In the last few weeks, Bungie have been pushing Destiny 2 to the hilt. Which is just to be expected, of course. The game releases in September (or October, sadly, in the case of the PC version), and the last few months before a AAA title’s release is a crucial time.

This is when devs get the early-adopters and preorder-ers on board. It’s the time for hawking season passes before a game’s even been damn well released, a lot of the time, although the Destiny sequel has spared us those kinds of shenanigans (so far). Most importantly, it’s during this period that we’re given some of the game’s juiciest details.

It’s a balancing act, though. We need enough to get us hyped, but not so much that we’ve seen everything the game has to offer. Bungie have taken care to tell us that this is Destiny 2.0, a bigger, bolder and ballsier space epic, but they’re not resting on their laurels either. There are changes afoot --big ones-- for the Destiny formula. Existing fans are being well catered to, but this is an all-new experience.

Earlier this month, the game’s director, Luke Smith, spoke to PC Gamer about the new and overhauled subclasses players will have to choose from in Destiny 2. First and foremost, he confirmed that the three subclasses fans are familiar with, Bladedancer, Sunsinger and Defender, are, ‘for all intents and purposes… gone.’ In their place, as we’ve already seen, come the Arcstrider, Dawnblade, and Sentinel.

Players who had become comfortable with their characters may have been disappointed by this change, but for Smith, it’s all in the name of important rebalancing. While he acknowledges that Sunsinger warlocks were super popular, the team saw the need to make changes. This style of play, as fans will know, discouraged use of your super, and that’s what Bungie had issues with. “That also makes things like counterbalance more of a headache than we want it to be,” Smith explained, “so we knew we wanted to give the solar Warlock an overhaul.”

This whole idea carries through everything that the team are doing with Destiny 2’s subclasses. The producer highlighted Bladedancer as another character in need of a change, having been considered very difficult to fight against. Especially when the game was new, this was an issue players found, and so the Arcstrider was introduced as a solution. Smith promises that this subclass “feels more fun and more fair to fight against.”

Destiny 2, in short, is going to be all about providing the player with a greater variety of options and playstyles, even within the pre-set classes. The Taken King’s Nightstalker and the new Sentinel Titan are both aggressive supporters, for instance, but the Sentinel’s shieldplay and Ward of Dawn is going to make for a whole new experience.

Head back over to the interview for more details on these subclasses, as we continue the long wait for release.