Bungie officially revealed the announcement date for Destiny 2's The Witch Queen expansion, which is set to release sometime early next year. The expansion was delayed due to the impact of the pandemic on the work of the developer studio, and the original plan was for it to drop sometime in November this year like Beyond Light did last year. This means that The Witch Queen will not be released by the end of Season 15, which starts on the same day as the expansion's showcase, on August 24, and there could be enough time to warrant for another Season in between the next one and the major release of 2022.
While the current state of Destiny 2 is good for the most part, and especially so thanks to the seasonal model that provided Guardians with great storytelling and compelling quests, but there is definitely room for improvement. One of the areas where Bungie needs to turn its attention to is Exotics, and mainly Exotic weapons while at it because there are a bunch of underused guns that could use some tweaks to make them at least decent. This was highlighted when a viral Reddit post about Exotics got a reply from Bungie, asking for more feedback on which Exotics would need a rework the most, or at least a catalyst to make them better.
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Exotics in need of a rework is just one of the things that will hopefully come with The Witch Queen, but there's another topic that has been causing several debates on the actual state of the game, and that's PvP. The Crucible has seen better days, and one of the main things that bother Destiny 2 players is that there have been no new maps for around 650 days now, with the last being three maps added with Shadowkeep back in October 2019. This is made worse by the fact that when Beyond Light launched last November, 11 areas from the game were vaulted as part of Bungie's file reduction plan to allow the game to have faster loading times and removing older content that didn't fit the current narrative.
However, this was yet another indirect hit at PvP because the already low amount of maps available was further shrunk in size with some of the older ones being vaulted together with their respective areas. This means that one of the best things that The Witch Queen's showcase could include is footage of new PvP content, or at least mentioning that it is coming with the new expansion. New maps and further sandbox balance changes could help, and changes to how things currently work in the Trials of Osiris combined with Iron Banner improvements could be what makes the competitive play great in the long run.
Speaking of sandbox changes, there are some that could be beneficial to both PvE and PvP alike, even if some Destiny 2 fans are debating whether the game should permanently separate them to allow for more targeted changes that don't impact the other negatively. Regardless, weapons like scout rifles, hand cannons, and machine guns all need some tuning to make them a better choice for different activities. While these changes are likely to roll out when the next Season launches, major expansions usually do introduce a plethora of improvements in these regards.
Weapons are not the only category that could use tweaks though, and fans hope that there will be changes to the way mods are currently handled in Destiny 2. In fact, mods are sold by Banshee and Ada-1 on a rotation, but the pool of mods is huge, and especially so for the latter. This often leads to specific mods being sold every once in a long while, and a prime example of this is Wrath of Rasputin.
Wrath of Rasputin is a mod that allows Solar splash damage to generate Warmind Cells, which can be further improved via other mods like Global Reach and Rage of the Warmind. It was sold recently for the first time in almost four months, and all players skipping it are being inherently punished because of how the mod vendor system currently works. Talking about these topics during the showcase for The Witch Queen would be a great sign on Bungie's part.
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Of course, another big topic for the showcase to address is the setting of The Witch Queen expansion. Old Chicago is the rumored location for the new expansion to take place in, and this comes from a few hints that Bungie has been planting over time. If the swampy area of Old Chicago proves to be the main new zone to appear in Destiny 2, it could have ties with the rumored additional Darkness subclass to release with the expansion. Beyond Light's Europa is an icy planet, and the expansion featured Stasis, which is all about freezing and slowing targets only to then shatter them.
Then, there are the story elements that the showcase needs to address. This week, Bungie appears to have accidentally revealed the finale for the Season of the Splicer by releasing a lore page called 10 - Memorial, though its story feels disconnected from the events thus far. Regardless, the events all seem to point at the fan theory that Osiris is Savathun in disguise, and if that proves to be the case by the end of this season, then most likely it will have a big impact on the narrative for The Witch Queen.
Lastly, showing a bit of The Witch Queen gameplay on August 24 would be great because very little is currently known about the expansion and what it will entail. All the official information is a few lines in Bungie's TWABs over the past few months and a couple of images that mainly show the new armor sets coming with The Witch Queen. There was no talk about gameplay, potential new enemies to come to Destiny 2, how and where the story missions will take place, and so on so forth.
Showcasing some real gameplay footage rather than a few stills would be warmly welcomed by the community, but that seems something for another day, closer to the actual release. Overall, the more details Bungie manages to reveal with the presentation the better, as that will give players something to talk about and provide feedback on in the coming months.
Destiny 2 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.