Destiny 2: The Witch Queen's Legendary Campaign Will Make The Challenge Worth It

Bungie spent a good chunk of this week's news post talking about the enticing Legendary campaign mode in Destiny 2 The Witch Queen. We knew that the Legendary mode will be quite challenging for solo players and fireteams alike, but this news post sets expectations.

The Legendary mode aims to tell the same action-packed detective story as the regular mode, but it's for players who want to spend their energy leveling up quickly and to grab extra loot while deciphering Savathun's deceptions. Players can start the Legendary campaign from the get-go and based on the image from the ViDoc, it seems like the first mission in Legendary mode starts at Power level 1360. Bungie had previously mentioned that all players will start The Witch Queen expansion at Power level 1350.

Bungie describes the Legendary campaign as being tougher than a Legend Nightfall, but not as arduous as a Grandmaster. The missions will have more hostile enemies that won't back down. Enemies will have high resistance to damage in general, but more so to mismatched damage types--multiple modifiers are added in the Legendary mode to spice things up.

Every Legendary story mission will cap the players' Power level to prevent them from being overpowered--as expected, under-leveled players will have a harder time completing these missions. The skull icon on the launch screen will tell players what Power level is the absolute max for that Legendary story mission.

Bungie promises that there will be consistency whether players choose to hop in solo or with a Fireteam--players who choose to run solo or with a Fireteam will all get the same rewards. When in a Fireteam, the mission will scale to match the scenario--players won't find missions significantly easier than solo just because they are in a Fireteam. The Darkness zones seem like one of those moments where each player needs to hold their own, yet remain close to their Fireteam to get efficient revives. Each player gets a single revive token, and a 40-second counter shared between all players before they end up wiping.

Players putting themselves through the trials of tribulations of Legendary mode may find the experience worth it for the extra chests in every mission that give gear, upgrade modules, Glimmer, as well as XP. Players can get on the Legendary fast track to acquire Throne World armor too.

Every character that completes the entire Legendary campaign will reach the soft cap of 1500. Campaign lead Andrew Hopps at Bungie said that players will be rewarded with eight pieces of gear at Power level 1520--essentially making anyone who completes the whole Legendary campaign raid-ready. Finishing the entire Witch Queen campaign in Legendary mode also gives an exclusive emblem, a Triumph for the upcoming Throne World title, eight upgrade modules, and new Exotic armor.

Players who realize that the Legendary mission isn't for them can exit the mission and complete it in the regular mode. If players want to run through the story in the regular mode and save the challenge for their next run through the campaign, that's doable. Bungie explained, "We've added nodes to replay any The Witch Queen campaign mission on Classic or Legendary any time--after you've beaten the mission once." Don't be alarmed if a particular Legendary encounter doesn't seem the same as the regular mission; Legendary mode will change up enemy encounters, like adding a boss fight where players would normally fight an Elite enemy.

Bungie describes the campaign as the "definitive Destiny campaign" that takes bits and pieces of other activities and introduces them into the missions--creating a lengthy, hefty story. Like in dungeons or an Exotic mission, players will encounter puzzles, secrets, quests, and even find free rally banners during big encounters. GameSpot was able to preview early moments in The Witch Queen campaign and Savathun's Throne World too.

This week's Bungie news post also gave a detailed look a the new Exotic armor players can soon get their hands on. The Witch Queen expansion releases on February 22 and the upcoming raid launches shortly after on March 5.