Earlier today at an event in California, Bungie hosted the Destiny 2 gameplay premiere. The game looks even more amazing than I’d hoped.

(Points of interest will be covered in the order they appeared during the presentation.)

The HUD looks largely similar. It could have been just for the gameplay shown, but it appeared that the HUD disappeared when not in a combat situation. Perhaps this will be a setting in the final release or perhaps it is the default. Either way, it looked slick.

You finally get to go in that one door in the tower where Xur used to hang out like a weirdo near the Speaker! I know that’s a silly thing to get excited about, but I felt pretty excited watching it!

We learned a bit more about Gaul, the big bad of this entry. He believes he and the Cabal should have been the recipients of the Traveler’s light, not the guardians.

After the assault on the tower, the Vanguard must be reassembled. The head of each class has been scattered: Zavala on Titan, Cayde-6 on Nessus, and Ikora Rey on Io. Each is handling the crisis in their own way.

Weapon slots are changing.

Three new subclasses were shown, one for each class.

Dawnblade is the new Solar subclass for the Warlock. When activated, a solar sword is used to rain fire upon your foes.

The Titan’s new Void subclass is Sentinel: a shield you can use to attack or knock down enemies, as well as throw it entirely for an alternate attack.

And the Hunter’s new Arc subclass is the Arcstrider, a staff used to beat the ever living crap out of the enemy.

The campaign of Destiny 2 was referred to as the Red War campaign.

It will have more story missions and cinematics than any other Bungie game.

Strikes and raids will be returning.

Crucible will return with new maps and modes, one of which is called Countdown.

No more going to orbit between planets! You can go from one planet to another directly!

The new map appears more like an open world map than the previous navigator map.

There are new activities called Lost Sectors where you can explore hidden areas for loot.

There are four brand new worlds to explore: Titan, Earth, Io, and Nessus.

Clan support is being brought into the game, with custom banners and a progression and reward system. No matter what each player in the clan is doing individually, all efforts are contributing to the overall progression of the clan.

Something called Guided Games is being introduced where solo players can search clan pages from within the game to find people to team up with for various activities including raids and strikes.

And, in possibly the most surprising announcement of the presser, Activision and Blizzard announced that Destiny 2 on PC will be available exclusively through Battle.net.

While those are the highlights, allow me to say just how amazing the game looked overall. The environments looked bigger and more robust. The color palette was gorgeous. And the gameplay looks as tight and as clean as ever. It would be an understatement to say I’m excited for this game. Watching it in action made me more impatient than ever to get my hands on it later this year in the Beta, and then the official release on September 8th.

Will you be playing Destiny 2? If so, what are you looking forward to most about it?