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One of the problems with the story campaigns in Destiny and Destiny 2 is that they always talk about their villains as grandiose, high-stakes threats, but they rarely are. Over the years, Bungie’s games have always made story campaigns some of their more approachable content for casual players, whether alone or with a group, and because of this, they tend to be too easy. You might go up against a skyscraper-sized Hive worm god, but you thrash it on your own after about 10 minutes of fighting. In cases like that, it hardly feels like you just saved the solar system.
This problem highlights one of the best things about The Witch Queen. You can play the entire campaign on the classic difficulty, but if you want to push yourself, there’s also the Legendary difficulty. The tougher mode adds modifiers that take away your radar and make you more susceptible to getting clawed to death, and limits your Power level to make all the enemies you fight that much stronger. It’s enough of a handicap that you stop feeling like an unstoppable super-soldier who wields space magic, and start feeling like you’re facing the serious, world-ending threats the game is always talking about. It’s the perfect feeling for a Destiny campaign, and if you feel like challenging yourself, you should absolutely try it–alone.
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Now Playing: Opinion: The Witch Queen Is Destiny 2's Best Campaign Yet
Destiny story campaigns are always content you can play solo. They don’t require matchmaking, and while you can take a team into them, they’re never especially taxing. On Legendary difficulty, however, The Witch Queen’s campaign takes on the best aspects of high-quality shooters and their tougher difficulties, like you might see in Bungie’s Halo games. They require you to use all the tools at your disposal and force you to keep moving, keep assessing the battlefield, and keep prioritizing threats and eliminating enemies to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed.
Without the aid of teammates to back you up, handle targets, or revive you if you die, you really have to stay on your toes on Legendary. Bungie seems to have balanced this campaign perfectly, however–you have the tools to defeat your enemy, but not the overwhelming power to devastate them. Veteran players in particular have a lot of great tools to work with in this campaign, like Exotics such as Gjallarhorn or Arbalest, but even still, you’re going to be tested.
The difficulty really plays into how strong the campaign’s design is. It’s full of battles against tough foes, particularly the new Hive Lightbearers, which are enemies that wield a lot of the same abilities as players. On Legendary, every encounter with one of these enemies makes you stop in your tracks. When they bust out a Super move, you must get out of the way and adjust your strategy to cope. These are fights that feel different from anything Destiny 2 has yet thrown at players, not only because these enemies fight like players do, but because they often feel equal in threat to what you bring to the table. When Lightbearers show up, they change everything.
Shooter players often ways to “cheese” their way through tough fights, but what’s great about the Legendary campaign is how much it’ll push you out of your comfort zone, forcing you to keep moving to find bethind ter cover and identify important threats. There’s not a great way to cheese your way through any of the encounters. What’s more, you won’t want to; the Witch Queen’s campaign is full of memorable fights that feel a lot more akin to Destiny 2’s best content, like raids and dungeons. One boss fight has you running through a darkened maze as a boss pursues you, shooting pulsating sacs of goo to spray luminescent gunk across the path and light your way forward. Another requires you to make your way through a massive fortress, puzzling your way through portals to find the means to break a boss’ shield before you’re overrun by its minions. They’re fights that offer surprising, heart-pounding moments, and you feel a serious sense of accomplishment for making it through them.
Bungie has done a lot to make Legendary difficulty fun without making it punishing, as well. Missions are filled with new “major encounters,” where death forces you to replay the fight (rather than just resurrecting yourself), but you get the opportunity to use rally banners that refill all your ammo and abilities before you start them. Each of these also triggers a checkpoint so you can leave and come back or fight them multiple times. Rewards for clearing these encounters are also doubled compared to the classic campaign, allowing you to keep slinging better gear or to amplify the weapons and armor you already like. The fights are tough, but the game doesn’t punish you for taking on the difficulty–instead, it removes as many roadblocks as possible.
More than anything, though, taking on the Legendary campaign solo makes the stakes of The Witch Queen’s story feel real. When characters talk about what a major problem it is that Hive enemies are now wielding Light abilities, you take it seriously–you’ve fought those guys. When you’re forced to take on a boss, the battle is serious business, and you have to use everything at your disposal just to keep yourself alive. And when you battle through enemies who want to stop you from achieving your goals of defeating Savathun, the fact that they can stop you makes the story that much more impactful. Finally, the ancient alien enemies really seem like they might end all of humanity if you don’t stand in their way.
Of course, if Legendary isn’t something that interests you, this isn’t to argue that your experience of The Witch Queen will somehow be lesser. Yes, the high stakes and greater challenge of the Legendary campaign tend to make things weightier, but harder doesn’t always mean better, and there are plenty of reasons to go with the Classic difficulty. Newer players should absolutely take the story campaign at the lower difficulty, because a lot of Destiny 2 often hinges on having the arsenal necessary to contend with the threats you face. And Legendary can definitely frustrate those who don’t play a lot of Destiny 2 or don’t consider themselves big fans of shooters.
That said, even if you switch back and forth between Classic and Legendary as you play, The Witch Queen’s campaign is good enough to give the tougher version a go. Bungie has made serious quality-of-life strides here that make the campaign easier to stomach even as it punches you in the gut. But there’s nothing better than facing a Hive warrior or a Scorn baron and feeling like you’ve met your match–and then defeating them anyway.
