On March 5th (next Tuesday), Destiny 2 will release it's second Annual Pass offering, Joker's Wild, along with the release for all players of the Season of the Drifter. Seen above, today Bungie released a new Vidoc, News article, Season of the Drifter Page, and Narrative Preview, all discussing the changes. Here is the information gleaned from all of that...

• On March 5th, a new Gambit Mode, called Gambit Prime will launch. Prime only has 1 Round, players can drain motes from the enemy team, and it has Raid like mechanics to perform Primeval Boss DPS. Players can also obtain Gear Sets for Prime from Reckoning that encourage and empower certain roles: Reaper (Green) is the player dedicated to Ad killing, Collector (White) is dedicated to picking up Motes, Sentry (Yellow) is focused on removing Taken Blockers, and the Invader (Red) dedicated to attacking the other teams players. It's hinted that these armor sets will have Perk Bonuses that help these playstyles in ways. Prime also includes new Weapon's with a "Space Biker Rebel" look. Gambit Prime launches with 1 new map (New Arcadia), but will get another new map on March 12th (Deep Six), March 19th (Legion's Folly), and March 26th (Emerald Coast) for a total of 4 new Gambit Prime Maps.
• Also on March 5th, a new PvE mode called The Reckoning launches set in the Plains of the Nine (looks very similar to Trial's The Spire, or the map Eternity). It appears to be a 4 player Co-op mode, similar to Festival of the Lost's Haunted Forrest Event, that is set on a timer to finish a gauntlet type run through a series of Ads. This Activity will be Tier'd, and only Tier 1 will unlock on March 5th, with Tier 2 unlocking on the 8th, and Tier 3 on the 15th. The rewards for finishing The Reckoning are the Gambit Prime Armor Sets (perks for Gambit described as Top Tier).
• The Drifter will have a new series of Bounties called Surge Bounties. These have relatively quick and easy to accomplish tasks (Complete 2 Public Events/3 Bounties, 50 Kills/1 Strike, etc) and each reward 2 items at 640 Power. The goal is to get all Season Pass owners up to the proper Power Level to play all Activities within Joker's Wild, unlike what happened with Black Armory. Finishing all of these bounties shouldn't take players more than 1-2 hours.
• On March 5th, the overall Power Cap will also be increasing to 700, though I didn't initially mention this because it was already widely known by the vast majority of the playerbase.
• The Allegiance Quest will launch on March 12th, and will "invite you to choose between the Vanguard and the Drifter. Pick a side to progress through the quest from their perspective. This pledge is character based, so if you have more than one Guardian, you can play both sides. Choose wisely!" This is also tied to the release of The Thorn D1 Exotic. It was not detailed here, but one should assume based on Destiny Lore that following The Drifter path will lead to The Thorn Exotic Hand Cannon. See the Rumors section for my highly suspect Vanguard Exotic alternative.
• On March 15th, Invitations of the Nine will launch from Xur. According to Bungie, "Annual Pass owners will be able to pick up an “Invitation of the Nine” from Xûr. Once the objectives are completed, it will transform into a bounty called “Into the Unknown.” These will be available to complete once per character, similar to the bounties you got at the beginning of Forsaken for completing an activity with a full gear set. Week over week, for Nine weeks, you’ll collect new lore and powerful rewards."
• On April 9th, something rather mysterious called Arc Week is launching. Nothing more is known about it at this time.
• The Revelry launches for all players from April 16th - May 6th and it a Seasonal Event like Festival of the Lost, The Dawning, or the just finished Crimson Days. Not much more is officially know about this Event since it's brand new, but see Rumors.
• Along with the reset of Valor, Glory, and Infamy resets, there will also be 3 new Pinnacle Weapons that launch. The Recluse SMG for Crucible, that kills increase damage for a short time (not sure how this will be better than Kill Clip or Rampage, but ok), Oxygen SR3 (Scout Rifle?) for Vanguard that increased Dragonfly damage based on previous Crits, and 21% Delirium Machine Gun for Gambit that increases damage per kill until it's stowed or reloaded.

Rumors and Speculation

A few days ago, some information leaked (I can't find the original source, but it's likely from AnonThe9 since DPJ referenced some of his leaks from the past). 2 days ago DPJ put out a video about said leaked content. This video has several things that were basically confirmed today by Bungie, most notably the Mamba Gambit Mode which is clearly Gambit Prime, and the Thorn/Rose Quest, that is pretty clearly hinted at by the Allegiance Questline that has 2 paths, one that leads to Thorn through The Drifter, and another that leads somewhere else.

The Rose

Those that know anything about Destiny Lore know the obvious, that this is directly pointing to a very well known but never before seen Destiny Exotic and storied weapons (Weapons of Sorrow) called Rose. You can learn more about Rose from the Destinypedia page on Thorn here, but the gist is this, Rose was originally a weapon owned by an extremely famous Guardian Rezyl Azzir. He lost his way into Darkness, becoming a man known as Dredgen Yor (mentioned by The Drifter pretty heavily in Forsaken, as he is likely a follower and Shadow of Yor, if nothing else he was a close friend to one in Callum Sol and seeks vengence against Shin Malphur for killing the Shadow of Yor followers, as this explains his absolute hatred of The Last Word when we obtained it last season, which is Shin's gun). After his fall, Dredgen Yor went on a massive killing spree with his gun, Rose, consuming other Guardian's Light, and turning the gun into a darker shadow of it's former self, The Thorn. Rose has been a long rumored addition to the Destiny Exotic Arsenal, going back all the way the Destiny 1 Dark Below. So it's final addition to the game as a counterpart and opposite to The Thorn, especially when tied to a Quest by The Drifter, couldn't make any more sense from a Lore Perspective. In other words, if Rose doesn't get added with Joker's Wild, it never will, as this is the absolute perfect opportunity to introduce it, especially in a Vanguard vs Drifter Quest choice. I will be extremely surprised if we don't see Rose launch opposite Thorn with the Allegiance Quest.

New Dungeon

Another rumor in this same leak, is that Joker's Wild will include a new Dungeon Activity. The only surprising thing about this is that Bungie didn't loudly tout this as coming today. The idea of a new Dungeon Activity is extremely exciting. Shattered Throne is still one of Forsaken's best pieces of content, and many around the Destiny Community have been hoping that Dungeon's will be a new PvE staple Activity for the Franchise. For those that don't know, Dungeon's (Shattered Throne), are 3 player Raid like Activities, that are drastically larger than Strikes, have multiple Boss Encounters, drop End Game loot, are extremely challenging and mechanically heavy, and have other Quest's, Objectives, Rewards, and Challenges attached to them. If this rumor does indeed come from AnonThe9, I still put this rumor in the highly probable category (since he's never really been wrong), but it's not as much of a guarantee as The Rose since there was zero Bungie confirmation today.

Sparrow Racing League

The final rumor from this leak is that Sparrow Racing League will return in Season of the Drifter. For those that don't know, Sparrow Racing is a silly little D1 Activity where players use their Sparrows to race each other for 3 laps around different world maps. I'm not the biggest fan but a lot of players really love it. I believe it's still in Private Matches for D1 even now, but was only really available in The Dawning Live Events twice so far. It's been speculated for D2 on multiple occasions at this point. But, with a brand new, unknown Live Event in The Revelry, I actually put this as highly possible. It would be easy for Bungie's Live Team to put in, and many player really enjoy this Activity. Though like the Dungeon, I'm a bit skeptical that this close to launch, Bungie would keep this type of release close to the vest, especially considering how excited players would be at the idea of both a Dungeon and Sparrow Racing League returning.

Overall, without hearing that a Dungeon and Sparrow Racing League are coming in Season of the Drifter, I'm slightly less excited for it than I was just on the Rumors, but it sounds like parts of it will indeed be better than Black Armory was. I will update this with the very likely instance that more Joker's Wild information comes out tonight in the This Week At Bungie release.

Notes

• Season 7 was said by Luke Smith to be called Season of Opulence. Until now they have called it Season of the Spoilers, though I do not know why they didn't just tell us that name months ago unless they actually didn't have a name for it yet.
• It was briefly mentioned something called "Clan Rings". I'm thinking we will hear more about that tonight in the TWAB, but it's very likely it has to do with the planned Clan Changes going forward, but we do not know any more information about this than that.

Don't you mean season 7 will be Season of Opulence? I thought season of drifter was season 6.

Anyway, looking forward to both gambit prime and the reckoning. Seems like Reckoning could have more mechanics than Haunted Forest though I see the similarity (perhaps a raid-like encounter at the end of the level instead of just a yellow bar).

@tds418: That's corrected and I fixed it. I really hope Reckoning is better than Haunted Forest too, though it appeared to just be a bigger version of that for 4 players. I do however like that it is 4 player based just like Gambit. Modes that switch back and forth between 3 and 4 players are really jarring.

As an update, last night Bungie posted their This Week At Bungie. First thing, Oxygen SR3 is indeed a Scout Rifle, Precision Solar Energy to be exact. By that token, Recluse is a Void Energy SMG (the kill perk on it can activate from other weapons kills when it's stowed), and Delirium is an Arc Heavy (it's a 100 round plus Rapid Fire Machine Gun, the first in D2). Along with other changes coming next week, Grenade Launchers will be getting a 25% PvE buff along with increased reserves, and Rocket Launchers have gotten a 60-65% direct impact buff but an 80% reduction in Cluster Bomb damage (applied only to the Cluster Bombs, which now do roughly 20% extra damage rather than 100%, but still do roughly the same damage as before and are now more consistent). Eververse is doing away with the Prismatic Matrix, and replacing it with Silver Purchase Bundles of items. So use any Facets you have this week or they will expire for only 150 Bright Dust next week. Titles and the RNG Cosmetics often preventing them from dropping were mentioned as on their radar, but no fix was addressed. After Season of the Drifter launches, expect a patch to increase the drop rate of Cosmetics from Dreaming City/Last Wish and the drop rate of 1000 Voices that were mentioned. They also reminded us that all bounties related to Season 5 will be either reset or removed, so get them done this week before reset.

Here are some of the already announced changes coming to Season of the Forge next week...

• 3rd round of standard Gambit will be a Sudden Death round with an instant summon Primeval. More Invader spawn locations have been added to prevent Invader spawn camping. Idle Protection prevents players who were idle during the match from receiving rewards for the match, which should lessen AFK players. The 3 tiers have Blockers have been changed to a Goblin (5), a Captain (10), and a Knight (15).
• Reduce AA values on Linear Fusion Rifles and 10% PvE increase (sounds like they fixed a Queenbreakers bug that was doubling AA values).
• All non Legend of Acrius Shotguns are getting a 100% damage buff in PvE (doubling their damage output). Full Auto RoF bonus is now only 10%, rather than 100%, but no longer increases pellet spread. Base RoF of all archetypes was boosted a bit, but the base damage values have been decreased by about 10-15% and ammo reserves have been decreased based on the new damage output efficiency of Shotguns (likely down like 40%).
• One Eyed Mask Mark of Vengence duration reduced to 8s from 15s. Health no longer refills instantly, but over time like the overshield. Vengence also now does not trigger while in Super.
• Trials of the Nine is on a permanent hiatus.
• Titan Skating via Macros on PC will no longer work. This should not effect Consoles in any way.
• Launch D2 Clan System of XP is returning. Daily Clan Bounties have been removed. 3 Weekly Clan Bounties still exist, for PvE, Raid, and PvP. They reward Legendary gear and large XP chunks. New Clan Banner Perks like free Mod Components, Enhancements Cores, and a 4th Weekly Bounty at 6. Perk 5 will increase drop rates of Exotic Catalysts, and it sounds like the rest of the Y1 Exotics will be getting new Catalysts.
• Last Wish Etheral Keys will be limited to stacks of 5.

I don't know how much info is there, but Bungie also did a Fireteam Chat with IGN yesterday that is 50 minutes. Here is that if you want to watch it.

Edit: An update from DMG04 on Reddit states that Xur's inventory will now include Forsaken Exotic's as of next week, but it will still be a rotation of both old and new Exotics. Fated Engrams will still not include Forsaken Exotics, but it's is being discussed internally right now for a future update. There are also looking at tuning Exotic Perks Rolls, to make Xur's items more interesting and desirable to be bought as 2nd/3rd items of that type.