Here's a video game scenario you've definitely seen before: a malevolent power is about to end the world as you know it, but no rush, because . It comes down to design philosophy: they want you to keep playing as long and as often as possible, so missions can't be too restrictive in how they let you use your time. The sense of urgency that's meant to push you to the end becomes little more than a carefully curated illusion that's easily broken if you decide to make a sandwich and don't hit pause.

Sometimes, anyway. Other times, you come back from your meal prep and all the hostages are dead, or the world has ended, or the love of your virtual life has turned into a horrific monster because you took too long, and the game wants you to feel it. It's a delicate balance to strike, making you feel the weight of a time crunch without pushing you so far that you quit. But games that do it well show that players don't need the virtual world to wait on our every move. Sometimes lighting a fire under your ass is the best thing a game can do.

Easily the most famous game that uses time against you, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is also one of the most forgiving. Though you only have three in-game days (with a timer ticking away) before the moon faceplants directly into the planet, you can reverse to the first day as many times as you like. But make no mistake, it's harder than it sounds - failing to finish your current quest means you'll have to start that undertaking over during the next three-day period. Or worse, if you let the moon crash into the planet, expect to lose everything you gained during that cycle.

Kudos to Nintendo, because this is probably the best way to balance a foreboding sense of urgency with dozens of intricate sidequests. Putting a hard deadline on the game as a whole would push you to skip side material, while allowing ample time to complete everything would turn the moon's descent into an empty threat. Meanwhile, the reverse-and-start-over option makes virtually every dungeon-romp nerve-wracking, as you only have one shot to successfully finish if you don't want to start over from the beginning. At the same time, you feel comfortable enough with your schedule that you can set aside time to fight an army of ghosts in return for a bottle of milk. You know, the important things.

As it turns out, Revolution came very close to promoting paradoxical procrastination with its first mission. Specifically, you're told that you only have so long to save a group of hostages before things get ugly, but in the game's original version you could take as long as you wanted and they would never come to harm. Figuring that out immediately deflates any sense of importance the mission had (no need to worry, they're all gonna be fine without you) but also makes it hard to trust the game when it promises dire situations in the future. Chances are those will be falsified too, so why bother?

Thankfully, set a time limit on the hostages' survival, so if you don't get there fast enough, too bad for them. That one choice made Human Revolution significantly more effective at creating suspense and a sense of gravitas, because anyone who tried to call that Mission One bluff learned that this game was not messing around.

At face value, Prince of Persia isn't all that different from the standard hero-saves-princess plot: the Vizier of Persia captures the princess, saying he'll kill her if she refuses to marry him, and you have to rescue her. However, while the likes of Mario and Link have ample time to train before they face off against their nemeses, the Vizier gives the princess an hour to decide, and he isn't kidding around - you get one real-world hour to finish the game before you fail and the princess is left to her horrible fate.

Honestly, this is a far more realistic depiction of how a princess' abduction would go, and gives it the weight and urgency it deserves. Where other games assure you that the princess will be just fine with waiting until you show up to get her, Prince of Persia promises the exact opposite, making you feel your pixelated protagonists' desperation as you struggle to navigate a tricky maze of traps. With no on-screen timer to guide you, it feels like failure is always lurking a step behind, and nothing about the experience would've been nearly as effective if you didn't have the dwindling sands of an hourglass lighting a proverbial a fire under your feet.

Snake Eater might seem like a strange addition here, since the only place where time matters is a single boss fight, and even then it feels like you have to wait for-e-ver for the ravages of time to have any kind of effect. Yet, that use of time has a powerful effect, proving that while Big Boss may be the protagonist, he's not the center of the universe.

Here's the mission (in) brief: you face off against The End, a master sniper who's getting too old for this, and is only hanging on so he can hunt down his 'final prey', aka you. You can fight him in a properly grueling battle, or you can simply save in the middle of the fight and wait a week to play again, by which point The End will have died of old age. While it's easy to assume this feature was included in the name of shock value and some laughs you feel guilty about later, it also puts forward the idea that the world and everything in it isn't waiting on Snake's input - the world moves at its own pace, regardless of what he chooses to do. That doesn't necessarily hold true in other parts of the game (none of Snake Eater's other bosses will get bored and leave if you wait too long to fight them), but that one moment is enough to at least make you think.

Pandora's Tower may not feature of the world's greatest romance - while central to the story, it never gets far past "insert gifts, receive affection" territory - it does remind you that your love Elena has a life of her own outside your adventures and won't just twiddle her thumbs until you get back. Mostly because she's mutating into a horrific demon and needs to eat the flesh of the demons you're slaying in a timely manner if she's going to stay human. And I do mean timely: every mission is on a timer, and if you wait too long before getting back to her with more flesh, she (and your relationship) will start to rapidly deteriorate until her transformation is complete and she destroys the world.

That may seem brutal and at least a little annoying, as you constantly have to return to her room instead of pressing forward, but the timer does serve as a constant reminder of why you're going on this adventure at all. While the game could just teleport you back to her place for a cutscene or two and then let you go about your business, it'd be easy to look right through those interactions without noticing them. Because you have to constantly think about maintaining her health, Elena is at the forefront of your mind, and the game serves the story rather than wearing it like a thin and ineffective overcoat.

Often enough, completing all of the sidequests in a game is just a question of your interest and willingness, because the objectives themselves typically don't require much skill or effort. But Dead Rising - a game where you and a handful of survivors are trapped in a zombie-infested shopping mall that's also housing a few "psychopaths" from the local prison - doesn't want to go that easy on you. Side objectives involve rescuing as many other survivors as you can, but you only have a limited amount of days before the rescue team shows up to collect them. Even trickier, each survivor is only alive and mobile for a short period of time. Miss that window, and they're gone for good.

That sidequest setup is immensely punishing, and you can expect to see plenty of announcements that survivors are dying on your watch as you level up. But it immediately drives home how dangerous your situation is, and proves that this zombie infestation isn't just a good excuse to beat a few shambling bodies down with a weed whacker or a six string. Getting everyone out alive is possible, but incredibly difficult, and you're basically going to have to be superhuman to pull it off.

Lightning's world is going to end in thirteen days. And unlike most games, there's no chance you'll be able to save the world in that time; all you can hope to do is send the souls of the living to their rest before the apocalypse arrive. There is a bright side, because if you can rescue enough souls before the clock strikes midnight on the final day, everyone will be reincarnated in a new world. But that's only if you rescue enough, and you're on a deadline: there's a timer at the top of the screen constantly reminding you how close you are to imminent doom.

That sense of looming destruction is what keeps you on the move over the course of Lightning Returns, forcing you to constantly think about how much time you're taking and how you'll fail if you don't recover enough souls. But what really sets it apart from any other timed game is that sidequests don't detract from your time - they add to it. You're actually only given six days to work with when the game begins, and have to earn seven more by finishing various quests scattered throughout the world. It's a brilliant way to solve the 'speed versus completion' problem, making them inseparable without losing out on the tension that's meant to keep you on the move.

Pikmin may look like an adorable game about flower creatures helping a spaceman rebuild his rocket, but pull back that veneer and it's a cold, calculating resource management game. Each task takes a certain amount of time to complete, whether it's getting the tokens to grow new Pikmin, gathering materials, or taking down enemies. You could Pik the surrounding environment clean if you had the time, but you don't, because you only have 30 in-game days to repair the ship.

Pikmin's all about making the best choices about how to manage your time. Sending your Pikmin to harvest parts from a giant monster nets you a lot of materials at once, but you'll lose most of your workforce and halve your productivity in the process. Going after smaller prizes isn't as dangerous, but it also isn't as rewarding, and you simply don't have time to gather everything you need piecemeal. That 30-day timer keeps the pressure on, forcing you to think fast and change your strategy in an instant when the situation calls for it. Yet that demanding nature is what makes the Pikmin series worth playing: these games may be cute, but satisfying victory can only be earned through careful planning and preparation.

It's no secret that the Metal Gear Solid timeline is a complicated quagmire of names, dates, and secret organizations, and with the last entry in the long-running series arriving in less than two weeks, we'll finally get the missing pieces to a story that has been decades in the making. Metal Gear has always revelled in gleeful impenetrability, straddling the line between serious melodrama and over-the-top ridiculousness. It's endearing in a way, as following Metal Gear's labyrinthine narrative is usually worth the effort needed to understand it, but if you're new to the series, or not willing to sift through pages of wiki articles, keeping track of its myriad characters can be a nightmare.

Metal Gear's characters are perhaps the most fluid of any video game franchise out there, as their allegiances (and even names) can change drastically from entry to entry. That's why I've compiled a list of the major players in Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, their role in the overall franchise, as well as any other information we might possibly know about them. If you're wondering why Revolver Ocelot is working for Big Boss, or why young Eli seems to be so important, this article will give you a crash course in who's who in The Phantom Pain.

A quick note: This article assumes basic knowledge of the overall plot to the Metal Gear Solid franchise. I try to summarize where I can, but if you're completely new or want a refresher, be sure to check out .

Big Boss began his role in the Metal Gear series as its greatest villain, but thanks to decades of sequels, prequels, and retroactive continuity, his role in the timeline has become far more complex. Metal Gear Solid 3 introduces a Big Boss before he received his intimidating title, back when he was known by the callsign Naked Snake. Snake receives the title of Big Boss after saving the day by killing his closest friend and mentor, but then leaves the military and wanders from skirmish to skirmish, eventually forming a secret organization called The Patriots with Major Zero and Revolver Ocelot. Things seem hunky-dory until Zero decides to clone Big Boss without his consent, which doesn't really sit well with him. Big Boss leaves the Patriots, and eventually meets Kazuhira Miller, forming the Militaires Sans Frontieres (MSF), a private military company built for a new age of war.

Which leads us to Ground Zeroes, a brief mission that shows us the destruction of MSF by unknown forces and a helicopter crash that seems to place Big Boss in a nine-year-long coma. Up to this point, Big Boss hasn't exactly gone full-on evil yet. Morally gray and willing to build a massive organization of mercenaries, sure, but he's not finding war orphans, raising them as soldiers, and using them to create more war orphans, perpetuating the cycle of violence ad infinitum like he was in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake. So how does Big Boss get to that point? The Phantom Pain should shed some light on exactly how Big Boss will avenge his fallen comrades - and considering his new callsign is Punished/Venom Snake, it's probably not going to be pretty.

First revealed in , Ishmael is probably The Phantom Pain's most enigmatic character - and that's saying something when you compare him to the mysterious rogue's gallery already revealed.

Ishmael is a fellow hospital mate of Big Boss who claimed to be watching over him while he was in a coma for nine years. His face is completely bandaged, and he sounds like he's voiced by Kiefer Sutherland - which, coincidentally, is the same actor who voices Big Boss. Who is Ishmael? Is he another person, or merely a figment of our imagination? Whoever he is, he seems like he holds the key to The Phantom Pain's biggest secrets.

The first thing you'll probably notice about Quiet is her clothing - or, more accurately, her lack of clothing. The reason behind her manner of dress is apparently under as much lock and key as the reason why she's unwilling - or unable - to talk, but based on the , it would appear that your crew isn't exactly thrilled to bring her aboard.

What we do know about Quiet is that, at some point in the story, she meets up with Big Boss and joins forces, offering up her crack-shot sniping skills in the field. She'll post up on a cliff face or some form of high elevation, keeping watch for you through her sniper scope, marking enemies, and sending a bullet through their unfortunate faces at your command.

Skull Face doesn't seem like a very nice guy, if the cassette tapes found in Ground Zeroes are any indication. He holed up at Camp Omega for a while, taking time to torture both Chico and Paz, as well as a variety of other POWs and political prisoners. At the beginning of Ground Zeroes, he's seen taking off in a helicopter moments before Big Boss shows up, his face scarred beyond recognition.

Like many of the newly-revealed characters, not much is known of Skull Face, though the does shed some light on his origin. At a young age, Skull Face lost his nation, as well as the language of his native tongue, to foreign soldiers. Because of this, Skull Face wants to rid the world of language, uniting the world under "the chain of retaliation". The events of Ground Zeroes make it seem like he was the one who ordered the bomb to be placed inside Paz, causing the explosion that sent Big Boss into a coma, but then he's seen palling around with Big Boss at the end of that E3 trailer so… what the hell is going on?

This guy seems to get a new name with every single game he's in. Referred to as Master McDonnell Miller in Metal Gear Solid, then Kazuhira Miller in Peace Walker, now he's Benedict Miller. He was second-in-command of MSF during Peace Walker, and after its annihilation at the end of Ground Zeroes, he rejoins Big Boss to pick up the pieces, forming a new private military corporation called Diamond Dogs nine years later. Obsessed with revenge, Miller and Big Boss aim to take down Cipher once and for all in The Phantom Pain.

But here's the thing - eventually, Miller and Big Boss go their separate ways, as Master Miller ends up training soldiers for FOXHOUND, including one Solid Snake, while Big Boss secretly heads up Outer Heaven. Miller even serves as one of Solid Snake's contacts during Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, going so far as to call Big Boss a "monster" in the final encounter. Miller dies shortly before the events of Metal Gear Solid, as his body is found murdered in his Alaskan home during the Shadow Moses Incident. What caused the schism between the two comrades-in-arms? Or will this bit of information be retconned out of the series' timeline? Hopefully The Phantom Pain will provide some answers.

Introduced in Metal Gear Solid as a bitter rival to Solid Snake, future games in the series would paint him in a far more sympathetic light. He first met Big Boss during Operation Snake Eater, where Ocelot worked as a Russian GRU operative and secret Philosopher spy. After the events of Snake Eater, Ocelot and Big Boss would go on to form the Patriots, along with Major Zero. When Big Boss left, Ocelot remained with the Patriots, though he despised their policies. In the 1980s, he left the Patriots and rejoined Big Boss to help build the Diamond Dogs.

Despite playing villain to Solid Snake throughout his adventures, MGS4 informed us that Ocelot's loyalty always remained with Big Boss. Everything that happened in MGS 1, 2, and 4 - from siding with Liquid and Solidus Snake, to grafting his hand with Liquid's arm and allowing it to take control of his body - was all done to help Big Boss combat the Patriots. He dies at the end of MGS4, thanks to the FOXDIE virus inside Solid Snake's body.

The Emmerich family has a long history with building machines of war. Huey's father was one of the scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project, designing the atomic bombs that would decimate Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Huey would go on to work as a mechanical engineer, perfecting research discovered in Operation Snake Eater that would give way to the bipedal technology found on Metal Gear. He also designed Peace Walker in 1974, believing that it would provide the ultimate form of nuclear deterrence. His son, Hal (or Otacon, as he's also known), would go on to develop Metal Gear REX in Metal Gear Solid - but let's back up a bit.

Big Boss rescues Huey Emmerich during the events of Peace Walker and brings him into MSF to design Metal Gear ZEKE, a nuclear-equipped walking battlemech. Before the events of Ground Zeroes, government organizations are catching wind of MSF and rumors that they may be hiding nukes. Big Boss and Kazuhira Miller dismiss these allegations and deny their requests for an inspection, but Huey sends another message allowing them to go ahead with the investigation, with the team wrapping up as Big Boss returns from his rescue mission at Camp Omega. The investigation was likely a ruse, however, as Big Boss returned to find MSF under attack from an unknown force. Was Huey the reason MSF was invaded, or is he merely a patsy to a larger double-cross?

Eli's only been shown in a few trailers, and only in a brief handful of scenes, but he is most likely one of the clones created during the Les Enfants Terribles project. More specifically, he's probably Liquid Snake, the villain of Metal Gear Solid. First off, Eli is the right age to be Liquid, considering The Phantom Pain takes place in 1984, and the Les Enfants Terribles project began in the early 1970's. He's blond, he does the same fist-pump-then-hop-into-Metal-Gear bit that Liquid does in MGS, and the back of his jacket has a series of Japanese characters that loosely translate to "liquid man". Oh, and at , the camera hovers over him and another kid who looks exactly like him, while Big Boss says, "'Les Enfants Terribles', Zero called it." Yeah, the kid has to be Liquid Snake.

Anyway, according to Metal Gear Solid, Liquid Snake and his father Big Boss don't exactly have the best relationship. Liquid feels slighted because he ended up with all of the recessive genes while Solid ended up with the dominant genes, even though Liquid doesn't know that the reverse is actually true. His ultimate wish is to surpass his father and his genetic destiny, and his attempt to do this comes during the Shadow Moses Incident. He ultimately fails, falling victim to the FOXDIE virus harbored inside Solid Snake's body.

Not much is known about Code Talker, but the mentions that language is the one thing that can bring multiple cultures and nationalities together.

This is where The Phantom Pain gets a little weird. We've seen that shows a young child wearing a gas mask while floating in the air, along with the appearance of a menacing man engulfed in flames (possibly Colonel Volgin, the villain from Metal Gear Solid 3). Is the child Psycho Mantis, the master psychic introduced in Metal Gear Solid? Does that make the man on fire a psychokinetic apparition, or his he real, too? Or is something else going on here?

Paz originally called upon Big Boss at the beginning of Peace Walker to help rid her country of a mysterious invading force, but was, in actuality, a double-agent working for Cipher. Her job was to keep tabs on Big Boss, MSF, and the development of Metal Gear ZEKE. When her cover was blown, she tried to make off with ZEKE, attempting to kill Big Boss in the process. Big Boss foiled her plans, and Paz is flung into the ocean in an explosion.

Big Boss learns that Paz survived the blast and is being held prisoner at Camp Omega, a US black site on Cuban soil. Because she knows of MSF's and, subsequently, Metal Gear ZEKE's existence, Big Boss infiltrates the camp to rescue her. After exfiltrating Paz via helicopter, he discovers a bomb planted inside her abdomen, but misses a second bomb - the one that supposedly destroys the helicopter and places Big Boss into a nine-year-long coma. Paz should surely be dead, right? Well, shows a Paz who looks very much alive, and who hasn't aged a day since the incident in 1975.

Big Boss meets Chico during the Peace Walker Incident during a rescue mission. Chico's older sister, Amanda, was a comandante for the Sandinista National Liberation Front, and urges Big Boss to rescue her brother from the enemy's clutches. Big Boss finds the young boy weeping, having sold out the location of his comrades. Big Boss takes pity on him, recruiting him to fight alongside him with the rest of MSF. It's there that Chico befriends and develops a crush on Paz.

Fast forward to Ground Zeroes. Chico learns that Paz is being held at Camp Omega, and so he leaves on his own to find and rescue her, inevitably getting captured as a result. Big Boss rescues Chico along with Paz, and exfiltrates via chopper. He witnesses the destruction of MSF along with Big Boss, Paz, and Kazuhira Miller, and is inside the helicopter when the bomb hidden inside Paz goes off. Chico's fate is currently unknown.

Major Zero was a British SAS officer and MI6 operative before joining the CIA and heading up the FOX Unit, a black ops squad specializing in infiltration, along with The Boss. He was Naked Snake's commanding officer during the events of Metal Gear Solid 3, and would go on to form The Patriots after Revolver Ocelot recovered the Philosophers' Legacy.

While Major Zero and Big Boss were allies for a time, Zero's Les Enfants Terribles cloning project created a schism between the two, causing them to become bitter rivals. Zero renamed The Patriots to Cipher and went into hiding, using proxies to relay orders to his operatives. Cipher and Big Boss would spend the next several decades fighting with one another, beginning with the Peace Walker Incident in 1974. Their conflict would eventually come to a head in 2014, as Big Boss finally ends Major Zero's life, putting a stop to The Patriots and Cipher once and for all.

While there's no word on whether Major Zero will actually make an appearance in The Phantom Pain, Skull Face and Paz make several references to Cipher throughout various cassette tapes in Ground Zeroes. Major Zero may never show his face, but it's likely that Cipher's shadow will hang over the proceedings like a storm cloud, and it's there's a good chance that , describing how he's found a way to make "the Boss' vision a reality".

Today/tonight (depending on your timezone), Bungie is taking to Twitch for a proper, in-depth reveal of : year two. Kickstarted by the mammoth Taken King expansion on September 15, this is going to be less a continuation, more a reboot. The old levelling system has gone. Many of your old weapons have gone. We're getting new enemies, new missions, new spins on old missions, and even whole new types of mission, alongside a whole bunch of new ways to play in the Crucible. But while we know what The Taken King is going to do in general terms, we don't know the details. Or at least we didn't, until now.

You see Bungie has released a trailer for the reveal (the stream happens live at 11am PST / 7pm BST), and although short, it's packed with details. In fact, there's so much going on, presented in all manner of suspiciously specific ways, that we can't help but suspect that Bungie is pre-revealing its reveal in condensed form for the most eagle-eyed of Destiny players to decipher. In fact we're sure that's what's going on. Because we are those players. And we've worked out loads of stuff. Click on.

Righty, here’s the overall gist of how the new levelling system works then. We already knew that the Light-focused system – whereby you can only progress past level 20 by accumulating a high enough total of Light attached to your armour – is going, to be replaced by a far less complicated, and far less grindy, traditional XP system. But now we know how equipment is going to play into that.

It seems that Light on gear ratings still exist, only now, rather than defining your level, they factor into your overall attack and defense ratings, your XP level dictating the quality of gear you can equip at any given time. In all, it’s not too different from any traditional RPG. You level up, you equip better stuff, you get stronger and more dangerous as a result of equipping that stuff. The only difference is that your ultimate attack and defense ratings will be decided by an average of your Light tally, not a total. Presumably this means an additional, ambient buff to existing attack and defense, rather the complete dissolution of traditional gear stats, but we’ll find out soon.

This is very interesting. ‘Exotic Blueprints’? Seems we’re getting our first look at how Exotic levelling will carry through from year one to year two, You might remember that Bungie has already revealed that year one Legendary weapons won’t be upgraded to year two standard, but the studio has remained resolutely quiet about the big yellow monsters. Well it looks like – while it’s still not 100% clear – we might have something to work with now.

First up, that division of the inventory into ‘Year 1’ and ‘Year 2’ is intriguing, particularly when you consider that there are duplicates between the two sections. Notice Monte Carlo and The Last Word, present in both the year one and year two sections? They’re slightly redesigned for year two, but it’s definitely them. This probably isn’t a historical collection we’re looking at here. It looks like you’ll be able to acquire a year two specced version of your existing Exotics, as well as discovering new ones. The physical redesign of the weapons - and use of the word 'blueprints' -certainly hints that we might be looking at new, Exotic 2.0 models rather than straight upgrades. Though whether all year one Exotics will make it through to year two remains to be seen. Our guess would be ‘no’. *cough*Gjallarhorn*cough*

Legendary Marks seem to be Destiny’s new currency for the majority of its gear. We’re highly hopeful they’re being used to unify the world’s economy under one denomination. Because let’s face it, Destiny’s various currencies started out relatively complex, and only got worse as around a thousand more were added over the course of year one’s updates and patches.

Looks like things might be getting a lot better and a lot more straightforward now though – a recurring theme in The Taken King. Legendary Marks are acquired from Daily activities and by dismantling Legendary gear (seeming to directly replace the now redundant Ascendant Energy and Ascendant Shards in that respect, both of which were used only in Destiny’s old, now defunct gear-upgrade system). Previously we had to use Crucible Marks or Vanguard Marks to purchase gear from vendors, depending on the respective shop’s allegiance, but you’ll notice that the video – probably very deliberately – shows Legendaries being used at the Crucible store. The next clip (starting at 0:23) very specifically shows 10 LMs being dropped at the end of a mission, so expect them to be relatively abundant, but not guaranteed.

If there’s one thing that Destiny’s PvE activities need in order to shake things up, it’s more Quests. When we’ve seen them in brief flashes – appearing as chains of mini-objectives in the two add-ons so far – they’ve been great, but all-too brief. Threading such smaller stories through the main ‘campaign’ line, independent from the core missions, has added a much more organic feel to Destiny’s story and world, but alas this stuff has always been over far too soon.

But now it seems that Quests will be a continual, always-present element of the game, 32 able to be open at any given time. And a quick skim of the currently shown Quests’ titles and descriptions is very interesting. They seem to act as background and side-stories to the main plot-line, which is highly intriguing, with plenty of original, unrelated tales to flesh things out too.

It seems that faction vendor loyalty is getting a rather shiny shake-up. Where currently, you can level up your reputation with the Future War Cult, Dead Orbit or New Monarchy by equipping their special class items to replace Vanguard and Crucible Point accrual with faction favour (in exchange for the ability to buy their specific, higher-level gear), it looks like loyalty will now be a slightly more formal, but far more cool-looking affair.

Cementing an allegiance in year two seems a simple case of saying ‘Yes’ to the vendor in question, with your ability to switch allegiances now limited to once-a-week frequency. The pay-off, though? It looks like you’ll be able to collect faction reputation at the same time as Vanguard or Crucible Points, and rather than looking like any other gear you might find, faction-specific merchandise is branded up in all kinds of cool ways. Take a look at the next slide to see how natty it looks.

It’s not 100% clear whether these designs are inherent to faction gear, or applied via faction-exclusive shaders, but either way, holy crap.

For those serious about building up their XP stash – and now that XP is the core means of levelling up, that should be everyone – this is a very big deal. We’ve all bemoaned our inability to pick up every Bounty we want to on a particular day, and this should solve that in one big hit.

Plus, you know, without increased Bounty access, year two’s levelling system basically would just not work. So, er, good job on making it work, Bungie.

We knew that new Ghost skins were coming, but now we can (sort of) see them. The whole purple-and-gold colour scheme looks rather classy indeed. No idea what they do yet, mind.

The trailer is topped and tailed with his appearances. Nolan North’s new Ghost aside, he’ll be the new main voice in your ear, a la Eris, Petra Venj and Variks. Given his affable nature and long-suffered pining for his adventuring glory days, he should be a hell of a lot of fun to have around. Oh, and did we mention that he's secretly Nathan Fillion under that mask? Yes. That.

We know that Artifacts are a new equippable item in year two. And we reckon this is one. You can also see differently coloured versions in the screens depicting the Crucible shop. We’re not 100% sure what they do yet, but given that they appear on your Guardian screen below your class items, we strongly suspect that they’ll imbue passive buffs. Think of them as Destiny’s equivalent of Final Fantasy’s relics or accessories, until we hear any different.

Another vague one, but it’s a good bet that these will be an evolved version of the current game’s emblems.

We really have no idea. Guesses?