The Lightfall expansion is only a week away for Destiny 2, pulling the curtains down on another year of seasonal content provided throughout the era of The Witch Queen. All four seasons were rich in narrative highlights, from aiding the Cabal Empress to facing down an old foe revived by The Witness.
The continued efforts of Bungie to upgrade the game’s seasonal storytelling have paid dividends in this regard, but 2022’s highest peaks came with some tough lows as well. The formula for seasons that has been in place since Beyond Light may be effective in providing players with consistent content, but the community has become painfully accustomed to it.
Some of the seasons during The Witch Queen era overcame this repetitive model with unique loot or activities and provided Destiny 2 with some of its strongest story moments outside of its expansions. Others, however, struggled to leave the same kind of positive impression by the end of their runtime.
With Bungie already announcing that Lightfall will introduce some experimentation with its seasons to diversify future content delivery, it’s the perfect year to reflect on products of the current model to see where they succeeded and failed.
What were the best Destiny 2 seasons in The Witch Queen? Every season, ranked
4) Season of Plunder
Season of Plunder was an adequate but unfortunately mostly forgettable third entry in the year. A fun pirate-themed adventure lent the season and its Ketchcrash activity an exciting aesthetic, but the unique inspiration behind the season failed to mask its other flaws.
First and foremost, despite Ketchcrash having a more robust gameplay loop, the core activity that rewarded players with loot was a second activity called Expedition. Thin on enemies and slow to progress, this payload push-style activity didn’t live up to the entertainment its sister mode was offering and yet demanded far more player attention.
The weekly seasonal story missions were similarly bland in comparison to other similar missions in other seasons. Some of the “pirate hideouts” here even reused Lost Sectors from vaulted destinations with a fresh coat of paint. Such reuse of assets is common in Destiny, but here it quickly broke the immersion when a supposed base on an asteroid was eerily reminiscent to a cave on Mars.
Related: Why Destiny 2’s Season of Plunder missed the mark
A unique set of seasonal weapons, the return of Destiny’s Kings Fall raid, and the revival of Eramis by The Witness kept Season of Plunder from feeling entirely stale. Eramis was an especially unexpected return to the narrative despite a few hints that it could happen, and the exploration of her complex character through both Plunder and Seraph was one of the highlights of the year.
The seasonal story’s hunt for the relics of Nezarec—an infamous Disciple of The Witness—was also undercut by its finale. It was a touching emotional scene when Osiris was finally brought back from his coma, but it came thanks to Misraaks’ ability to turn the power of those relics… into tea. The confusing and slightly bizarre scenario ultimately served as an effective microcosm for a very mixed seasonal offering.
3) Season of the Risen
Season of the Risen had a hard task to leave an impact when its release coincided with that of The Witch Queen expansion itself, but it was an improvement on Bungie’s previous effort with Season of the Hunt the year prior.
Smartly, Risen used a variation of the Battlegrounds activity to serve as its core seasonal loop. This was a popular strike-style activity first introduced in Season of the Chosen, and its remixed return here kept most of what made it a fan favorite intact. Density was once again good, but the final boss fights lacked some amount of variety due to extended intermission periods where the player faced off against clones of Savathun with Synaptic Spears.
The seasonal loot was worth the chase, though, especially with it being the first season to feature loot that could be crafted and enhanced to the player’s liking. A new Wave Frame grenade launcher, as well as a pulse rifle and auto rifle with highly competitive rolls, were just a few of the highlights.
The seasonal Exotic mission, Vox Obscura, also did a lot of the heavy lifting to make this season a good one. Destiny 2’s earliest Exotic missions—Whisper and Zero Hour—were well-loved for their difficult time-based sequences, which Vox Obscura reintroduces to the conversation. The time limit on every run adds a great sense of urgency to the story being told, and the Dead Messenger Exotic tied to it was strong enough to become notorious in the Crucible.
Where Season of the Risen really struggled was in its story. Adequate but forgettable, its only impactful moments came in its conclusion as Saladin offered his life to Caiatl’s service to save Crow from execution for his accidental murder of a Psion envoy. It was a crucial character move to make for future narrative developments, but the road to get there felt a little forced and unengaging.
2) Season of the Haunted
Season of the Haunted was a unique story for Destiny to tell, focused on the intimacy of character dynamics instead of the grand tales traditionally in the spotlight. Guided by Eris Morn, victory in Season of the Haunted demanded Zavala, Crow, and Caiatl to face their inner demons and ancient traumas.
The stage for this was Calus’ Leviathan, which unexpectedly returned as a full patrol zone and the hub for a new public event. Taking inspiration from Shadowkeep’s Altars of Sorrow, Nightmare Containment was an action-packed and enemy-dense seasonal activity with lots of opportunities to test out the new builds that came with Solar 3.0.
The season’s Duality dungeon didn’t quite deliver in the same way that 2022’s other dungeon did, burdened by some frustrating bugs and needlessly complicated encounter mechanics. But a suite of potent weapons on offer and the promise of new end-game content was still more than enough to satisfy hungry veterans.
The story’s emotional core hit all the right notes, especially when Zavala’s grief surrounding his wife and son from the Dark Age was at the heart of the player’s efforts. The excellent writing was unfortunately hampered by the demands of time-gated weekly story quests, and the process of all three characters making amends with their traumas became somewhat repetitive by the end.
1) Season of the Seraph
The final season of The Witch Queen cycle, Season of the Seraph, is one that will be remembered among the best that Destiny 2 has ever released. With the mighty task on its shoulders to set up Lightfall and the arrival of The Witness, it did so brilliantly with a focus on resurrecting Rasputin and challenging Battlegrounds activities.
Not only did Season of the Seraph come with the usual content drop of new activities and loot, but it provided players with a new dungeon to explore as well.
Spire of the Watcher struck a better balance than its predecessor Duality did when it came to speed and difficulty, using an engaging set of wire connection puzzles as its primary mechanic. The earnable armor and weapons were also a crowd-pleaser, all forged by Tex Mechanica with a distinctly cowboy-themed aesthetic.
In the realm of more regular seasonal content, the Heist Battlegrounds activity at the heart of Season of the Seraph continued the trend of Battlegrounds variations being a hit with players. Enemy density is high throughout the three available maps, and a modifier that caps player Power at five below all combatants keeps the difficulty high and teamwork essential. A lack of challenge has been a topic of contention for years within the Destiny 2 community, so the addition of difficulty modifiers was welcomed with open arms.
Related: Destiny 2 Season of the Seraph full story and lore recap
But where Seraph really shined was in its story. Returning favorites like Ana, Elsie, and Clovis Bray were present, as well as the surprise involvement of Mara Sov and Eramis in key roles. The return of Rasputin has been teased for years and the narrative threads surrounding his reconstruction and the Warsat network did not disappoint, even if the final cutscene dealt a devastating final emotional blow.
