The Witch Queen is likely the most ambitious and unique expansion for Destiny 2 so far, and its release was met with overwhelmingly positive feedback from fans. What makes The Witch Queen so special is that every element to it is part of something bigger than ever before. Savathun's Throne World being a fantastic representation of the Hive God's own mind, the Lucent Hive mirroring Guardians, and much more. Something that has always played a major role in every Destiny 2 expansion thus far is the musical component and audio design, such as Deepsight in Savathun's Throne World providing aural cues to where players should look, or Forsaken's iconic soundtrack.
In particular, all of Destiny 2's many guns make different sounds in various ways, and all these sonic elements make every weapon unique and distinguishable when using it. For example, The Witch Queen's Parasite launcher's sounds were made with mac n cheese — fresh homemade pasta sounds that went into the mixer to produce a characteristic sound for squeezing a Hive Worm into a grenade launcher and then firing it against enemies. The same design concept holds true for another popular Exotic from the expansion, namely, the Osteo Striga SMG.
The Origin of Osteo Striga's Sounds in Destiny 2
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There are many layers to making unique sounds for video games, and especially so for those titles that have settings that stretch beyond the real world, such as the alien-filled universe of Destiny 2. From a development point of view, however, the tools one has are limited by those available in the real world, thus making it all the more important to be creative when exploring new sound combinations. During a recent roundtable interview, Bungie's Senior Audio Lead for Destiny 2, Evan Buehler, spoke about what it means to make weapon sounds that players can key out quite easily:
When we're looking at an Exotic, what we look for the sound is that we really want each Exotic to have its own sonic signature. A lot of time is spent trying to carve that out and make something unique about the abilities, the firing sound, the handling of it, give you a lot of different cues [...].
While Exotic weapons can have sounds that no other gun in the game is ever capable of producing, every armament at the players' disposal does have major or minor variations that still make it aurally distinct from every other. This applies to Legendary weapons as well, and many Destiny 2 fans have been pointing out how The Witch Queen's new weapons are great to use in the game because of the way they sound.
If you're firing Krait you know "This is the weapon that I'm firing, and I can identify that," it's identifiable compared to anything else in the game. If you're playing against other players you want to be able to identify that sound and say "Oh, they're using that weapon and I know what it is," and that's very important to have.
This sonic uniqueness can be crucial in PvP scenarios because facing other players in a competitive environment means being able to toy with information at their disposal. In Destiny 2, this can translate into baiting them with radar pings produced by grenades or other abilities that are pinned onto objects, such as the Void Hunters' Smoke Bombs, or having ways to improve one's radar to provide more accurate information to the user. And yet, another popular way to read an opponent and have a counter ready is by listening to the sound their guns make. Buehler continued:
What comes to mind is Osteo Striga, the SMG. Specifically, we used a cello bow on a spring to get these screechy sounds for it, and we wanted to put that in to give it that kind of Hive-esque screech quality to it. It's trying to find that one thing that stands out [...].
Destiny 2's Hive is an alien race with plenty of screechy sounds, such as those made by the Shriekers or Hive Wizards, providing Osteo Striga with more character by making it also a very Hive-influenced Exotic. Overall, there are plenty of ways The Witch Queen improved on existing concepts or features, and the creative approach to sound-making is quintessential to do that.
Destiny 2 is now available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
