It won’t be long and Destiny 2 players will download the content of the new expansion to their hard drives. But before that, a longer downtime and a download await. MeinMMO summarizes the information and times you need to know for the launch.
When does Witch Queen officially start? The new expansion Witch Queen will be released worldwide at the same time. For Germany, that is February 22, 2022 at 18:00 CET. However, before you can explore the new content and Savathun’s Throne World, you must first download the expansion.
To help you plan optimally, Bungie has already announced the scheduled times for the downtime before the launch and the official preload times.
When does the preload start? The preload for Witch Queen is expected to be available on February 22 at 04:00 CET on all platforms. Bungie announced this in the current “This Week at Bungie”-blog (TWaB). How much storage will be required is not yet known.
Additionally, a longer downtime for Destiny 2 will take place beforehand. Bungie currently plans for just over 14 hours, which you should also take into account.
These times are important for the start of Witch Queen
To prepare for the launch of The Witch Queen on February 22, Destiny 2 will first be completely shut down.
- On Tuesday, February 22, the servers will be taken offline at 03:45 CET. You will not be able to log in, and some services on Bungie.net will also be unavailable.
- From 04:00 CET on February 22, the preview version for Witch Queen and the update 4.0.0.1 will be available on all platforms.
- It is planned that the Destiny 2 servers will be back online on February 22 at 18:00 CET. If everything goes well, you will be able to play the update 4.0.0.1 on all platforms and regions afterwards. The new expansion will go live then.
- At 19:00 CET on February 22, the maintenance of Destiny 2 is expected to be completed.
Bungie only plans for “small queues”: This year, one might assume that due to the many players wanting to play the DLC at launch, there may be longer wait times when logging in.
However, despite the fact that Destiny 2 “The Witch Queen”, the most pre-ordered expansion in the history of Destiny 2, Bungie is actually only planning for “small queues”. Whether that all will work out will have to be seen on February 22.
On which platforms does Witch Queen release? Destiny 2 releases the new expansion on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PC, and Google Stadia.
Do you think Destiny 2 has planned well and the queue lengths will be limited despite a million players at the launch of Witch Queen? Or do you think players should expect very long wait times when logging in this year? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
By the way: What you can still do in Destiny 2 before the preload has already been summarized for you by MeinMMO in this article:
