can show off their Crucible prowess. Currently, fans can reach Legend in the Competitive queue, but they only receive loot and material drops that are available from other activities. Outside of that, as well as the occasional Iron Banner trinkets, PvP doesn't offer much reward-wise to get players excited. Seasonal Challenges might amend this somewhat, as some of them supposedly reward unique items, but that remains to be seen.
The middle child of Destiny 2 activities, Gambit, is in a similar predicament. This relatively new activity has been trimmed and streamlined into a single mode with the 3.0.0.1 update. The changes in place have received positive feedback overall, making the core Gambit experience more refined.
While doing so, the activity type on the whole has shed too much of its offerings. Gambit provides nothing other than matches with single unchanging objectives and maps that share the same layout. There isn’t any variety from match to match, no modifiers, and no additional aspirations outside of winning games of Gambit. Put plainly, Gambit just needs more features to sit comfortably alongside the game's long running, core activities (Strikes and Crucible).
The last major matchmade activity type of Destiny, Strikes, is in an odd state. On one hand, there is Vanguard Strikes, a very casual playlist of every Strike in the game with no way to influence loot drops, no meaningful modifiers to spice up the experience, and no way to specify which Strike the lobby wants to launch (like map vetoing in other multiplayer games). This mode is just a cheap and easy way players can hop in, play some Destiny, and hop out.
On the other hand, there is Nightfall: The Ordeal, a hyper specialized mode that offers just one Strike per week with restricting modifiers and specific coveted rewards. The rift between these two modes is huge, and neither of them are perfect. One is unremarkable but inoffensive, while the other is tough and only good for hardcores grinding materials. The casual playlist should offer different rules at this point or reintroduce scoring so that players have ulterior motives while churning through Strike after Strike.
Preferably, there should be at least one other mode to keep players engaged with Strikes as a whole. Perhaps a middle ground where weekly modifiers affect gameplay but enemies aren’t as challenging as the Nightfall’s. Or palette cleansing special weekend events, like Trials but tuned differently to serve a much wider audience. These can have a new ruleset every week, and have a chance to drop useful items. Strikes have always been the bread and butter of Destiny PvE, but with daily mission playlists gone, the game relies on them even more to satisfy the masses.
One of the most discussed and beloved storylines in Destiny 2 still is that of The Dreaming City. Introduced after the Forsaken campaign, The Dreaming City offered secrets galore, a lot of loot, and multiple unique activities. Even though it is more than two years old at this moment, The Dreaming City’s story still continues in Season of the Hunt. The way it ties into The Witch Queen is that Savathun propagated the curse that envelops The Dreaming City, which is reflected in-game as a triweekly world event.
Lore fans predict that this expansion will finally put an end to the curse cycle as Savathun makes her grand appearance. This is hinted at in game dialogue where Mara Sov tells that she will return to The Dreaming City soon to finish the fight, and that Savathun will be waiting for her. It’s quite likely that The Witch Queen will kick off with a conflict between the two sovereigns, just like how The Taken King started. It is also possible that ending the curse cycle will give Bungie a reason to vault The Dreaming City, while many fans also debate whether the elusive wish 15 will be solved in The Witch Queen or during Season 15, leading up to the expansion.
First, every expansion will introduce a never-before-seen zone, just like Beyond Light did. With how packed Europa is with things to do and how it has been received, fans can feel confident that The Witch Queen will offer a novel destination with a lot of post-campaign potential.
Secondly, Luke Smith teased that a new Dark subclass might be in the works. That said, Bungie never stated in clear terms that The Witch Queen will feature the next Darkness subclass. However, it is quite likely that the studio will seize this opportunity to expand on the subclass system, instead of waiting for Lightfall. Some fans even believe that traces of this new element is in the game right now, dubbed Soulfire.
And lastly, The Witch Queen, and its accompanying season, will have considerably more weapons to go after than Beyond Light or the current season. Bungie stated that it is making an effort to expand the loot pool and has hired developers that will specifically work on rewards in Destiny 2, so that players don’t feel hungry for more guns. The first steps towards this has taken place already, as Bungie is adding ten or so extra guns to the game in just two weeks: six additional weapons distributed to ritual playlists and three more Nightfall exclusive rewards. There could be more the studio is keeping secret, and these are of course in addition to the expected seasonal offerings.
Destiny 2 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.