On Tuesday evening Bungie released its latest ViDoc for Destiny 2: The Witch Queen and we learned a lot about the forthcoming release.

This story contains spoilers from the ViDoc so if you’re looking to go into the expansion completely blind, turn back now.

While the ViDoc was rather short at just over 13 minutes, we learned a lot about what to expect with the forthcoming expansion. Before we dive into the content, you can watch the ViDoc, Light in the Darkness, below.

Last chance to turn away because below this video we dive into spoilers.

The main theme of this expansion is quite clearly that nothing is as clear as we think it is. The age old battle of Light versus Darkness within the Destiny universe is set to get turned on its head with the arrival of Savathûn and that should introduce some interesting dynamics within the overarching story. It feels like Bungie is building up to a big showdown but how exactly that will play out is an unknown quantity at this stage.

First things first, cutscenes seem to have been given a monumental upgrade. While some cutscenes appear to take place during gameplay, the cinematics that were teased look more polished than previous releases which is fantastic to see. This has us incredibly eager for a CGI Destiny series but that’s just us theorising and there was no mention of media outside of the game.

As we mentioned on Tuesday, Mars appears to be back but it’s not back as a patrol space. Instead, Mars will be node that can be accessed from within Savathûn’s Throne World, similar to how players used to access The Farm in the EDZ.

As explained by YouTuber Rick Kackis, the Mars node will simply take players to one area where Ikora Rey is located so don’t expect to be able to explore Mars and the Clovis Bray Facility again.

The main destination being added is Savathûn’s Throne World and the destination is said to be a portrayal of the Hive God’s mind. The Hive aesthetic we know is being shunned by the Queen of Lies in favour of her new Light-borned abilities and the Lucent Brood area reflects this.

We’re excited to see this level of environmental story telling which Bungie has become rather proficient at even if the examples of this have been rather minor in the greater scope of the story.

All in on campaign

One of the aspects of Destiny that has traditionally been a let down is the campaign. While Forsaken set a high bar, Shadowkeep and Beyond Light failed to reach the heights the space western themed expansion did.

This time around Bungie has made the campaign an experience that players will remember. Of course, we would need to play it to be able to make that call but the excitement from the developer is palpable.

Some campaign missions will reportedly take place over three main encounters marked by a Raid Banner placement spot and these encounters will reward players with loot.

Bungie likens the mechanics and challenge of The Witch Queen campaign to that which you might find in a Dungeon or an Exotic quest. Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating but this is a move that makes sense.

Destiny 2’s content, particular its PvE content, feels very disconnected a lot of the time. You have a campaign that is so simple it’s boring and then Raids and Dungeons that demand you enter with a strategy and a clear head in mind. Marrying these two pieces of content is something Destiny has needed for a long time and may encourage more players to participate in end-game activities which is what really drives player engagement.

The inclusion of Legendary difficulty for the campaign has been a big talking point and players can start the campaign at that difficulty from day one. This difficulty will drop more rewards (two chests instead of one) and difficulty will scale depending on how big your fireteam is.

The campaign will also be available at any time and can be launched from a node in the Throne World. This is a great change and while we suspect that many players will move through the campaign once, if this experience is as good as Bungie is saying, replayability will be important.

Revamping the Void

In a bid to merge the system Stasis uses with the Light sub-class system, Bungie is reworking the Void sub-class.

Much like Stasis, players will be able to fine-tune their powers using Aspects and Fragments. Titans will be able to use their Sentinel Shield in a new aspect called Bastion. This aspect will allow players to plant a Rally Barricade that applies an overshield to you and allies. Warlocks will be able to use Child of the Old Gods which moves to an enemy you are targeting and damages them with you.

Our main concern with this revamp is how long it will take players to amass aspects and fragments. When Beyond Light launched, the grind to earn these was immense, so much so that Bungie was forced to adjust the requirements. We hope the developer learned from that and amassing your Void powers isn’t too much of a grind.

However, over the course of the last two years Bungie has been trying to push build crafting and for the most part, it has succeeded. We suspect that once weapon crafting and the Light sub-class reworks, build crafting will become deeply entrenched in how players approach the game.

The other Light sub-classes – Arc and Solar – will be revamped throughout the next year.

Season of the Risen

While the release of The Witch Queen is highly anticipated something we found interesting is how the story from the expansion bleeds into the story for the next season in Destiny 2.

We now know that season is called Season of the Risen and the Vanguard has once again teamed up with Caiatl and her band of space rhinos. Given how seasonal content released alongside expansions has been divorced from the expansion in the past, we’re keen to see the Lucent Brood outside of Savathûn’s Throne World.

The season appears to take players back to the Moon and hopefully it will breath new life into the destination which has become a ghost town since Shadowkeep’s launch.

We still have many questions about The Witch Queen but this ViDoc helped answer some of the more pressing questions we had. The greatest slice of news is that 50 new weapons are being added to the game. While some weapons are being removed, we are hopeful that players won’t encounter the same problems they had with Beyond Light where certain weapon archetypes were incredibly hard to obtain in order to complete quests.

This is not the last information drop we will be getting before the launch of The Witch Queen but it was substantial. If 13 minutes of information from Bungie wasn’t enough though, we highly recommend the analysis below from My Name is Byf who has picked through the ViDoc and created an hour long video. Destiny players really are a different breed.

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is available for pre-order on Xbox, PlayStation and PC with a release date of 22nd February.