Destiny 2: The Witch Queen Critic Reviews

The excellent story campaign, which is an audiovisual feast, can now be played on a higher difficulty level. This is challenging enough for even experienced players, but never frustrating. For those interested in getting into the raid early, it's also a welcome way to avoid a lengthy grind in the pursuit of a desired level.

With the release of The Witch Queen, Bungie has taken Destiny 2 several steps in the right direction. The length of the campaign is nearly perfect and when coupled with higher difficulties as well as replayable campaign missions, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen delivers a stunning experience of rewarding gameplay that values a player’s time investment within it. All of that would be incredible on its own, but these are backed by incredibly well-developed stories and mysteries that have yet to be uncovered. It is a truly awesome thing to be a witness to!

While there is still more to come with “The Witch Queen,” in the form of the new raid launching on March 5th, the content given in the base expansion is simply Destiny at its absolute best. The campaign is by far the best of the series, both in terms of storytelling and gameplay itself, and might be one of my favorite shooter campaigns of all time. The bar has been raised going forward; the only question is whether or not Bungie can keep it up from here.

The Witch Queen is nowhere near over. We still have the raid next weekend and, if Beyond Light is any indication, a lot more to discover once the first team crosses the finish line. It’s difficult to judge a Destiny expansion this early on, but based on the campaign alone, I feel confident in saying this is the best piece of Destiny content Bungie has ever put out. If this is the new standard for expansions, the future of Destiny 2 is extraordinarily bright… and dark.

Delving into all its new features, new missions, new locations, and new raid, The Witch Queen has been extremely impressive and a ton of fun. The centerpiece is the laudable story campaign, making a lot of the game's best design more approachable for a variety of characters, but The Witch Queen also invokes the best parts of Destiny's past, as well--like the secret-laden, dense, and fascinating locations found in The Taken King and Forsaken expansions. The Witch Queen is a massive step forward for the game, the culmination of a recent history of great refinements and additions, resulting in a Destiny 2 that's in its best form yet.

Challenges Forsaken for the title of best-ever Destiny expansion, and has much stronger foundations to build upon. Destiny 2 was already in a good spot, but Witch Queen represents a new peak for Bungie's oft-imitated, never-dethroned looter shooter.

The Witch Queen is not only the best and most complete version of Destiny 2, it's the foundation for something better still.

The Witch Queen is a masterful expansion. An almost totally perfect symphony played by an orchestra that seems to have finally found an optimal direction. Destiny 2 fans have something to rejoice, but above all to play, as the approach to Lightfall has just begun and we can't wait to find out what will be hiding in the upcoming seasons.

If you’re not familiar with Destiny, it all probably sounds pretty overwhelming. That’s because it is. Destiny 2 has a dumptruck full of mechanics, concepts, and items, and it will take you a long time to figure everything out. What’s important is that getting to the light level cap, or doing the raid, or maxing out faction rep isn’t necessary to have a good time. The game still plays phenomenally, and the balance the new activities strike make The Witch Queen an ideal place to give Destiny 2 another shot. It worked for me, and well, if you knew exactly how much I’d grown to despise helium coils and faction rep, you’d be shocked I came back at all. But come back I did, and I won’t be putting Destiny 2 down for a very, very long time.

There's still work to be done on the game at large, but The Witch Queen is a massive step in the right direction. The campaign alone is worth the price of admission.

The Witch Queen seems to be one of the best additions to Destiny 2 right now. The local story campaign is definitely unmatched by previous expansions thanks to the varied gameplay and location design. But only a veteran of the game will be able to fully enjoy the plot, and for a beginner, half of the names and terms will remain an empty phrase. Is this a good entry point to Destiny 2? Barely. But the campaign gameplay can captivate them both, as it juggles playstyles and places entirely new demands on combat skills on Legendary difficulty. This is not a full-fledged single-player action yet, but something very similar to it. All the more interesting in which direction Bungie will go and what the finale of Destiny 2 will be.

This is Destiny 2’s best campaign, and one of the best in the genre if played in the highest difficulty.

Just as The Taken King was the Destiny ‘version two’ relaunch the game so sorely needed, The Witch Queen boldly elevates Destiny 2 into a richer space fantasy. Without taking any risks beyond giving players more options in how they build their Guardians and wreak havoc, Bungie has iterated what may safely be Destiny 2’s best year yet. Until Bungie gives players significant new additions of enemies and characters, Destiny 2 may have peaked for now.

Where Beyond Light and Shadowkeep felt like foundational expansions, The Witch Queen is the fully realized, feature-rich pay off that players have been waiting for. While it's easy to see that PvP is still comparably neglected to PvE, a superbly focused campaign, an excellent raid, and reinvigorated Void subclasses are just a few of the inclusions that build The Witch Queen up as the best Destiny expansion thus far.

The Witch Queen is a pinnacle of what Destiny can be. A great campaign supported by an incredible villain with side characters and quests that are equally as engaging, The latest expansion provides everything you could ask for while setting up the next three years of content. Not only does Witch Queen feel like a conclusion to several years of questionable design choices, it feels like a fresh start that hits all the right notes from the word go.

Bugs and PvP aside, The Witch Queen delivers the best version of Destiny 2 yet.

The Witch Queen is a great expansion that puts Destiny 2 on the right track after the partial misstep of Beyond Light. There’s a lot of content here, even though some activities are blocked behind the season pass paywall.

I am both impressed and happy with Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. A lot of the content is very good, and there are also some moves being made that make me excited for the future of this game.

This is a good expansion, a solid foundation for the next year of updates, and a lousy place for newcomers to start.

Witch Queen is thankfully a beacon of hope. Destiny was long mocked for the narrative and mission design it provided, and this new expansion absolutely knocks it out of the park with the best campaign in the Destiny series. If you’re a lapsed veteran I sincerely hope you come back and experience the joy of the campaign. Its challenging difficulty and brilliant — actual — in-game storytelling are worth the price of admission alone.