Destiny, a yearlong beta for a video game that will be released this September, is getting some major overhauls that we should probably talk about.
Today on a Twitch stream, Bungie’s designers discussed some of the ways our characters will change when The Taken King launches next month, starting with an explanation of what lLight will actually mean now that levels are all gained through XP:
You’ll be able to hit level 40 with experience, but you’ll still have to keep track of your Light, which will be an average of your weapons and armor. Makes sense.
Your stats will now have more detailed descriptions, showing you not just percentages but explanations of how your cooldowns are affected by each of the three stats, Strength, Intellect, and Discipline:
The quest page, which Bungie has shown off before, will now look like this:
Look at those fancy new quest lines. And check it out: 16 Bounty slots! You’ll be able to submit bounties from anywhere—no more trekking back to Tower—and you can keep track of your progress via Nolan North:
Every Destiny player will also get a Spark of Light—aka cheat command—that will boost a single character up to level 25:
Ghost Shells have abilities now! Cool ones:
Class items like hunter cloaks and warlock bonds will also have stats and abilities. Both ghost shells and class items will count toward your overall light level, too.
There’s a terminal in the tower that will let you see a full collection of emblems:
You can rebuy emblems you’ve already owned, and each emblem you haven’t found will tell you where you can snag it.
The new equipment has some interesting, creative perks:
Vanguard and Crucible marks have been combined into one big pool that’s now called Legendary Marks. These marks will now be shared across all of your characters, and they’ll max out at 200, but there’s no longer a weekly cap—so you’ll be able to earn as many marks per week as you want.
You’re probably wondering about exotic gear. So are we! Seems like the Tower will have a terminal for something called exotic blueprints:
And when you get there, you’ll be able to re-buy any exotic you’ve earned:
You’ll also be able to buy upgraded Year Two exotics—with new perks and upgrade trees—although not all exotics will have new versions. Just the special ones.
There’s a terminal for exotic weapons, too. Sounds like only a few of those—including Suros Regime—will have Year Two versions. (RIP Gjallarhorn.)
The cryptarch is now selling legendary engrams:
The gunsmith will let you go out and test out weapon prototypes—Field Test Weapons—and using them in the field will let you earn gunsmith reputation, which you can use to order weapons—Foundry Orders—every week.
Then you’ll get packages that might look like this:
You might be wondering what you should do with all your old legendary weapons. Well, there’s a new option called “Infuse” that will let you feed old guns to your new Year Two ones to make them more powerful:
Vault space is getting a huge upgrade—you’ll have 72 slots for weapons and 72 for armor.
It looks like Bungie is adding a ton of tweaks and improvements to Destiny, and everything we’ve seen so far seems great, although we won’t know for sure until we get our hands on everything come September 15. For now, enjoy the beta.
You can reach the author of this post at jason@kotaku.com or on Twitter at @jasonschreier.