For those who wanted to get into Destiny 2 and played for the first time, they had to study many guides to understand where to find what. With Witch Queen, Bungie aims to solve this problem and make it easier for new players to get into the game. MeinMMO looked at the planned changes.
In recent years, Destiny 2 has often focused on the experience for long-time players. Witch Queen also offers content through the legendary campaigns that is initially only interesting for experienced players.
However, Bungie has also announced a significant overhaul of the experience for new New-Light players for the upcoming expansion. Something that many players have seen as long overdue.
The universe is vast and nothing in it is simple: For New-Light players, it is currently still a significant hurdle to get into the game and especially to fully understand the story afterwards. The use of abilities during onboarding in Destiny 2 is not easy either. The complexity and the lack of explanations for it could quickly overwhelm new players when starting the game.
- A large number of abilities, aspects, and fragments
- Many armor mods interact with ability mechanics.
- New players hardly use their own builds and rarely the diverse mods
- The story in missions is often disconnected and hard to follow for beginners
Destiny fans have stepped in for Bungie: This obvious gap has been filled in recent years by long-time Destiny fans. Clan leaders, YouTubers, veterans of Destiny 1 and 2. Basically, all those who know the full story of Destiny have stepped in for Bungie and helped new lights understand mechanics, story, and builds.
MeinMMO also highlighted this problem of new players back in October 2021:
This is supposed to change with Witch Queen now: As Blake Battle, Project Lead at Bungie, reported to MeinMMO, this is “definitely a challenge” for the developer. They have been aware for some time that “the breadth and depth of a constantly evolving world can often come at the cost of complexity.” This may also have been the reason why Bungie is now overhauling the experience for new players.
New introductory campaign soon explains important abilities
Currently, the New Light experience and the target area “Cosmodrome” is where Bungie introduces its primary onboarding mechanisms for new players. There, new players learn the basics of gameplay and the processes within Destiny 2.
New onboarding campaign starting February 22: For Witch Queen, Bungie will add an updated onboarding process. Players are expected to learn not only the new subclasses of the Void 3.0 update but also the Stasis subclasses.
- Players learn the first aspects and fragments in the “New Light” campaign
- The following “Schisma” mission contains the quest “Learning Light,” which teaches them the application of subclass abilities.
- Additional aspects and fragments can be unlocked by visiting Ikora Rey in the Tower.
Previously, the different characters, Titans, Hunters, and Warlocks, started with different abilities (Hunter Solar, Warlocks Void, Titans Arc). This will also change with Witch Queen. All classes will uniformly start with Void subclass abilities.
The story is explained in-game via a timeline
New players in Destiny 2 also recently gained the option to trace all story elements within the game.
The timeline provides a compact overview of the story: Bungie has set up a timeline on the central map. Interested players can see, trace, and also chronologically categorize the various events in the history.
While this is indeed a rather compact overview of all content since the awakening of the Traveler, it is at least a step towards further improving the experience for new players. It is also not excluded that the overview might even be expanded further.
Interactive trailers take players back in time: For Witch Queen, Bungie has additionally improved how the past of Destiny 1 and 2 is presented. Recently, an interactive trailer was released that excitingly summarizes story content related to Witch Queen.
What awaits you in Witch Queen: If you are still unsure whether entering Destiny 2: Witch Queen is worth it for you, we have a short video summary of the new content for you:
Bungie’s project leader Blake Battle summarized this to MeinMMO:
The Witch Queen marks the seventh year of Destiny expansions and unravels narrative threads that date back to the first Destiny and The Taken King. The narrative themes addressed in the [Witch Queen] release are at the core of Destiny, and they have been written and structured in a way that we believe provides excellent narrative onboarding for new players.
His most important recommendation to interested players is therefore:
For an MMO or FPS player interested in Destiny, my main advice would be to play the Witch Queen campaign.
Blake Battle, Project Lead at Bungie to MeinMMO
What do you think of the planned changes for new players? Do you find it sufficient? What would you change about the timeline or the New Light? Would you like to play the old content again? Or is the review enough for you? Please let us know in the comments.
