DESTINY 2: BIRTHPLACE OF THE VILE
The Witch Queen (2022) | Activity type: Strike
This is one of the first spaces that was built specifically for the strike (preceding areas in the activity were shared with other activities). The room houses a small combat encounter in which players must defend the center of the room while being attacked from all sides. Cover objects appear around the middle when the combat starts, and despawn once it is complete.
The bottomless pits on either side of the center serve a few purposes. They introduce a bit of negative space for the first time in the strike, and also serve as spawn locations for combatants who crawled up and out of the orange mists below.
Artist and image credit: Kyoungche Kim
This is the initial reveal of the final location in the strike. The final boss encounter takes place in the large building straight ahead, but the path to it begins through the doorway to the left.
Our goal with this space was to give players a preview of that path, while also introducing them to what was at the time a new architectural style for the game. This layout started as a simple pencil sketch of a crescent-shaped series of disconnected buildings.
Artist and image credit: Kyoungche Kim
The doorway in the image above leads to this room, where players engage in combat with a large group of enemies attacking from the rear of the space while also flanking from above on the left.
We leaned into symmetry in a number of spaces in this strike, so we included as many spaces like this as we could to break that up a bit and provide interesting traversal and engagement choices for players moving through them.
Artist and image credit: Kyoungche Kim
This space was built to provide a light traversal challenge to players, mixed with a small combat encounter. The room is bottomless, so players must jump from platform to platform to reach a teleporter exit located on the far side of the room.
The layout is mostly symmetrical here, with a lot of negative space and multiple players paths across the room.
Artist and image credit: Kyoungche Kim
The final boss encounter room for the strike. The symmetrical layout of this space not only showcases the boss combatant’s movement abilities, but also provides players with plenty of tactical options for engaging with - and avoiding - the boss.
Cover placement is sparse but arranged regularly around the room to best support what typically ends up being a very mobile fight.
Artist and image credit: Kyoungche Kim