Destiny 2’s Savathun’s Exorcism event has a great Red War throwback

The Witch Queen arrives next week, but the Destiny 2 Savathun’s Exorcism activity rekindled memories of the game’s original Red War campaign.

Destiny 2’s next expansion, The Witch Queen, arrives next week and marks a shift in tone for the game. Guardians will come face-to-face with enemies that wield the same powers that we have since 2014, and will go toe-to-toe with Savathun, a character hiding in the shadows since then.

After an extended Season of the Lost, though, we finally got a new piece of story content this week at reset in the form of an epilogue — Savathun’s Exorcism.

While some Guardians saw their progress blocked by bugs, and others had the final cutscene skipped by a teammate’s errant button press, the event was short but sweet. In fact, despite setting up the next expansion (and Season of the Risen), it actually felt more like a knowing wink to the past.

Destiny 2’s Savathun’s Exorcism event has a great Red War throwback

Ok, before we continue, there’s a spoiler warning here. If you’ve not played the seasonal epilogue, I recommend you do so.

Still here? OK, let’s continue.

The latest six-player activity felt a little more focused and linear than Destiny encounters often do, and I didn’t mind that. We crossed the bridge that had been constructed over the course of the season and made our way into the exorcism chamber.

Here, while we defended Savathun, Mara, and the Techeuns, Saint-14 put up a dome shield that in my instance must’ve lasted for well over five minutes (that’s a hell of an Intellect stat).

• Read more: All exotics in Destiny 2 The Witch Queen so far

In truth, he’s really not much more than a bit of extra set dressing, except for the fact we can jump in the shield to mitigate damage. And yet, it’s the closest we’ve felt to fighting alongside a cast of characters since the start of the Red War campaign when Destiny 2 launched in 2017.

Remember that? Cayde-6 was quipping, Zavala put up a similar shield for us, and Ikora unleashed a Dragon Ball Z-style Nova bomb on a Cabal Thresher. It was the first time it felt like these weren’t just characters that existed to drop materials on and purchase gear from, and while Cayde-6 ended up being slain in Forsaken’s opening mission, it was certainly cool to fight alongside him one last time.

The hope now is that this can continue, at least within the confines of the Witch Queen’s campaign. It feels strange to have the universe’s fate resting on our Guardian’s shoulders (at least narratively), but humanity’s finest are quite happy to chill in the Tower. Let’s get the big-hitters off of the bench (yes Shaxx, that includes you).

What’s exciting is that Bungie seems to have realized that our allies can be just as compelling as our enemies. We’ll be teaming up with Caiatl in Season of the Risen, for example — so will we storm enemy positions with Cabal allies next to us? It’s an exciting prospect, especially because some of my fondest Halo memories were Master Chief surging forward with an army of marines in tow.

Here’s hoping for a bit of camaraderie in the Witch Queen, as opposed to having Crow mysteriously absent on the missions he joined us on in Season of the Hunt.