Destiny 2 Witch Queen’s most exciting feature is still a complete mystery

Destiny 2’s Witch Queen expansion arrives next month, but its weapon crafting feature remains under wraps. Could it be a game-changer?

We’re just over a month away from the next big chapter of Destiny 2, the Witch Queen, and there’s plenty that we know is coming. We know to expect a new campaign, and a recent trailer showed us Savathun’s Throne World in more detail. We also know that there will be a Raid and that Season 16 will arrive alongside the new expansion.

And yet, we’re still waiting to hear more about what is potentially the most exciting new system in years: Weapon crafting.

As we’ve covered in the past, Destiny 2’s next expansion will add a new form of weapon crafting to the game. Revealed during Bungie’s Witch Queen reveal, and with a Polygon interview filling in some of the blanks, here’s what we know so far.

• Upgrades won’t come from finding resources (as in Destiny 1)
• Weapons can be upgraded after spending more time with them
• All Throne World weapons, including raid weapons, will work
• The system will let players “forge new weapons and level them up with customizable perks”
• Weapon crafting “won’t be like other MMOs”

Why Destiny 2 Witch Queen’s new weapon crafting could be so important

Even with those pieces of knowledge, there’s an awfully large gray area in there. Destiny 1 perks were unlocked through piling Motes of Light into perks, while Destiny 2 allows for swapping between perks as soon as you pick up a gun – something which I think has been received much better.

We know that the new Glaive weapon type will be crafted (at least initially) using the system but will our existing arsenal be getting more customizable when Destiny 2 The Witch Queen arrives?

Bungie has long had a tricky balancing act between making the grind for a “God roll” weapon rewarding, and not just a continual gamble for your time and energy. I’ve been lucky enough to get some decent rolls, sure, but I’m also not the kind of player that ran Presage ad nauseam to get the perks I wanted on the Dead Man’s Tale. Should I be able to re-roll my Servant Leader in the hopes of a better perk, or do I need to keep grinding Gambit for a different version?

• Read more: Everything being vaulted in Destiny 2022 this year

These are questions Bungie is likely asking itself regularly, but I think The Division may be a good place to look for inspiration (no, really). Once players gained access to a Recalibration station in the first game, they were able to re-roll armor perks within reason. Maybe Bungie could require that you burn a certain number of legendary shards or other rolls for the privilege or something, but there’s got to be a way to make it happen.

Bungie has seemingly committed to Destiny 2 as an RPG almost as much as Destiny 2 as a shooter, but it’s also been careful not to make many concessions to the more casual player base. Still, our Guardians are getting much more customizable. Sure, we have to earn Stasis Aspects to tweak that subclass, and it’s likely Void abilities will get that same system when Witch Queen arrives. Still, with Bungie opening up more customization options across the board, it feels like weapon tweaking could be a natural extension of that. We can already re-roll Vault of Glass exotics, lest we forget.

Aside from all of this, being able to re-roll current weapons would go some way to stymying the constant outcry for more vault space. Would you really need half a dozen “nearly” rolls of a Bottom Dollar if you could get an ideal roll by mixing and matching them?

All of this is speculation at this point, but it seems that Witch Queen could make considerable changes to loot farming. There are still an absolute ton of questions over how it’ll work, so here’s hoping for a TWAB soon with more information on whether this could be a mammoth shakeup for Destiny 2 weapons and armor.