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3/1/2022 1:17:37 PM
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My Few Criticisms of the WQ Campaign and Savathun More Broadly

So I'm going to preface this by first stating that I too indeed to think that the Witch Queen is by far the best campaign Destiny has seen yet. The missions are so much longer and fleshed out with their own mechanics beyond simply pointing and shooting. Savathun is an awesome villain with several cool twists in there and a great protagonist-antagonist relationship. However there is just one thing that was notably missing from the campaign that I feel would have raised it up just that little bit higher. One thing that TTK did better. I think that the campaign is a bit devoid of any compelling lieutenants to fight. There are several high ranking hive that are subordinate to Savathun in the campaign. But of these I could tell you the name of only one, Alak Hul. All of the others were seemingly new ones introduced on the spot with no backstory and no real unique purpose or design other than to have a boss at the end of a story mission. While there's no problem throwing in the occasional insignificant named boss to add a little bit more to an encounter, I think that there still needs to be a couple with a bit more significance to make the player feel like they've accomplished something by killing them. With the exception of Savathun herself and whoever this disciple will be in the raid, I just don't get that in WQ. This is something TTK did quite well. This post isn't a TTK vs WQ subject, but I'll briefly outline why it was so effective in TTK. In TTK, there is a fairly clear chain of command building up to Oryx himself, and we get to dismantle that chain of command throughout the campaign. Most of the bosses are made up from people in this chain. Although almost all are new characters, most have some lore given once you kill them and a few an active role in the campaign. We have the Echoes of Oryx. Effectively projections of Oryx himself that maintain the war effort on far away fronts. Destroy them and you ruin his ability to co-ordinate the taken in the area. They actively oppose you in several story missions as well as the post-campaign quest. Killing them is a direct hit to Oryx and we get to feel that we just punched up a part of him. Then we have the two major Taken leaders. Bax and the Primus. We see both out doing stuff before they get taken, the Primus even leading the cabal forces attacking Oryx. After being taken they are deployed against us several times before being sent as our final test before Oryx. They have somewhat unique designs too which just adds a little personality to them. Finally we have Oryx extensive Court of Oryx. This is pretty much his military and has about a dozen Ascendant hive with their own stories, gimmicks and tricks. These are post campaign bosses after the story switches from neutralising the threat of Oryx to tearing down his regime. Then in the raid we have the REAL heavy hitters. Oryx's most trusted general, an ogre weapon powerful enough to just about kill him and his daughters, peak deathsingers. These guys have lore, personality and stakes to them. Primo stuff. Back to Witch Queen. There's nothing really like this in Savathun's Lucent Brood, which is disappointing because there were SO many amazing things to choose from that had been set up for Savathun. She's definitely HAD lieutenants with personality, (Dul Incaru, Riven, Nokris, Quria). These guys had story and lore significance and killing them dod gove that feeling of progress. It's just that none of them ended up actually surviving to Witch Queen. By the time we got into it, the only notable figure left was her. Surely they could have thrown in another child of Savathun to face throughout the campaign for a little bit of extra oomph. Bungie's marketing of Witch Queen was all about these dominos that Savathun had been setting and how she was going to knock them all down, but the only ones that fell into place for the DLC itself were those to do with stealing the light. Quria and its taken abilities didn't get to play a part. Nokris and his necromancy didn't get to play a part. The curse on the dreaming city didn't get to play its part. All of these had already been expended already. The deathsinger choir she started to set up in Shadowkeep didn't get to. The vex machines she studied on Io didn't lead anywhere really. So much cool opportunity for cool pre-established lore to enter the story, and so many sources of some cool boss fights. And yet, none of it comes into play. Mostly just stuff from the last year. Imagine if in Witch Queen itself we got to dismantle these pieces and feel the progress of dispatching Savathun's empire. A mission where we cut away the choir before they can assemble and dispose of humanity and the Earth, no longer useful to her plans. If Quria was still alive and we delved into its hiding place with a strike team to fight off this enigmatic terror that provides Savathun with an indispensable army of taken. If that boss in the apothecary wasn't just some right hand of Savathun, but another child of hers. These things aren't necessary for a great campaign, no. The campaign we got proves that. But I feel it was one of the few things holding it back from feeling truly epic to me. I doubt anyone made it through that whole word splurge, but if you did let me know your thoughts.
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