Witch Queen was a mostly-amazing campaign. They made Savathûn a chilling and calculating, yet emotional antagonist, which was really nice. Taken King, the first time we went up against a major Hive God, was able to flesh out Oryx in a way that made him a compelling and powerful antagonist, and Savathûn is no different. The scene where she faces the Traveler and gets all emotional, and we learn that our big spherical god CHOSE her...wow. And her "final" (fairly certain she isn't dead but ah well) speech - on the ground at our feet, she simply gets real with us. Amazing.
I'm very happy that they weren't too reliant on Taken King, though. I feel like lots of storylines today lean on particularly-good source material and draw excessively from it (for example, The Rise of Skywalker), but WQ was not one of them. They made Savathûn a threatening, powerful villain in her own right - although dont get me wrong, there are a handful of callbacks to Taken King, which is nice.
Supporting characters are great, too. Ikora really shines in this one, as does the traitor Hive ghost, Fynch (love him!). And, of course, it's nice to see the player Guardian have new lines. The new season is awesome as well - the Mindscape is a badass concept that I'd love to explore more, and it seems to be setting up Freeborn Otzot and Maya Sundaresh as the next overarching antagonists, which is cool.
One thing I didn't like (aside from the obscene power grind, which is lessened somewhat by generous loot drops) was the nullification and "de-scary-ifying" of the Darkness, which has happened ever since Beyond Light. Throughout D1 and D2 we got little hints of the Darkness' true power: an eldritch terror from the blackest gulfs of space of incomprehensible power and magnitude. Even Shadowkeep, which I consider a "mediocre sandwich" - fantastic opening and ending, boring and lame story - really emphasized on the pyramids' sheer power and terror. The interior was foggy and atmospheric, completely silent, and utterly haunting. But when we enter the Europa pyramid towards the middle of the campaign, there's no lead-up or scariness at all. The interior is a dull grayish-brown, in contrast to the Shadowkeep pyramid's dark, slick interior. There's no atmosphere or tension. A platoon of bog-standard cabal thugs and freebooters have just casually set up shop in there. Like..?????
That's really only my major gripe. The rest is fantastic, and I highly recommend it. For all of you lore nerds, stay until the sorta-post-credits-scene. The Witness is cool, kinda. And are those the Scorn Barons....?!?!?!?
I'm very happy that they weren't too reliant on Taken King, though. I feel like lots of storylines today lean on particularly-good source material and draw excessively from it (for example, The Rise of Skywalker), but WQ was not one of them. They made Savathûn a threatening, powerful villain in her own right - although dont get me wrong, there are a handful of callbacks to Taken King, which is nice.
Supporting characters are great, too. Ikora really shines in this one, as does the traitor Hive ghost, Fynch (love him!). And, of course, it's nice to see the player Guardian have new lines. The new season is awesome as well - the Mindscape is a badass concept that I'd love to explore more, and it seems to be setting up Freeborn Otzot and Maya Sundaresh as the next overarching antagonists, which is cool.
One thing I didn't like (aside from the obscene power grind, which is lessened somewhat by generous loot drops) was the nullification and "de-scary-ifying" of the Darkness, which has happened ever since Beyond Light. Throughout D1 and D2 we got little hints of the Darkness' true power: an eldritch terror from the blackest gulfs of space of incomprehensible power and magnitude. Even Shadowkeep, which I consider a "mediocre sandwich" - fantastic opening and ending, boring and lame story - really emphasized on the pyramids' sheer power and terror. The interior was foggy and atmospheric, completely silent, and utterly haunting. But when we enter the Europa pyramid towards the middle of the campaign, there's no lead-up or scariness at all. The interior is a dull grayish-brown, in contrast to the Shadowkeep pyramid's dark, slick interior. There's no atmosphere or tension. A platoon of bog-standard cabal thugs and freebooters have just casually set up shop in there. Like..?????
That's really only my major gripe. The rest is fantastic, and I highly recommend it. For all of you lore nerds, stay until the sorta-post-credits-scene. The Witness is cool, kinda. And are those the Scorn Barons....?!?!?!?