Just wait until Oct 1st. The value for money you'll get for jumping in now versus in 2 weeks when you'll be able to get a lot of the content you missed either for free.....or at a **substantial** discount....just isn't worth it. Unlike in the past, there won't be any mandatory catch up grind. Your characters----and all your gear in your vaults----will be boosted to power level 750 (current cap..), and you'll be free to jump in to play Shadowkeep. And/or go farm any part of the old content for any loot. Jumping in now all you'd be doing of any real value would be stockpiling upgrade materials, and trying to farm for weapons that you'll likely be looking to replace after the 1st. What you need to know? 1. Already know about the boost to 750. 2. Year 1 and all DLC will be free. Forsaken will be availabe for a substantial discount and all Y2 annual pass content will be free. 3. Weapons....Year 2 mods are no longer consumables. They are permanent unlocks. That you'll likely be able to swap in and out (based on your needs for the situation) probably at low cost. 4. "Armor 2.0" Bungie is completely overhauling the armor system. Instead of the stripped down system of vanilla D2...or the random perks system of D1 and Y2 of D2..... Armor will now have 6 stats that are random and rollable that is a combination of both D1 and D2: Mobility, Resilience, Recovery, Intellect, Discipline, and Strength. Perks will come in the form of mods that are permanently unlocked like weapon mods, that you can slot into your armor. Each armor piece will have an "Energy" rating that controls which mods you can put into the armor...and an "elemental affinity" that controlls what kind of mods you can slot. Weaker perks cost less of your armor's energy...and have no elemental restrictions. Stronger perks cost a lot of energy....and have elemental restricitions. You can increase your armor's Energy rating by investing various upgrade materials to increase it. You start out with it only costing glimmer at low levels. By the time you get to max level, you're investing lots of resources, including upgrade mats only available in end-game content. This process isn't like infusion. Its more like Masterworking. A capstone process that you resort to when you finally have that perfect armor piece. 5. Artifacts. Bungie is returning artifiacts to the game. But only as a seasonal asset. You will increase its power as you gain EXP playing the game....and the higher you level it up, the more "power" it can add to your overall power rating....and the more (and more powerful) perks you can slot into it. This will be our seasonal power grind in lieu of "levelling up" our gear every season. 6. Seasonal pass. This is like the event record books from Destiny 1. Where you can earn predeterimined awards simiply for playin the game and ranking up. They are free if you buy the DLC or Season of the Undying (Season 8....$10). If you just want to play the base game, you can earn the same rewards available to paying players....it'll just take you longer. 7. Bungie is retiring 3 bad Crucible maps to be reworked Adding Destiny 2 versions of 2 very popular D1 maps (Twilight Gap and Widow's Court) to the rotation. 8. Bungie is restructuring the PVP playlists. Comp is gone. Its being replaced by a 3v3 Survival playlist where you earn Glory. There will aslo be a solo only 3v3 Survival playlist. There will be a 6v6 Control-only playlist with SBMM targeted for newer players. There will also be a 6v6 playlist with Control, Clash and Supremacy that is going to be QP. 9. Gambit---the game's polarizing PvEvP game mode---is going to be free to all players. Some people love it. some people hate it. Play it and make up your own mind. Just realize that the PVP isn't based on the "balanced" PVP of shooters....but on a sanitized version of the sort of unbalanced, open-world PVP you find in MMOs and other RPGs. I think that pretty much covers it. Welcome back, Guardian.