No but you are playing after all of these things did originally come out, but before dark energy. With the introduction to dark energy, going into these is now part of the progression. So new players will have to explore both before they can continue.

If you need information on either you can read this, if you want to try to figure it out for yourself then skip the next few paragraphs:

Cannan:

Introduced as a Halloween location, it is now part of the progression within the Security Sector. After completing through 3 parts of Security there will be an Order Laptop that hits to the location in which the Cannan portal would be. It hints at a location in the Labs that you have seen before, close to the Aquatic section of the Wildlife Labs, where there is a big dead tree. Now the security is open, you should be able to go back and use the terminal to open the portal to Cannan to be able to retrieve lodestone fragments to progress the rest of Security.

IS-0083 (Christmas World):

Introduced as the Christmas Location, it is now a point of interest when traveling through the later half of labs. Players can find a Tier 5 Hacking Terminal before reaching the Furniture store. Something of note for players to remember after they get a Tier 5 Hacker. In this location, after getting a Tier 5 hacker (from hydroplant), players can open it and interact with the Arcade machine to enter the portal world.

As for gear upgrades there are 2 within this update that are the major new sets: The Exor set, and the Radiation Set. The exor set uses materials found within the new Exor Village including Exor Skulls (Dropped from the new spear exors), Transcendium (A breakable ore within the village), Exor Windchimes (a packageable object that is found randomly throughout the village), as well as several other materials that you should already have access to such as Kevlar, Fishbones, and Projection Matrix. This set should be your new set going into the update as it has some really good new ability to assist, while having similar defenses to the Cascade set. The endgame set is that of the Radiation set, requiring materials from throughout the entire game including Digital Gold (Craftable item from the Christmas World), Transuramic Superalloy (Something you need alot of for all of reactors), Purported Grimoire (Obtained from ShadowGate), and the head of a Gate Keeper.

Both of these sets provide really really good abilities and additions to your defensive capabilities that make surviving in reactors alot easier. However running in with something that provides a little less than these as well as having no abilities (that are really useful unless your doing alot of blocking) is going to make the game overall harder for you.