At 9am Pacific, Bungie Revealed the September DLC, Forsaken. This DLC brings some of the most drastic changes the Destiny Universe has ever seen, much more drastic seemingly than Destiny 2 even. Much of that can be seen in this Vidoc below.

New Campaign

The Reef has fallen to lawlessness, and now the most-wanted criminals in the galaxy – the Barons & Uldren Sov – have organized a jailbreak at the Prison of Elders. You and Cayde-6 have been sent in to bring law and order back to the embattled facility, but things do not go to plan. The Tangled Shore, described as a lawless frontier, and a dangerous web of asteroids lashed together is a new Destination for Forsaken. It's home to Pirates and Outlaws seeking marooned treasures and a new enemy faction, The Skorn (according to GameInformer, The Scorn are the clearly a new Faction Gameplay wise, as they act/react vastly different than any previous Fallen enemies, they are the most aggressive Faction to date, and GI talks about the 6 brand new enemy types in their August issue). You will hunt these 8 Barons, Fugitives from the Prison of Elders, and track down Prince Uldren Sov. If you feel like watching the E3 Trailer, which includes some pretty heavy SPOILERS for Forsaken, it will give you a pretty good indication of why we will be tracking down Uldren Sov, with the intent to bring him to justice. Watch below at your own risk of SPOILERS. New screenshots have also surfaces, showing Petra Venj, who will also be returning in this DLC. Gambit is also said to have it's own Vendor, The Drifter (of whom we have reports that he isn't a Guardian at all). In the interview below, Scott Taylor confirms Variks involvement in Forsaken, saying it would "come in a form you might not expect". Both Scott and Chris refused to answer about whether or not The Queen would be involved in Forsaken, so assume that if she does, she plays a major role (according to the August issue of GameInformer, Uldren's modivation is directly related to finding Mara Sov).

Note: According to Scott Taylor and Christopher Barrett, The Skorn aren't exactly Fallen, but rather resurrected Fallen who have died and been reborn so many times they have turned into something else entirely. They hold no loyalty to any House, have brand new Abilities never before seen by Fallen, and brand new universe lore. Think of them as Fallen Zombies... and Outlaw Pirates...

Note 2:In that same interview linked above, Scott Taylor claims Forsaken is the largest expansion to the Destiny universe ever, even larger than The Taken King. Christopher Barrett goes on to say that a lot of what they are doing in Forsaken, won't even be directly Story related, and that they want to bring back the mysteries to uncover. He claims that while some of that was in Warmind (Escalation Protocol, two Hidden Quest chains after the Campaign, and now the Whisper hidden mission), they are doubling down on those efforts in order to bring back the hobby of Destiny to players.

Note 3: In an interview with Gamesradar, Steve Cotton emphasized the non-linear story as it relates to the hunt for the Barons. It seems that these 8 Baron Hunts can be taken on in any order players so choose, but will only be limited by Power Level and if players have obtained the proper PL to play a mission or not. As silly as it might seem, it will be interesting to see if the story plays out any differently with the various ways in which players are able to tackle the Baron "hit list". And according to GameInformer (beware, this article is very Spoiler heavy about the Baron's), each of these Hunts are extremely distinctive, with major Boss Encounters of the likes of a Strike.

Note 4: A big Fallen Captain, known as The Spider, is the new Tangled Shore Vendor. The Spider will send players on random Hunts of "invaders". He often also sends "Arrha Spider's Associates", Fallen helpers, along with you to help out in Missions (as seen in this 2nd Story Mission).

Details

Each player Class has new Supers (see below) and Abilities and a new Bow class of weapons. According to Scott Taylor, the new Level and Power Cap will be at Level 50 and 600 Power Level. Forsaken will also drop with 3 Strikes on all Platforms, and 1 PS4 exclusive Strike (all previous PS exclusive content will also drop on PC/XOne on September 4th, or the 2 Strikes and Borealis Exotic Sniper). Destiny 2's new Annual Pass guarantee's 3 premium DLC launches in Y2: Black Armory (Winter 2018), Joker's Wild (Spring 2019), and Penumbra (Summer 2019). According to Scott Taylor, all Y1 D2 items obtained will carry over into Forsaken. Deej and Scott confirmed there will be a Spark of Light type Power and Level Boosting Item with purchase that will instantly put new or returning players to the previous Max Power (likely it will send players straight to Level 30 at 380 Power at launch with a crappy Rare Gear set). Release date is September 4th, 2018.

• Destiny 2 Forsaken - $40 (XB1)
• Destiny 2 Forsaken Annual Pass - $34.99 (PS4, $35 XB1)
• Destiny 2 Forsaken + Annual Pass - $70.00 (XB1)
• Destiny 2 Forsaken Digital Delux - $79.99 (PS4, XB1 $80) (According to Gamestop, includes Forsaken + AP, Bow Ornament, Emblem, Ghost; PSN shows Ace of Spades Ornament, Exotic Ship/Emote, Cayde-6 Shaders as well)
• The Forsaken Legendary Collection - It's $59.99 and includes immediate access to Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris, Warmind, and Forsaken upon release.

New Raid: The Dreaming City

Forsaken's new Raid will add what Bungie terms "an End Game Destination" rather than just a static Activity. This location is The Dreaming City (this is the Awoken Homeland), and was described by Bungie as a mix between the Vault of Glass and the Dradnaught, "gave them to Peter Jackson and let him raise them as his own, and that is The Dreaming City". The Raid will have more Bosses than any Destiny Raid has ever had before. Ton's of Puzzles, hidden corner's, and passageways that don't exist until another team in the Destiny Universe solves another Puzzle. It's described as "raiders effecting the destination and changing it for everyone" and "cyclical End Game place where there are Secrets and Activities that unveil over time" and "The Dreaming City at launch will not be the same Dreaming City 2, or even 3 weeks later". This destination will hold far more than just the Raid Activity, and will be the End Game locale for Solo players as well.

• Dreaming City confirmed to have Public Events and Patrols, so it's a full fledged Destination that you can load into.
• No more Leviathan content in Y2, so all Raid content likely happen on The Dreaming City. Raid Lairs confirmed for Y2.
• The Dreaming City will have two states, the Normal version and a Hive Ascendant Realm that changes the way the Dreaming City looks/feels.
• According to GameInformer, Forsaken will include a new Activity very similar to Escalation Protocol called The Blind Well that will feature 3-6 players. It will be it's own instanced playspace, so all players there will only be there to do Blind Well, but they have yet to say if it will be difficult or not to specifically load 6 friends into Blind Well, or if you have to go with 3 and 3 randoms.

Gambit

A new hybrid PvE and PvP mode called Gambit pits 4 players against another 4 players (this is confirmed to be the new Activity all of the Content Creators are extremely hyped about). Teams each start in their own Arena. You will be assaulted AI enemies who, when killed, drop Motes. Motes have multiple uses at the Mote Bank. You can Summon Blockers (Powerful AI Combatants, Small 5 Motes, Medium 10 Motes, and Large 15 Motes) to distract and "Block" the enemy team from putting Motes into their own Bank until he is killed. If a team deposits 25 Motes, they can Invade the other Team (ala Dark Souls) to kill and or distract them from killing AI and collection/depositing Motes. Any player vs player kill, will cause the dead player to drop all collected Motes. By filling your entire Team's Mote Bank (75 Motes), you will summon a Primevil Enemy. Primevil Enemies have a large health pool, but a damage modifier increases over time, allowing you to kill it easier the longer he has been active. Once a Primevil Enemy is summoned, the other team is free to have 1 player Invade at all times. If an Invading player gets a kill (and for every kill), a portion of the Primevil's health is restored. Be the first Team to kill your Primevil Enemy and win.

• 4 Maps at launch.
• Matchmade activity. - Twitter
• Gambit is not Crucible, or Strikes, will likely have it's own Playlist section of the Director.
• Unique Loot Table, including Unique Exotics. - Twitter
• Power Levels inactive for PvE aspects, active for PvP aspects.
• Loadouts aren't locked. - Twitter
• Gambit has it's own Rank System called Infamy. Completing matches gains you points, but winning gains more. Winstreaks return and increase Infamy gains, up to 5. Each Infamy Rank has 3 tiers, with rewards granted at each point, so it always feels rewarding. In addition, The Drifter has a set of Daily Bounties and a Weekly Bounty unlocks once you reach Level 50. These Bounties are worth extra Infamy Rank and contain gear. The Weekly Bounty contains more Infamy gains and a Powerful Reward, so you will want to finish it each week.
• Gambit Private Matches won't be available at launch, but they will consider adding it in the future. - Twitter
• 36 Unique possible Gambit scenarios. 4 Maps, 3 Races per map, and 3 variations per Race. Multipe Unique Primevil's as well. - Twitter

New Subclass Perk Tree/Supers

According to GameInformer, only 3/9 will be available when you start Forsaken, but the other 6 (2 for each class) will open up once you've completed the Campaign. It is unclear whether or not you get to choose which of the 3 per Class of the new Super you obtain first.

• Sentinel (Code of The Commander) - This Super sounds similar to a normal Sentinel, only rather than a small front side shield, you walk with a Defender Bubble around you, that allows Teammates to shoot out of it. Also, melee's cause explosions, and all Void Ability damage attached Void bombs to enemies, that if further damage happens, they explode spraying Void Shrapnel around (think Voidwalker Cataclysm/Bloom).
• Sunbreaker (Code of The Devestator) - Sounds like your charged melee will throw your Hammer (like a Throwing Knife), but it stays in the world until you retrieve it. Picking it back up refills your Melee, trigger health regen, and for each Solar Ability kill, you are given a damage multiplier, that stacks up to 3x. The new Super (Siege Hammer), creates a Giant flaming Hammer that hit's like an Earthquake, and leaves Flaming Tornadoes in it's wake.
• Striker (Code of The Missle) - A melee in Mid Air activates the D1 Death From Above Smash which generates extra Super Energy. Sliding into Ammo pickups reloads your weapons and gives you a bonus damage modifier. Thundercrash turns you into a player controlled missile, able to devastate wherever you land.
• Nightstalker (Way of The Wraith) - Smoke Bombs now deal heavy damage and slow enemies. Precision kills grant invisibility. And Spectral Blades look eerily similar to D1's Bladedancer with Vanish.
• Gunslinger (Way of a Thousand Cuts) - Your melee throws out a fan of Burning Blades. Killing burning enemies recharges your melee, and applying burn recharges your Dodge ability. Blade Barrage sounds similar to how Grenades worked on Sunsinger, it just allows near instant cooldown of your Knife Trick melee ability.
• Arcstrider (Way of The Current) - Sliding before melee allows a Staff Uppercut, and hits increase reload speed. All Arc abilities electrify enemies and subsequent melee's refill your abilities. Whirlwind Guard works the same as normal Arcstider only now you can block all incoming projectiles and upon doing so all outgoing damage will be tripled.
• Voidwalker (Attunement of Fission) - A charged Grenade turns into a short range Supernova, and a charged melee (Atomic Breach) creates a Void Explosion at range (I don't understand this at all)? Nova Warp allows you to short range teleport multiple times until you want to Erupt in a burst of energy.
• Stormcaller (Attunement of Control) - The melee throws a Arc Ball that Explodes, sending a Lightning Bolt directly beneath it. Arc kills create Ionic Traces, that if collected recharges abilities. Chaos Reach allows you to fire a long range beam of Arc, with extreme power, that can be stopped early to recover the remaining amount of Super energy.
• Dawnblade (Attunement of Grace) - Melee attacks burn enemies, but empower allies. Charging Grenades turn them into healing Grenades that can be used on the player or allies. Any ability that buffs or heals yourself or an ally, regen's your non-Super abilities. Well of Radiance grants both a Healing Aura and Empowering Aura in a wide range around the player for both the player and allies.

The Bow and Other New Weapons

The new Bow is a Primary Weapon that comes in two different flavors, Recurve and Compound. Compound Bows are described as "brute force damage" with longer charge times and more predictable full charge then release pattern. Recurve Bows however, allow more expressiveness as they have a steady draw that increase velocity and damage the longer the draw. The one known Exotic Bow is the Trinity Ghoul Energy Bow. Shots from this bow split on release (Spread Shot), and grant Chain Lightning on Precision Kills.

• Full Draw is hitscan. Damage is based on Draw Time. - Twitter
• A new Exotic Auto Rifle, Cerberus 1, was shown to GameInformer. It was designed after the Contra's Spread Shot weapon. This Auto shoots like a fast firing Shotgun, with more range, but a bit less impact.
• A new promo, New Weapons and Gear, by Bungie shows off a whole suite of new Exotics.
  • Weapons
    • Two Tailed Fox Rocket Launcher
    • Trinity Ghoul Bow
    • Malfeasance Hand Cannon
    • Black Talon Sword
    • One Thousand Voice Trace Rifle
    • Wish Ender Bow
    • Ace of Spades
  • Armors
    • Anteus Wards Titan Boots
    • The Sixth Coyote Hunter Gauntlets
    • Chromatic Fire Warlock Chest

Development Updates

A slew of new improvements have been announced along with a new Development Roadmap (*updated 7/25/18) that extends into September.

Bungie recently revealed they are dropping two updates, one the week before Forsaken on August 28th, and the main update at launch on September 4th.

Aug. 28th Update 2.0.0

• Class Balance Changes - All of the classes are being tweaked in some ways, and several of the existing Perk tree's for Subclasses.
  • Hunter - Marksmans Dodge is now a reload, and thus will interact with Kill Clip, Rat King, etc.
    • Nightstalker Tether attaches quicker to enemies (should be pretty much instant now).
    • Gunslinger is getting an extra 2s added to both Golden Gun Supers and increased Throwing Knife damage output.
  • Warlock - Increased Healing Rift effectiveness. Empowering Rift now increases Precision Damage output.
    • Stormtrance damage output is being increased.
  • Titan - Rallying barricade no longer requires taking cover to reload, but will feed ammo to the magazine over time (like Lunafaction Exotic, maybe?). All Subclass Shoulder Charges are getting a buff to damage output by about 50%, as they are being increased back to an outright kill in PvP.
    • Ward of Dawn on Sentinel will have more health, and all Allies within it will do more damage via melee attacks.
• Another round of Exotic Armor balances is dropping as well that will effect Class Balance.
  • Celestial Nighthawk will gain back 33% of it's Super Energy if you kill the target.
  • Wormhusk Crown will no longer start regen on both health/shield, but rather just give a large boost to health at the start rather than the end (similar to the Bladedancer nerf in Y3, which is fine, this Exotic is running rampant and basically ruining the Crucible currently).
  • Skull of the Dire Ahamkara will generate more Super Energy based on kills, and generate more the more powerful of opponents you defeat.
  • Transversive Steps will enhance mobility and automatically reload weapons while sprinting.
  • Helm of Saint 14 will grant Allies an overshield for a short period of time while passing through Ward of Dawn (this one is very confusing because it already does this, unless this means they get a sort of Blessing of Light for outside the Ward).
  • Mask of the Quiet One will grant more Energy Gain from incoming damage and kills will heal when critically wounded.
• Multiple Base Abilities are also being tuned.
  • Rifts and Barricades are getting a visual timer to display how long they have left before expiring.
  • Melee damage is being increased by at least 12%, but we don't know the exact figure. We do know they are going from 3 to 2 hit melee's in Crucible.
  • Axion Bolt is getting increased damage and tracking strength duration.
  • Flashbang, Storm, and Incendiary Grenades are all getting increased damage.
  • Scatter Grenades are getting range and falloff range reductions for more reliable damage output.
  • Magnetic, Fusion, and Flux Grenades are all getting increased damage, damage is the same for anyone near the explosion (stuck or not), 2nd detonations only occur to players hit by initial damage, and Magnetic will only get a 2nd detonation if stuck to an opponent.
  • Skip Grenades have an increased damage per drone impact.
  • Void Wall will have an increased initial burst from it's first wave.
• Weapon Power Level Adjustments are being made. This will bring TTK in PvP back down to D1 levels at around 0.8s to 1.0s rather than the 1.0s to 1.3s we currently have.
  • Hand Cannons have seen about a 29% increase in damage across the board.
  • Scouts seems to be rather close to that as well, around 30%.
  • Pulse Rifles are also getting a 29% increase in damage.
  • Auto Rifles are getting about a 25% increase in damage.
  • Swords will now both accept Shaders, block more incoming damage, and hold more Ammo.
• Weapon Slot Changes - Weapon Slots are seeing major changes... According to Josh Hamrick, all existing weapons are moving around slots but once moved, their Slot will be static (they will never drop in any other Slot), and we also now know a few of the Power weapons moving to the Kinetic Weapons slot (Hawthorne's, Alone As A God, Perfect Paradox, Baligant, Frigid Jackal, Shepherds Watch, Silica Neumera). Also, Hand Cannons, Scout Rifles, Pulse Rifles, Auto Rifles, SMG's, Sidearms, and the new Bows are now Primary Weapons, and while they can be assigned to either the Kinetic or Energy Slot, they will pull White Ammo boxes from either Slot and show a white I next to them. Sniper Rifles, Fusion Rifles, Shotguns, Trace Rifles, and Breach Grenade Launchers (1 shot) are Special Weapons but can be assigned to either the Kinetic or Energy Slots, but always pull Green Ammo and show the Green II next to them in inventory. Power Weapons consist of Drum Grenade Launchers, Rocket Launchers, Swords, and Linear Fusion Rifles that will pull III Purple Ammo and only be available in the Power Slot. In addition, a few existing Exotics that fall into the Power Slot currently will be sticking to the Power Slot. Those are Legend of Acrius, D.A.R.C.I., Tractor Cannon, and the new Whisper of the Worm. For PvP, players will spawn in with full Kinetic Ammo, 2 rounds of Special Ammo (if you are running two Specials that ammo is split, or 1 bullet to each), and player may pick up Green Special Ammo from any killed players, friend or foe alike. Special Ammo gained above 2 rounds is retained through death.
• Milestones & Challenges - The Milestones Tab is changing, and is more of a focus on the Campaign. The Milestone Tray is now the Quest Tray, and sends you towards non-repeatable Quests. Planetary World Quest Activities will now be sent exclusively to the Quest Tab in the inventory. The Milestones themselves have been converted to Activity Challenges. There are now Activity Challenges for Nightfall, Flashpoint, Vanguard Strikes, Call to Arms, and Gambit. Flashpoint, Vanguard Strike, Call to Arms, and Gambit Milestones now reset every 4 days rather than weekly. Challenges themselves have seemingly been replaced by Bounties, which exist for Crucible, Strikes, and hints have been made that each planet will have a set of Weekly Bounties as well. We know the new Vendor, The Spider, will also likely have Bounty Hunts to send players on each week after Skorn Targets.
• Director Updates & Heroic Story - The Nightfall is being changed again. Prestige Nightfall is being removed, and now players will be able to complete their weekly Nightfall on their choice of 1 out of 3 electable Nightfalls for the week. While it's assumed, we do not know whether or not Modifiers will exist on these new Nightfalls. Heroic Strikes are being adjusted as well. Forsaken players will be dropped into 1 of 3 playlists based on Power Level (300/400/500). If you go more than 40 Power over the 300 or 400 playlists, they will no longer be able to be chosen. A PL 200 Legacy Strike playlist will exist for players who do not own Forsaken. Meditations are being replaced with the Heroic Story Playlist, which will be set at 500 PL for Forsaken Story missions. Legacy Missions will be set to a PL relative to their launch. Heroic Adventures are being added to all Destinations, and 1 will be featured every day for the Flashpoint. Activity Modifiers for all Heroic Activities will be identical for all PvE content each day (1 Weekly Burn, 1 Daily Buff, 1 Daily Debuff).
• Bulk Shader Deletion - More importantly, the change being implemented allows Bungie to fix reward streams that grant the player multiple rewards simultaneously, which isn't possible until this update. This change may have more far reaching consequences than just being able to mass delete shaders. Apparently, Mass Shader Deletion will be available at the Cryptarch and will allow you to delete 5 Shaders at a time.
• 200 Additional Vault Spaces (Total of 500 now)

The rest of the changes will launch with Forsaken on September 4th...

• Gear Collections - A new tab on the main menu, Collections, will be dedicated to showcasing what items you own as a player. Exotics, Weapons (Common through Legendary), Armor (Common through Legendary), Ghosts, Vehicles, and Vanity are the categories. Gear under Collection may be obtained from Collections. This includes Exotics, Legendary gear, Shaders, etc. Pulling items out of Collections will have a cost (likely slightly more or double that of their dismantle), but the cost to apply Shaders has been removed entirely.
• In Game Triumphs - Triumphs are now tracked on their own main menu tab, Triumphs. This will track your ability to complete all of the Challenges within Destiny, similar to how Record Books did in Destiny 1 at the end of each year.
• Weapon Randomization - Destiny 1's Random Weapon rolls are coming back. It is very likely that Vendor sales will increase static Weapon for sale per week and Raid Weapons will be static, just like Destiny 1. From what we saw at the Combat Reveal, this allows for some very potent new weapons, as we now have 2 full Perks (which include some new and returning Perks like Rangefinder for Hand Cannons), an optic and a mag type perk. Add to that the new Mod system with both new Mods and that extra perk, and we will have a more powerful arsenal than in D1. One thing now missing though is the ability to swap Elemental Types on Energy/Power Weapons. Going forward, all weapons will drop with a static Elemental type (X Sniper Rifle will always be Void and X Shotgun will always be Arc, etc) so they won't be subject to Randomization.
• Armor Randomization - Though not on the Development Roadmap, I think Armor changes are just as important as what is being done to Weapons. Armor is no longer just cosmetic. Each Armor will again (like D1), contain a perk tree path. The options here contain the current Mobility, Resiliance, and Recovery options, but now include two more options. The first Perk will be able to be a random assortment of perks like Momentum Transfer, Unflinching Kinetic Aim, or Kinetic Targeting that improves target acquisition, accuracy, and targeting ADS speed. There are others, but we currently do not know what they do. In that second slot, you have increased reserve ammo perks for Weapon Types like Hand Cannons, Linear Fusion Rifles, etc.
• Mod System Update - The Combat Reveal finally gave us a keen look at how the new Mod system will work. Each Weapon and Armor will have 1 Mod Slot. Armor Mods will consist of Ability related Cooldowns (Bungie hinted that Super Cooldown Mods are available) and can be stacked up to 5x for each Armor for a 60% decrease in Cooldown, or 12.5% for each Mod (Ex: 5x Grenade Mods result in a likely Cooldown of 33s from 83s). Dismantling a Weapons grants the player that weapon's equipped Mod. Year 2 Mods can be gained in the following ways: Exotic Weapons/Armor have a chance to include a Mod, Y2 Legendary Weapons/Armor (drops not purchases) have a chance to include a Mod, direct purchases from the Gunsmith for Mod Components/Glimmer (Daily rotation of a Weapon and Armor Mod), or dismantling Weapons/Armor that contains a desired Mod. All Y1 Legendary Mods will cease to function on September 4th, but will always drop a Mod Component. Y1 Rare Mods have a chance to drop a Mod Component when dismantled. All Y2 Mods will generate Mod Components when dismantled as well. Existing Y1 Mods can be removed from Y1 gear for Components, which clears the Mod Slot to be used for Y2 Mods. Below is a list of the known Weapon Mods. You can only hold up to 5 of any single Mod.
  • Major Spec
  • Minor Spec
  • Boss Spec
  • Radar Tuner
  • Target Adjuster
  • Icarus Grip
  • Freehand Grip
  • Backup Mag
  • Counterbalance Stock
• New Masterwork Weapons - Weapons are undergoing some major changes for Masterwork. There are now 10 Tiers to Masterwork, with each Tier increasing the Bonus Stat by 1 for up to a 10% increase (an increase of 5% compared to current Masterworks) to that stat (like Range). The expense in materials to fully Masterwork a Weapon to Tier 10 is significantly higher than before at 17 Masterwork Cores, 27 Legendary Shards, and 10k Glimmer. According to DMG on Reddit, the Masterwork economy is going to see some changes to accommodate this. You are no longer able to re-roll a Masterwork's Passive Stat, it will be RNG based and part of the roll of the gun.
• 3 New Crucible Maps + 1 PS4 Exclusive
• There will be another new PvP Mode called Breakthrough.
• Breakthrough will be a Competitive Game Mode.
• New Breakthrough Mode won't be initially available, as well as the 4 new PvP maps.
• In game Lore
• New Bounties (in addition to them being added back this Summer)
• Return to Power mattering in Iron Banner (Trials not returning in Season 4).

There have been some announcements that don't directly correlate to the Development Roadmap, at least not yet. But I will list those announced changes below.

• Premiums DLC's will likely include more Escalation Protocol type experiences. - Gamesradar
• Enemies show Power Level next to their name. - Building the Bow
• All Y1 Weapons will be infusable up to Forsaken Max Power, albeit at a more significant economy cost. However, those Weapons/Armor will not gain the benefits the upgraded Forsaken Arsenal has received like Random Rolls, Mod Slots, etc. They likely will no longer be viable after the first week of Forsaken. - Gamesradar
• Bungie already has post September Crucible centric changes in mind, but they want to drop Weapons Slot Changes first. - Gamesradar
• TTK for Primary archetype weapons has been shown off. It seems like bodyshot damage is remaining similar but increases have been made across the board to Precision damage. This is being done to increase the perceived low skill ceiling in the current version of Destiny 2 and speed up the pace of the game.
• Melee's strength is being increased across the board. For PvP, melee's are now 2 rather than 3 hit kills, Shoulder Charges OHK, and Throwing Knives are increasing in damage output.
• Grenade damage is increased across the board, but will not OHK, but remain as encounter opener moves.
• 10-15 new Exotic Weapons will come with Forsaken, and some "cool" Armor. - GameInformer
• There will be badges for collecting full Armor sets. - GameInformer
• The end of Strikes/Crucible will no longer automatically separate you from random matched teammates. Sounds like they are putting in a option to stick with those players. This was mentioned while dodging a question about updating Guided Games, so likely no changes to that. - GameInformer
• Glory Rank earned and lost per match have been re-tuned to make it easier to climb the ranks. Bug breaking Weekly Award has been fixed and it's award has been doubled. Players who played Comp in Season 3 will get Bonus Rank on their first match (sounds like win or lose). Loss streaks have been removed all together. Activity re-connection is being worked on, and while it won't be available at launch, they are looking to add it post launch sometime.
• Radar is returning to Comp playlists.
• Clash and Control have been added to the Comp rotation.
• While Redrix Claymore is being retired after Season 3, it's similar cousin, the Redrix Broadsword is replacing it. The Broadsword also has the Outlaw/Desperado perk set and matches all other Y2 Weapons as far as slots and Mods go (therefor it's better than Claymore). Going forward, all pinnacle rewards for Competitive, will be Quest based, rather than Rank achieved. Once earned, the Broadsword will drop random roll versions of itself (but still contain Outlaw/Desperado), but players who earned Redrix Claymore in Season 3 will be able to get random versions of Broadsword immediately at launch. Also, their Crucible Quest will contain a new Crucible Reward (doesn't sound like it will be obtainable for others).
• Placing in the top 3 in Rumble now counts as a win.
• Powerful Rewards in Y2 will grant higher Power the further below you are of content, so if you complete a Raid 20-30 levels underleveled, you will get more Power out of it than your teammates who do it at Level. Powerful Rewards will also now never not grant an increase in Power over your overall Power Level (even if that slot isn't more powerful than another item you own). And Exotics will always be considered Powerful Gear upgrades anytime players obtain them.
• Brawler and Grenadier Modifiers are seeing increased recharge rates.
• Destination Materials are replacing Tokens as the primary source of Reputation for Destination Vendors. Rare Destination Materials are also leaving. Anything that previously rewarded Tokens will reward Destination Materials. Unused Tokens will still grant Rep until they are used, but once gone will never be able to be acquired again. Gunsmith Rep is increased from 40 to 100 Weapons Parts to obtain a Reputation Package. Adventures are no longer able to be reacquired from Destination Vendors. Iron Banner, Vanguard, Crucible, and Calus Tokens will all still function the same, but Trials and Faction Rally Tokens will not be addressed until those Activities return.
• Infusion happens on a slot basis now, rather than Weapon Type. Infusion will also now require Destination Materials.
• Trials of the Nine and Faction Rallies are being retired for Season 4 (Forsaken launch until the release of Black Armory in Winter 2018) so Bungie can make changes to both of these Activities. On Reddit, Bungie made it clear Trials of the Nine will be returning Post Season 4, though no word on Faction Rallies. Also no word on how they will address the fact that a Trophy for Destiny 2 requires Trials of the Nine to be active. They have said updates in regards to these Activities will happen in Season 4.
• Changes are coming to Eververse. Prismatic Matrix is returning, but the free Facet no longer just appears in players inventory, but must players must purchase a 250 Glimmer Bounty and complete it to gain the Facet. Players will still be able to keep up to 3 Facets at a time in Inventory. Bright Dust will now drop from items at a fixed rate. In Season 4, every obtained Bright Engram grants players a Bounty Note. Eververse is also getting it's own list of Bounties that range in 3 tiers, with Tier 3 being the most expensive to obtain at 6 Bounty Notes. These Bounties, once completed, grant players Bright Dust based on Tier (20/70/150). Eververse Bounties last 7 days, unlike other Bounties.
• The Strike Exotus Crash will return to the Strike Playlist and it's Destination on September 4th, very likely with adjustments made since it was pulled.
• Clans are receiving an update, passive play will no longer grant Clan XP. Hawthorne will now have 3 Daily Bounties for each player that grant Clan XP. Once you reach Level 50, you will gain 3 additional Bounties that grant larger Clan XP, but have to be done as a group with Clanmates. 3 new perks were shown off for Season 4: Rank 3 - Increased resilience when you’re in a fireteam with clanmates, Rank 5 - Grants a chance to receive additional Etheric and Baryon resources when collecting them in the Reef, and Rank 6 - The weekly clan milestone also grants a Masterwork Core.
• Xur will no longer display his location and it will be random and not tied to the Flashpoint. His Fated Engrams will also not drop Forsaken Exotics, but only Y1 missing Exotics.
• Base Lost Sector difficulty is increasing based on required Power Level (example given is that EDZ LS's will jump to 240 Power).
• Note: Since Weapons are changing slots on Aug. 28th, make sure each character has room in the Energy/Kinetic slots. Since some Power Weapons are moving to those slots, if they are full Weapons should go to the Postmaster, but you don't want to lose your favorite weapons because you had too many Power Weapons on one character. Weapons Elemenatal Damage type from Y1 will lock permanently on Aug. 28th as well, so lock those in before then. Ikelos SG and SR will lock in as Solar to prevent stacking with Tractor Cannon. Since the Mod System is changing so drastically, keep all Mods until Sept. 4th, because there will be a trading system for existing Mods to the new ones once Forsaken launches.

I will continue to update this as information comes out. Last updated 8/24/18 with 2.0.0 patch preview from TWAB.

Hype, thanks Lives. I was at work, so I didn't get a chance to catch any of this. Did you see Gambit in action? Any thoughts about it?

Cautiously optimistic but I know a lot of people are tired of three years of "No, wait, THIS is the expansion that's going to fix the game!" kind of stuff.

Cautiously optimistic as well but this might be the expansion to get me to play Destiny 2 for a small amount of time though

All sounds good, except I don't know about that annual pass, they need to give more information on those 3 DLCs.

@rorie: Even if they "fix" the stuff that's been lacking, the nature of the weapon progression in the game as kind of meaningless as Jeff described it on one Bombcast. I've had a couple hundred decent hours with Destiny. I think I'm tapped out.

@rorie: I completely agree. As a pretty hardcore player though, they are hitting all the right notes right now talking about it. I know a lot of my friends are saying the same thing I was thinking though, that this is what I was hoping for last September. It's sad to see it took a whole year to get to the place most of us knew the game needed to be, but at this point, I just hope too many people haven't bailed on the franchise if Forsaken does end up being what it currently appears to be, which is fantastic.

@littlewask: Honestly, I was trying to get this up for players here ASAP, so I'm still not finished with the Twitch stream, but I don't think they showed off more of it than what they did in the Vidoc. It does look pretty cool, and I've listened to a lot of the praise from people like Datto, TrueVanguard, Gothalion, MoreConsole, Mtashed, etc have given towards the mode, so I have a lot of hope for it. The phrases like "this will be what Destiny is known for" come September fill me with even more hope than the tiny gameplay we saw in the Vidoc.

-Bulk Shader Deletion

It boggles my mind that his hasn't been in the game since day one. Honestly it shouldn't be a september thing... it should be going in the game ASAP.

Okay... okay. Maybe this'll be worth diving into.

• I always like the Reef
• New supers/abilities
• Bows?!
• Any weapon, any slot
• Heard they were bringing The Last World back
• The new character looks great!
• Seeing the enemy team before a match starts feels very much like some old CS levels I played a ton of
• Shame they don't also have glamours as a part of the collection stuff

Also heard that you need the prior 2 DLC in order to get this? Hopefully you can just buy a pack of em all and save. This... might be their Taken King for Destiny 2 huh. Cautiously optimi--you know what, nope. Not doing the cautious optimism thing. We'll see how this is when it comes out.

September also means Spider-Man!

@casepb: They've actually talked about this quite a bit. They've known it's a problem for a long time. The problem though is that in the current build of Destiny 2, when items are deleted, they don't have a way to generate multiple rewards for multiple items. So if they implemented mass shader deletion, it would basically break the game currently. Which is what they are actually doing in September, is adding lines of code to implement a fix for mass rewards upon item deletion, and that requires a major update like we are getting in September. It just so happens that the first application of that fix will be for Mass Deletion of Shaders. It sucks, but when they explained it a few months ago, it made perfect sense why it couldn't be fixed. An oversight when they built Destiny 2 for sure, but it's understandable why they couldn't fix it. We might see other small changes to rewards systems effected by this change too.

I'm liking what I'm seeing a lot but the price is throwing me off.
I expected Canadian prices to be weird for it but $53.49 for base, $93.49 for base+annual pass, and $106.49 for deluxe is definitely not what I expected.

At this point I feel like I want to be "all in" for Destiny. I feel like I missed so much cool stuff during Destiny 1's lifespan because I jumped off so early and don't really want that to happen again. I dunno, FOMO can be a bitch, I guess.

The bow and arrow is a tell tale sign that Bungie is creatively bankrupt. Also, the news that future expansions won't be story focused is a disappointment.

Goodbye old friend.

lives update the post

I never played Destiny 1, so all the people who desperate want weapon randomization back have always seemed like they were on crazy drugs, but I rewatched the Taken King quicklook and they talk about being able to reroll perks on weapons, which if that's the case it makes more sense. So much of the quality of life improvements have been 'hey let'e remove some of the rng because its constantly fucking people over', having to grind a bunch because I found a gun skin I like but had bad perks is something to do, I guess? I hated the pvp changes in Warmind and it seems like they're gonna keep pushing in that direction, but hopefully its cosmetic stuff instead of actual weapons going forward.

I wonder if putting stuff in the Power slot makes it stronger? Can I have a power handcannon that drops dudes in one shot?

Also that hunter super at 8:52 looks real goddamn good.

Eh. Fuck it. Just take more of my money.

@charongreed: As a D1 player who wants Weapon randomization back (to an extent), this is a very good thing, and here is why. One of Destiny 2's biggest shortcoming's compared to Destiny 1, is both a lack of Power and Identity for it's arsenal. The Exotic Weapon Tuning changes for Warmind have had a drastically good impact on that, but Legendary Weapons still feel incredibly weak in comparison. Part of this isn't necessarily due to static roll's themselves, but Bungie's fear of putting out Powerful Weapons with synergized rolls of the likes of Fatebringer, Vision of Confluence, Chaos Dogma, Hung Jury (Dead Orbit Taken King roll), Doctrine of Passing, Ex Machina, Black Hammer, Found Verdict, Quillum's Terminus, etc. These were all extremely powerful weapons, even among God rolled (perfect perks) random weapons. A great roll on a "bad gun" can also become an extremely good thing with random rolls, whereas a D2 Daedulus Code Hand Cannon will always be awful and nobody will use it. It makes the minor differences stand out and interesting as well for players who put a lot of time into the game (Example: A D1 God Rolled Palindrome, easy to obtain, vs a God Rolled Eyesluna which might give you a 1% advantage in a fraction of PvP fights because it has a slightly better recoil pattern, but it does exist). So, in a way, if Bungie wasn't terrified of Powerful Gear players will obtain with Random Rolls, static rolls wouldn't be a problem, but they are and it is, so Random Roll's returning is a good thing. Bungie also never delivered on the promise Luke Smith made of "making your 10th Better Devil's rewarding", which is something that needed to happen for static rolls to remain. The other major plus to random rolls is a random roll has a lot more of an identity to each individual player, and they are a lot more exciting to obtain when they are good. I still have some amazing D1 random rolls in my vault that I remember exactly how and when they dropped. I don't have that for anything at all in Destiny 2. One thing Bungie did add in House of Wolves was Weapon Rerolling (but later removed it), and also added Weekly Vendor Gear sales during Rise of Iron. I think both of these things will return in September in some form to combat the RNG problem's Random Roll's create like you mentioned. I think Weapon Mods will tackle the ability to Reroll 1 Signature Perk of the Weapon, and Vendor Sales will offer a lot of variety that Reddit will have a Guide on every single week of what is the best Weapons available and where (this already exists in current Destiny 2, but it's limited to only 1 Weapon per week, and I think that will expand).

Personally, I like the changes they have made to PvP so far, but they just weren't far enough. Go Fast fixed one of my biggest D2 complaints of slow movement speed (but I'd love to see Hunter Bones of Eao back to improve Hunter Speed more, and Twilight Garrison on Titan to increase Mobility/Shiftyness). The removal of Radar in Competitive has lessened the impact of the "balls of death" mentality of Destiny, but it never fixed the core issue of slow TTK for Kinetic/Energy Weapons, and not allowing you to see teammate positions is silly and just downright unnecessary. I'm curious to see how the Ammo Economy with this new Weapon's System works, but I'm very excited for PvP with it, as it's a return to much of what I loved about D1's anything can kill you anytime mentality. They do however need to pump back up the lethality of melee's and grenades come September too. As far as Valor/Glory Ranks go, if that is what you are referring to, those are pretty messed up right now, and I think they need a major overhaul. But they are getting the right kind of feedback in places like Reddit, so if it is listened too, we will be in good shape. The idea of Redrix Claymore being tied to Glory is good though IMO, and I hope they do more of that for all kinds of Activities, not just PvP. The Ikelos SG is pretty amazing from Escalation Protocol as a reward right now if you obtain it, just saying, I want more of this.

As far as Weapons getting more powerful based on their slot, I am almost 99.99% sure that won't be a thing. The idea is that you will have a Kinetic from the current lineup of Kinetic/Energy Weapons, an Energy Weapon (likely from one of the current Power Weapon slots like Sniper, Shotgun, Fusion Rifle), and another Power Weapon (also from the current Power Weapon lineup). You will likely never have enough ammo if you run 3 current Power Weapons.

Interesting. I’d like to be able to use more than one exotic at a time. Maybe, either two weapons, two armor pieces or one of each if limiting their power is a concern. Any weapon in any slot feels a bit weird, but as someone who often rolls with two autoguns, it makes sense for people like me. I have no interest in the PvP side of the game, though so I’ll be paying closer attention to the PvE additions to the game.

But, when are we getting pets? I kid, I kid...kinda.

@hestilllives19: I think there's a lot of fight about whether or not random rolls are a good thing around the internet, so I won't try and argue about it here, but instead ask: do we have any details about this, aside from 'hey we're bringing it back!'?

I remember using Better Devils in the beta and its part of what made me fall in love with Destiny 2 in the first place, and it was the first thing I had to grind for, and it took me a week of grinding pvp that I hated, but when I finally got it, I was thrilled. It still takes the kinetic slot on my Hunter. I will always love that gun. But the idea of 'what if you had to grind for FOUR weeks to get the perks you want' is the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I would have hated original Destiny. I don't feel as anxious about it with the idea that you can reroll the perks, so once you've gotten a gun you like you can customize it into something you really like, that seems like a good idea. I'm always down for more customization. But hearing that they took it out throws me right back into anxiety mode. It took me till the end of my time with Curse of Osiris to finally get that Hakke seeking rocket launcher. That was something like 300 hours for me. I have absolutely no faith in rng, and I fear that this is a bad solution that people got used to, rather than actually solving the problem.

Have they actually talked about it at all? I know they announced it was coming back before Warmind was out, but I never heard anything besides a bunch of twitch steamers saying 'THEY BROUGHT ME OUT TO AN EVENT AND ASKED ME SOME QUESTIONS AND IT WAS RAD AND SOUNDS GREAT ANYWAY HERE'S ALL MY HEADSHOTS FROM THE PVP AT THE EVENT"

Have they said anything about the PC version? I hope it releases along side the consoles like the previous DLCs so far.

@keirgo: I remember somewhere they said PC is now in line with consoles in terms of non-exclusive content releases.

Gambit sounds a lot like FPS Puyo Puyo XD.

I'm already dreading the shotgun combos. At least I can use my sniper again, right...?

Seems good but seriously $40? So insane, the amount they keep charging for DLC is ridiculous. Over half this stuff should have been part of the original launch of the game. None of this is enough to make me pay $40.

How so? It just sounds to me like you'll be able to use 3 power weapons which require power ammo. It sounds like it barely affects PvP at all. Hell, if that's what they're doing I don't see it affecting PvE much either. They REALLY need to clarify this ammo question fast.

@keirgo: aside from launch, every DLC and update has launched simultaneously across all versions of the game. This shouldn't be any different.

I mean if this is YOUR game that you spend the majority of your time with, I totally understand the appeal of it. What gets me, is that there's absolutely nothing about this announcement that makes a new player interested in jumping in with this expansion. It's also odd that it feels like a more alienating version of the Taken King, but maybe that's not what they're going for? Bungie definitely feels more like a company now that knows their player base and caters only specifically to those that just purely want more content but with minor changes.

I'm kinda happy that they actually said they weren't doing story cut scenes and focusing on more gameplay content.

@charongreed: We don't know a whole lot about Random Rolls right now other than that they are coming in September and that the primary perks will be different (and "we are improving the Mod System so you can customize your weapon the way you want"), and I think that's for a reason. Weapon Randomization has been on the Roadmap for September for awhile, one of the first things actually to appear along with Weapon Slot Changes. A few months ago, at the Community Summit you mentioned, multiple attendee's mentioned an "incident" where Bungie showed off a change on Day 1 to a major system that "would have caused a lot of consternation among players". The entire room lit up in an uproar according to many accounts, and Community Reps told Bungie quite pointedly that System wouldn't work. Before Day 2, many Community Reps got together and developed a Pro/Cons list of Random Rolls to deliver to Bungie, and the entire group discussed it, at length. The Community Reps left thinking the idea of how to implement Random Rolls in Destiny 2 was still up in the air after the Community Summit, now 2 months ago. I also know that this is exactly what Mercules904 told Bungie how he thinks Random Rolls should be implemented based on his Reddit post's.

"Random rolls should return on weapons outside of exotics, trials, and raid weapons. Mods could be more like perks that can be placed on the weapon, to help counteract bad RNG, along with vendors selling more weapons from their inventory at a time (with rotating rolls)."

This is also the exact same thoughts many in the community have, including a ton of the other Community Reps who were at the Community Summit. It also just happens to be exactly what I think should happen. Random Rolls on normal Legendary drops., a mod Perk slot on each weapon that vary in rarity by Power (stronger perk Mods are harder to find), rotating Vendor Rolls on a weekly basis with at least 4 Weapons per Vendor, an increase in the drop rate of Legendary rewards back to D1 levels (while at Max Light), go back to 20 Tokens per package no matter the Vendor, and make the existing Static Rolls worthwhile (Exotics, Raid, Trials, and even rewards like Escalation Protocol).

Based on what we know about the Community Summit right now, I'd be hard press not to think the thing that would have "caused a lot of consternation among players" wasn't their idea for Random Rolls which was shot down by Community Reps. I think that idea was scrapped entirely, and instead they took a ton of notes from what the Community Reps wanted. I think we will very likely see Random Rolls that fall in line extremely close to what Mercules904 describes above.

Note: As an example of how Destiny 1's Rise of Iron already handled the situation you describe with Better Devil's, and how Vendor random sales fix that issue, one of the most prolific Destiny 1 PvP Hand Cannon's was the Eyesluna with Sureshot, Rangefinder, and Rifled Barrel (the other slot was user choice more or less). Very few players had this gun (I sure as heck didn't), and it was very good. But at least twice, the Crucible Vendor sold a Palindrome (almost identical to Eyesluna) with Sureshot, Rangefinder, and Rifled Barrel (I think mine had Icarus for more In Air Accuracy). Many players even preferred it over the Luna. There were always God Rolls (all of which are vastly superior to any Weapons in D1, especially Better Devils which is trash compared to a Fatebringer, a gun which had Outlaw, Firefly, Explosive Rounds or Extended Mag), but there were also always "Close Enough" Rolls, of which most people used the vast majority of the time. God Rolls were coveted pieces of your arsenal, and extremely powerful (honestly, only the new and improved Exotic's now touch D1's Legendary Weapons), but entirely unnecessary.

@pyrodactyl: I agree they will need to clarify how current Power Weapons Ammo Economy will work, in both PvE and PvP. But if you can carry a Shotgun, a Rocket Launcher, and a Colony into PvP, and start each game with Ammo for all of them, that will be all kinds of broken. So I too await more clarity on this subject.

Yeah I'm not sure I want to spend money on two DLCs I have no interest in in order to buy what is probably an overpriced DLC that will end up just disappointing me.

I don't know where you're getting this idea, but it's pretty far off base. The main problem that basically the entire Destiny community had with Destiny 2 is that Destiny fans were clearly not the target audience. All the changes made from the first game to the second were so obviously designed to win over the people that didn't like Destiny 1. It felt like they read all the reviews from Destiny 1's launch and made a bullet point list of all the complaints and aimed to address those and ignore all the progress made in the 3 years of Destiny 1.

In a way it worked. They increased their metacritic rating by almost 10 points over Destiny 1 and won over many casual fans like Dan and Jeff that didn't like the first game. However, everything they sacrificed to achieve this came back to bite them, as the casual fans moved on to other games and the people that played Destiny 1 for 3 years were completely alienated by the clear lack of of the things they liked about the first game. Cue nosediving player populations and Bungie scrambling to fix what they screwed up in the first place.

The messaging now may make it seem like Bungie catering squarely at the hardcore, but that's only because they've been forced to do a complete 180 from their approach with the base Destiny 2. As it turns, all but ignoring your most dedicated players as the target audience is a pretty bad idea, especially for a "live service" game. Bungie took their core audience for granted and thought they would stick around no matter what they did while attempting to court new players. They were wrong, and now their only choice is shift focus towards everything the dedicated players want or risk losing their most loyal players for good.

A lot of this seems cool but is anybody else unreasonably annoyed that they reference Michael Moorcock by calling there Raid The Dreaming City but then they name drop Peter Jackson?

@hestilllives19: in your exemple you would start with ammo for none of these weapons. Until they say otherwise I’m expecting no huge changes to power ammo. Meaning if you equip multiple power weapons you get to use them very infrequently. Hopefully that’s not how it works. Man that would be dumb and wouldn’t fix any of the game’s problems

So you now have to buy yet another expansion and purchase a separate annual pass for all the content coming in the future... Jesus! At this point some folks will be spending £100+ on Destiny 2.

Given how boring and awful Bungie's expansions have been, I wouldn't be willing to drop any more money on D2.

@pyrodactyl: That depends on how the ammo economy works. The only thing we have seen (at 2:20 in the Vidoc above) is a Sniper Rifle with a Green ii bullets sitting in the Energy Slot, which is the same Green ii bullets a Hand Cannon had (at 2:17). Same goes for the Shotgun equipped in the Kinetic slot shown (at 2:23).

So I don't think it will work like you are saying based on this. What I do hope, is they limit Rockets, Grenade Launchers, Swords, Bows, and possibly Machine Guns (due to the hint by Lars Bakken and Josh Hamrick at 4:26) to the Power Weapon slot, simply because those Weapons just seem too Powerful to be a Kinetic or Energy Weapon. If they do that, they don't really need to make any other changes to the current Ammo Economies. But, all of that is, like you said earlier, a wait and see game. What is apparent, is TTK for current Kinetic/Energy Classes needs to come way down (around 0.7-0.8s) because they just can't compete with Shotgun's and Snipers above 1.0-1.2s. Based on the rumblings coming out of Community Summit and Bungie's own comment's since, it's not only common sense that this should happen, but a virtual certainty that it will in some form or fashion, even if all weapons just come down to the lethality of current Meta Exotics like Vigilance Wing and Graviton Lance.

That said, all of this is on the PvP side of things, which is where Destiny 2 is still lacking a great deal. PvE is looking fantastic, and it's already coming off of a pretty great PvE experience with Warmind. Outside of a far too slow trickle to Power Leveling (and the mistake that was gating Escalation Protocol at 400 until last week), the PvE experience has been some of the best I've had in a long time with Destiny as a franchise. The freedom to grind out 3 different Raid Activities per week is a lot of fun, and the ways in which you can tackle Prestige Nightfall's range from hilariously overpowered to ballcrushingly difficult, depending on your preference. The Exotic Weapon changes, Raid perks, and Class Balance changes have made for some really interesting experiences. Forsaken seems to be pushing everything in that direction even more, and I think that is what I'm the most excited for. Note: I think you would lose your mind if you played around with a 2 player squad running Tractor Cannon and a Void Ikelos Shotgun right now Pyro, especially in conjunction with a Voidwalker. It's extremely broken and absurdly fun right now, the bonus damage stacks are nuts.

@machofantastico: That article is extremely deceptive about past Destiny content. While yes, The Taken King and Rise of Iron only charged you $40 and $30 for the DLC's, there was no more substantial content for anytime between them, and it was a huge problem. The Taken King got a free update in April, known to most as The Taken Spring. It had like a tiny Quest, fixed the broken Light Level system, moved the Light Level system from 320 to 335, allowed players to run King's Fall more to hit cap, or you could run the "new" revamped Prison of Elders that was just a reworked version of House of Wolves content. What most hardcore Destiny 1 players remember foldly however, is Age of Triumph, which was Rise of Iron's free April update. More significant than The Taken Spring, because it added updated and changed both Vault of Glass and Crota's End is some pretty fantastic ways, and added Challenge Modes for both Raids, make no mistake, this was cheap filler content that wasn't all that significant. And I say that as someone who loved Age of Triumph. But Year 2 and 3 were, for the most part, a barren wasteland, only salvaged by 1 activity, Trials of Osiris (competitive PvP), which kept the playerbase rather active at over 400k players per weekend tuning in on average. So while Black Armory, Joker's Wild, and Penumbra won't have Cutscenes, at $30 (if pre-ordered) I do have hope that they will be well worth the pricetag. In all honesty, that part of both Curse of Osiris and Warmind were the worse received and the most time consuming and expensive to create, so it's not surprising Bungie is dropping it. If each of these "Premium Content" launches still contain multiple Quest Chains (like Warmind had), new Adventures, Crucible/Gambit maps, Strikes, and a Raid Lair, they will be well worth the asking price. We will know more Tomorrow night, but I'm guessing their announcement on the Annual Pass was just to belay fears of a content dry Destiny 2 Y2 like we had during The Taken King. There is no doubt that idea blew up in their faces, and that is why they are quickly talking about it as a priority tomorrow.

If they're serious about random rolls coming back for weapons, I'm out. That is a grind for the sake of the grind, it's the opposite of enjoyable.

@pyrodactyl: While they haven't talked about the new ammo economies, we did see in the E3 interview, linked above under Gambit now, that the first player is using an Auto Rifle, Sniper, and Sword. He spawns into Gambit with 341 Auto Rifle rounds, 6 Sniper rounds, and zero Sword ammo. So I think Power Weapons in Kinetic or Energy slots will retain a current amount of Power pickup ammo per spawn. I really hope they do have certain weapons that are locked into the Power Slot still, because Rockets, Grenade Launchers, Swords, Machine Guns, and Bows do not belong in the energy slot in any kind of way, but I'll be curious to see how this works as soon as they actually talk about it. I just thought this was interesting. And I assume the ammo economies for Gambit will be similar to normal Crucible, since you will be playing against other players.

Edit: Sounds like my guess was right on the money, as the embargo lifted just now. Mtashed is on Reddit talking about things they can talk about, and the current Ammo Economy is one of them.

"From what we know, it will be White, Green, Purple. Hand cannons, scouts, pulses will be white, shotguns, bows etc will be Green... If you have two "white" ammo weapons, they will share ammo. Same will two "green" weapons. If you plan on running shotgun + sniper you will most likely get starved on ammo, but these details aren't final yet. Also. Even Kinetic shotguns and snipers will use green ammo."

"Rockets are always power ammo fromm what I know... Bows seem to be green, but there may be a heavy one... Weapons seem to have set slots. But there seems to be options that will give you good choices in every slot. AKA even if you want to use Better devils as your kinetic, you don't have to worry too much about missing out on a particular kinetic shotgun"

So, it sounds like, at least in the current build, current D2 weapons retain their current slots, and retain their current Ammo Economies. Y2 Weapons, will drop in varying slots, but Rocket Launchers, and likely other more powerful Power Weapons (Grenade Launchers and Swords), will be locked only to Power Slot, simply by virtue of them not dropping in the Energy and Kinetic slots. Those current Power Weapons (Shotguns, Snipers, Fusion Rifles, and now Bows) will also utilize Energy ammo, no matter their slot, whereas current Kinetic/Energy archetypes (HC, Pulse, Auto, SMG, Sidearm, Scout) will utilize Kinetic ammo reserves. It seems running two of any type of Weapon, halves the available capacity for each, so a Sniper and Shotgun only gets 3 rounds for each, whereas running a HC/Sniper grants 6 Sniper rounds and full Hand Cannon ammo. This seems to encourage utilizing Destiny 1's Weapon slot systems even over Destiny 2's. We may even see running Kinetic Snipers and Energy Auto's or other as the PvE meta so your Energy Primary can quickly burn shields down. Lots of interesting ways to play with this system. I'll be excited to learn more as more people talk about the Summit since the Embargo is now lifted. Should be a lot more info out today.

Edit 2: Sounds like some of this may have changed at E3 today again. Looks like at E3, Weapons still pull Ammo values similar to Power, if they were Power weapons, but they no longer share Ammo, as each gun has it's own Ammo supply. Shotguns and Snipers were both used and seen to be having between 12-19 Rounds each, and when used, didn't influence the other equipped weapon. Bows seemed to have between 30-60 ammo, and load 1 round at a time. They only do 150ish damage to other Guardians to the Body, but do not do enough to kill as Crits, so less than 200, so little variance between Crit/Body (which doesn't make them sound all that appealing). According to Ms5000Watts Gambit did receive some pretty major changes based around feedback for the Primevil, as it now has a huge health pool, and Guardians get a larger damage buff over time, making that fight last longer, as players were previously able to just burn the Primevil with the Sunbreaker Void Shotguns and Voidwalker Tractor Cannon strat.

Edit 3: According to Jon Weisnewski, both TTK and Ammo Economies are the very last things they are working on, and they will likely be tuning them until the very last minute before the Forsaken launch in September. At least this lets us know they are aware these are two very important issues, so they will be playtesting different strategies over the coming months to get it right. My hope is they lean a lot lower on TTK (0.75-0.85s for HC, Pulse, Auto, Scout, Sidearm, SMG), lockdown D1 type Heavy Weapons to the Power slot (Rocket Launchers, Grenade Launchers, Swords, and Machine Guns if they return), and allow us 1 full Magazine of ammo for each of the old Special Weapons (Snipers, Shotguns, Fusion Rifles, Linear Fusions). My understanding is that Bows may actually be considered Primary Weapons rather than Specials though, but that may, and I hope it does along with an uptick in power for Crits.

Note: According to Scott Taylor at Bungie, all Y1 D2 items will be moving forward into Y2 of Destiny 2.

Note 2: I'm replacing that Gambit video with the official one that just launched too.

Just an FYI, I've been using https://destinyroundup.com/ for a lot of the updates to this list. https://twitter.com/shackleshotgun does a great job at finding and updating all of social media updates Bungie employee's have posted about each week.

To that end, I have updated this list today with some of that news plus some of the stuff Bungie has officially covered over the last couple TWAB's of stuff happening prior to Forsaken that will effect Forsaken.

Post again updated, this time with a ton of info from GameInformer, as Destiny 2 Forsaken is their August Cover Game. This info contains the first information about new Supers and Subclass Perk Clusters, and a whole lot of other info.

Hm, I'm a little disappointed we'll be fighting more Fallen rather than Awoken, but if they're really as new as the talk suggests, well we'll see. The Taken were technically new and also not particularly exciting.

Side note: Petra Venj! Always enjoyed those knife animations.

I thought Destiny 2 was an improvement on Destiny 1, but that their post-launch "support" was laughable at best. That aside, I'm 100 % up for another beefy slew of content in the vein of The Taken King. I'll definitely be picking this up come September, have a good month's worth of fun with it and then move on. But that's pretty good value for 40 bucks in my book.

So with a vendor being one of the Fallen then that might mean you are allied with at least one faction of the Fallen? Thats all I have wanted since the first damn game came out.

Variks was a vendor for almost all of destiny 1, so i wouldn't get your hopes up. But I agree with you, I hope the Fallen becomes a character class in D3.

@jonny_anonymous: According to GameInformer you get Fallen allies that fight with you on Spider's mission's he sends you on. They also said they hang back in serious fights and don't help much though. We'll see how it all shakes out, but it sounds interesting.

@theht: According to GameInformer (and Bungie), The Skorn aren't really Fallen anymore. Both the character models and gameplay mechanics are vastly different than any enemies we have ever fought before. I don't have a description of all 6 of the new base enemy types added, but they sound pretty significantly different than anything we've ever seen, and they sound more like a Hive/Fallen hybrid. I think some of the talk about The Dreaming City being both a normal location and have an alter Ascendant Realm version as well is kind of crazy and awesome at the same time. This DLC should involve a lot of different races other than the new Skorn, as we've been told that Fallen, Hive, and Taken are all trying to invade The Dreaming City, and The Hive will likely play a major role in the new raid based on that Ascendant Realm info. Could it be Savathun? Or will we see what some are suggesting, which is a crazy Princess Peach storyline with Mara Sov and a not so dead Ahamkara Dragon... I'm kinda hoping the later.

Somebody got a shout out. <3 @hestilllives19

Wondering what some new crucible modes will be later on. I can't help but think Bungie will want to try their own version of battle royal.

Today at 10am PT, the first of the Forsaken Twitch Streams kicks off to talk about "Year Two Combat". There will likely be some updates to this page afterwards, but if you want to talk about it live, feel free to drop on by the Destiny Discord as we will all likely be chatting about it as it's going on. Things we should see...

• TTK decreasing by roughly 33%. Bungie shows off in the clip above a 3 tap HC kill, similar to D1, so we are likely looking at D1 TTK's which were about 33% faster across the board. - D1 vs D2
• New Weapon Slot System will be on full display. We will likely find out where some of our favorite D2 Y1 PvP weapons will fall now slot wise due to the changes.
• They will likely finally show off the new Mod System in full force. To date, we just have a few vague hints about powerful perks as Mods, and no idea how they work on Weapons.
• They will probably show off the new Armor System, how base stats will work now that perks are being added back for Ammo and Ability Cooldowns, and hopefully some clarity on that bonus Kinetic Weapon damage hint they made a few weeks ago (Is that how Primary TTK is decreasing?).
• How the ammo economy will work when equipping different loadouts will also likely be shown off. How does running 3 Shotguns work for Ammo?
• Will current Subclasses, base Abilities, and their damage outputs for both PvE and PvP be changing? I sure hope so, and I hope they tell us today.

These are likely the topics of today, so it's likely a stream for the more Hardcore players very interested and upset over the past year of how drastically the combat changed from Destiny 1 to Destiny 2 and how they are both improving and reverting changes back to the systems that worked very well in Destiny 1. I wouldn't expect to see a whole lot more out of this stream that what I listed above, so keep expectations in check.

A few important things to note going into Forsaken for new and especially existing players.

• Price - For those who already own all existing D2 content (Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris, and Warmind), all you will need is Forsaken ($39.99), and the Annual Pass ($34.99 by itself, or $69.99 for both Forsaken and Annual together) if you are interested in that. If you do not own any single DLC or anything, buying the Forsaken Legendary Collection is what you want to do for $59.99, as it includes Destiny 2, Curse of Osiris, Warmind, and Forsaken (Note: The Forsaken: Complete Collection which includes the Annual Pass is actually $99.99 because it includes the Digital Delux content, so it's actually cheaper to just buy the Annual Pass outright for $34.99 and save $5 on a useless Ornament, Emblem, and Ghost Shell).
• Exclusive Content - While PS4 will be getting a new exclusive Strike, PvP Map, and Exotic Weapon, both PC and Xbox One will be getting both Y1 PS Exclusive Strikes, the Borealis Exotic Sniper Rifle, and the Y1 PS exclusive Crucible Map. So all platforms will be seeing new content not directly tied to the launch of Forsaken. And since Strikes will now selectable from their Destinations, both PC and Xbox players will be able to launch the new (to them) EDZ and Nessus Strikes at will and immediately upon launch.
• Missing Activities - Those that don't read the TWAB on a weekly basis will notice the lack of both Trials of the Nine and Faction Rallies for Season 4. Prestige Nightfall is also being removed from Destiny entirely. There is no word currently on how Bungie will resolve the fact that two Vanilla Trophies are tied to these Activities, namely 1 Trials win and a Prestige Activity Completion. Prestige Raid Activities for Leviathan, Eater of World's, and Spire of Stars should still remain Active, even before the launch of the newest Raid Prestige, so Bungie may not even address the Prestige Trophy, but I do expect them to address the lack of players ability to obtain "Lest Ye Be Judged".
• Weapon Slot Changes - On Aug. 28th, Forsaken's Weapon Slot changes will launch, a week early. Players will notice several Power Weapons move from the Power Weapon Slot to both the Kinetic and Energy Slots. Weapons left in inventory that overflow a slot, should be sent to the Postmaster, but to prevent any unnecessary loss of gear, players should clear out enough space on each character such that no 1 Slot is overfilled on the 28th. Snipers, Shotguns, Fusion Rifles, and Single Shot Grenade Launchers will be moving to the Energy Slot. The exceptions to this rule will be...
  • Whisper of the Worm (Power)
  • Legend of Acrius (Power)
  • D.A.R.C.I. (Power)
  • Tractor Cannon (Power)
  • Merciless (Power, very likely but unconfirmed)
  • Hawthorn's Field Forged Shotgun (Kinetic)
  • Alone As A God (Kinetic)
  • Perfect Paradox (Kinetic)
  • Baligant (Kinetic)
  • Shepherd's Watch (Kinetic)
  • The Frigid Jackal (Kinetic)
  • Silicon Neuroma (Kinetic)
• Weapon Damage Types - While Y1 Weapons will continue to be usable and infusable in Y2, they will be losing their Mod Slot for Elemental Damage. This means that as of Aug. 28th, whatever Element you have slotted into each Energy/Power Weapon, that weapon will retain that Element going forward. The only exceptions to this are weapons moving to the Kinetic slot and losing an Element all together and the Ikelos SG and SR. Both Ikelos weapons will be turned into Solar, no matter your existing Mod, as Bungie says this is to prevent Void stacking with Tractor Cannon in Forsaken.
• Economy Changes - Both Destination Tokens and existing Mods will be being removed to make room for the new Destination Materials and new Mod Systems. Make sure you keep both of these items going into Forsaken though, as Destination Tokens can be turned in for Rep at Destination Vendors and Mods can be exchanged for the new Mods in some way that hasn't been announced yet.

There may yet be other important things of note players need to be away of, so I will update this if anything important comes up.

Update 2.0.0 drops today at 10am Pacific. The full list of changes was updated after last weeks TWAB up top, but it includes the Weapon Slot changes, TTK changes, Ability/Class changes, etc. We will also be getting access to Gambit a week early on Sat starting at 10am Pacific until Sun at 10am Pacific to show off the game mode, but no actual Gambit rewards will be being given out, just a chance to try out the new game mode. Hope to see some of you guys around.

I'll update the main post with the full patch notes when they arrive. Also...

Beware of SPOILERS if you haven't been following stuff like the Forsaken Story Launch. But some pretty cool stuff here, like Guardians finally getting our Voice back for the first time since Vanilla Destiny. It got me and a bunch of us on Discord pretty hyped for next week.

Edit: After the patch they also dropped this, Beyond Launch info. It all looks pretty good too.

• 2 Raid Lairs, one with Armory in December and another in Spring with Penumbra.
• None for Joker's Wild. That DLC sounds like it's about Gambit changes and whatever New Activity Experience will be coming with it. This is likely an EP type Activity. Penumbra also has a New Activity Experience.
• Forges of the Chain Activity (likely the EP type Activity for Black Armory).
• Machine Guns are returning in Black Armory in December.
• Festival of the Lost is finally returning in October.
• No mention of the return of Trials of the Nine or Faction Rallies...

man that trailer...

I'm ready.