Each new expansion brings new weapons and adventures for the player to strive towards. Sometimes, the shared world shooter of the series will put a bigger emphasis on the former, since that is the main draw of the series. There will be a solid story told with each expansion, but it can often feel like these tales take a back seat to focus on what you will use to defeat wave after wave of enemies. There is a grenade launcher that shoots worms. While the newest Witch Queen expansion offers a lot of impressive guns and armor, it also spends a lot of time on building a campaign that feels worth the price of admission.
The biggest selling point of the expansion was the Hive Guardians. The expansion makes them feel like a familiar threat, but still plenty alien. The biggest mystery surrounding everything going on with Savathun is their existence.
The answer to how she was able to give her people the Light that grants their powers is one of two options, neither of which is great. The Strike is presented as the more obvious of the two because it isn't available anymore. It's gratifying to be on Savathun's Throne World and defeat a Hive Guardian after they popped their Super. It's even better to secure your victory by crushing its Ghost in the palm of your hand.
Witch Queen introduces a pair of Hive Ghosts to the Guardians, which are little floating friends. As the central NPC on Savathun's Throne World, he is more than eager to help the Guardians bring an end to the queen's schemes. The Throne World feels like a comforting place for Fynch, as he casually hovers over the remains of his Hive Guardian. When your Ghost frequently probes and expresses skepticism at their new ally, it's so interesting that you don't often get the chance to interact one-on-one.
Nolan North gives the Ghost a lot of energy, the kind that can be either really funny or sometimes at odds with how the player feels in the moment. Ghost is angry at seeing others of his kind fight for the wrong side, even as they were created for the same purpose, and it is something to hear him become genuinely angry. While players have spent the past year turning foes into friends, like the Guardian Crow, it's a bit more of a hurdle to accept the Hive as a guardian. Savathun's escape from her crystal prison in Season 15 meant something to Ghost and I.
The second Ghost is Savathun. The Hive Queen was on death's door after being freed by the Awoken Queen Mara Sov at the end of Season 15. With her last breath, she made her way to the Traveler to talk to him and he created Immaru to bring her back as a Guardian. The Traveler doesn't have the best relationship with whatever it chooses to grant its Light to, especially since it has a nasty habit of dipping out once those Pyramid ships show up. The previous expansion, Beyond Light, focused on a Fallen who was devastated by the abandonment of the Traveler. The revelation of Savathun being turned into a Guardian is still a gut punch to the game. Seeing Savathun's memories forces them to confront a truth about their god, and that they have been ignoring for a long time.
It's fitting that it serves to underpin the conclusion of the expansion because of the big theme of "Truth". The novelty of Witch Queen's final stretch is that it shows Savathun her pre-Guardian memories of the Hive's birth. She and her sisters were deceived by the Darkness and were granted familiars and pledged themselves to worm gods. Savathun puts up her best fight before being put down in the epic boss battle where the Queen of lies was lied to. The threat of her is still very much in play, as the Traveler beams Immaru away before the Guardian can smash the Hive Ghost into pieces.
Witch Queen is the best expansion that the series has had, and may be the best expansion overall. It is possible that fans regard Taken King and the now vaulted Forsaken in a high regard. It's nice to finally get answers and play a campaign that has a real, complete story to tell and not just feel like it's setting up future mechanics. It feels like the world of this science fantasy franchise is about to become alive in a brand new way with our first look at the Witness, a member of the Darkness with a legion of Pyramid ships under their command. One that will hopefully make the eventual grind for new gear worth doing for weeks on end and tell stories that make people feel like a new kind of legend.
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