As the first year of Destiny comes to a close, Bungie is planning to usher in the game's second year of life with major changes alongside a massive new expansion called The Taken King. Not content to simply sit back and apply small tweaks to the experience, Bungie is overhauling a number of key areas in the game, from its storytelling to the UI to gameplay mechanics. The changes are so vast that many players have begun to affectionately refer to the current Destiny as being a year long beta.

Fans eager for more information on Destiny: The Taken King were once again treated to a new live stream event today, as Bungie detailed new aspects of the expansion. While the main focus was on a new Strike, which tasked players with taking down a pair of hulking Cabal leaders, fans also got their first meaningful look at the new character builds as well as a new item slot known as artifacts.

Occupying a new slot located below the class item, artifacts are only available to level 40 players. These class specific items appear to add passive benefits to characters while also adding bonuses to the three core stats: Strength, Discipline, and Intellect. However, the core utility of the artifacts appears to be generating orbs for teammates. Here's The Taken King director Luke Smith:

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During the stream, fans got a good look at three class specific artifacts including Radegast's Blade, a Titan artifact which grants Sunbreaker titans the chance to generate an orb when killing an enemy. Like the Titan, the Stormcaller Warlock was using the Techeun Bangle, which gave arc melee kills a chance to drop an orb of light. Lastly, the Nightstalker Hunter had the Neural Beoar artifact equipped, which gave a chance to generate an orb when an enemy was killed by void melee.

Artifacts join the already long list of item changes and content updates coming to Destiny once The Taken King arrives in a few weeks. Certain Year One exotics like the Suros Regime can now be upgraded to a newer Year Two model, and a new blueprints system will allow players to recreate any exotic item they have discovered previously. Along with new subclasses and a whole new area to explore with The Dreadnaught, Bungie is also doing away with the light leveling system past level 20. Instead, players will now continue to accrue experience to level their characters to the new cap of 40.

Bungie is planning one more major reveal stream next week, detailing the mysterious Court of Oryx gameplay mode for the first time. While Bungie has remained mum on the topic, it is believed that this mode is a public event held on The Dreadnaught. This event has also been described as one that can be triggered by players, pitting guardians against waves of enemies with unique modifiers to add variety each time. Acting as the final livestream before the game launches, expect a wealth of information to hit the internet.

What did you guys think of the new Strike? Are you excited to see what else these artifacts can do? Let us know down in the comments.

Destiny: The Taken King launches on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 on September 15.

Source: Bungie on Twitch