Destiny’s year 2 has officially begun with the implementation of patch 2.0. The update brings all sorts of changes to the Destiny universe including an all new leveling system, updated UI, new ghost voice and a myriad of changes to the game’s weapons and items.

Going over the official patch notes can be overwhelming because of the sheer amount of changes, but we’ve cherry picked what we think are the most major ones and included our thoughts on how they will affect the game below!

Leveling System Revamp

The level cap has been increased to 34 (it will bump up to 34 for Taken King purchasers) and no longer uses light levels as the main dictator of what level your character is. Instead the game will be returning to its pre-20 model of collecting experience through kills and quests, which will then go towards leveling your character.

This is great news for players that either couldn’t organize or put the time into grinding raids and other high level content for the best light level gear. Now they too can reach the level cap while progressing at their own pace.

Quests

Missions and bounties now have their own interface on the main menu titled “Quests”. Here you can track your project on all of the current tasks you have outstanding in an easy to read and understand format.

The system also supports tracking which allows you to easily pull up your progress on the current quest. This is a big improvement on having to pull up your inventory and scroll through individual missions to see what you had left to do.

Weapon Balances

Pretty much every weapon in Destiny has been touched in some way. Assault rifles have been buffed after being nerfed into oblivion and some of the games most overpowered exotics have been brought down to more reasonable levels of slaying prowess.

While many will not agree with all of the changes, a short time in the crucible will prove that they have indeed leveled the playing field somewhat. Of course there could be a whole new crop of broken weapons to come in Taken King, but we’ll have to wait and see!

Nolan North as The Ghost

We all love Peter Dinklage but it was pretty obvious form the beginning that he just wasn’t the right fit for the guardian’s constant companion. With Nolan North taking the gig here’s hoping we get a lot more banter from the Ghost and maybe even some new Ghost specific emotes?!

Mercy Rule

In an attempt to weed out the bad games the crucible has been known to throw every once in a while, Bungie has added the Mercy Rule. Using a special algorithm, Lord Shaxx will be monitoring for any games that appear too lop-sided. When he finds one the game timer will be set to 10 seconds, and when it expires the game will end with all player receiving their rewards and then being sent back to the queue.

Gone are the days of suffering through a 10,000 to 2,000 blowout in a control match.

New Sub- Classes

Of course the biggest draw to the Taken King is the new sub-classes being added for each of the Guardian types. Over the course of a year chances are you’ve learned your sub classes of choice inside and out, but with the addition of all new ones it’s like creating a new guardian all over again.

The new sub-classes are Nightstaler for the Hunter, Sunbreaker for the Titan, and StormCaller for the Warlock. If you want more details about the sub-classes you can check out our overview here. Suffice to say, each new sub-class fills in their guardians weaknesses very well in both damage type and utility.