It’s not been the best few weeks for legendary developer Bungie, as it’s seen its studio downscaled, one of its teams spun-off, and its management underfire. Now fans of Destiny 2 are beginning to ponder what’s next for the game they love – and the company that made it. All will be revealed in the near future, according to the organisation, it just needs a little more time.
“We know that recent changes at Bungie have created uncertainty surrounding the future of Destiny. Rest assured we remain committed to Destiny, to supporting our community with transparency, and to delivering regular updates about the game,” it wrote on social media. “We'll be talking with you all about the future of Destiny and plans for our next multi-year journey soon. Once we plant a flag for the date, we'll let you all know. Thank you for your patience, and we'll see you again soon.”
There had been reports that Bungie was scaling back its support for Destiny 2 following the release of The Final Shape. Development on its Marathon reboot is continuing behind-the-scenes, although a sci-fi action project it was incubating has been absorbed by parent company Sony, and its team will form a new branch under the PS Studios tree.
It’s unclear who’s actually calling the shots at Bungie right now: Sony confirmed when it acquired the developer that it would retain autonomous, although there had been rumours that it attached performance targets to the developer which it may have missed. It’s speculated that the Japanese giant is now tightening its grip on the studio, as it tries to protect its purchase and get the underperforming outfit back on track.
Was PlayStation's acquisition of Bungie a mistake? (2,658 votes)
- Yes, it's certainly starting to look like that
- Maybe, but I think it's still too early to say
- No, the developer brings big value to Sony
- I really don't know to be brutally honest
[source twitter.com]
Comments 17
It's always been a mistake. It was done under investors' pressure looking at Microsoft buying spree. They didn't know better back then. Even accounting for that, purchasing a studio with the single game past its prime as the sole revenue source coupled with insane headcount is a recipe for financial disaster.
Sony is best at acquisitions when they buy small(ish) teams rising to glory, not overblown companies with delusions of grandeur
I think the price was a bit too much but overall I don't think it was a mistake as there's obviously talent there and they have an IP that rakes in the money every year. I just think the studio needs some restructuring and to focus on getting Marathon out the door which has the potential to be a huge hit.
I want Marathon to be good so badly. PS5 needs a good extraction shooter and I LOVE the aesthetic direction they're taking with it.
Far too many looked at the acquisition and judged it based on what exclusive games PlayStation was getting out of it. But that was never the goal. IP acquisitions has never been Sony's reason to own studios with the only exception been Psygnosis and that was back in 93 when Sony needed a 1st party studio to launch PlayStation with.
Bungie are still a world class studio that has been badly managed for years, that's badly damaged their reputation. But hopefully if Sony have taken on more direct control and can do for them what they did for Naughty Dog, Guerilla Games, Sucker Punch and Insomniac (in helping them to become huge successful studios by making best in class games) then that's a mouthwatering prospect in the coming years.
@AdamNovice yeah if anyone can turn Bungie around it’s Sony. I think with Sony now taken over Bungie they can help better manage Bungie development time and cost.
@get2sammyb could they make an announcement at Gamescom what are we 10 days away from the Geoff show at Gamescom.
The Marathon-in-name-only game just annoys me so much.
Bungie could remake/reimagine the original Marathon series and do it so amazingly well. But nope, live service extraction shooter. Yay.
I hope Durandal was able to escape the universe after all.
The future/Destiny for Bungie: making more employees redundant
Why can't Sony just do a roadmap for the future of PlayStation, sigh...
@MFTWrecks I am genuinely interested to see which multiplayer game survives longest - marathon or concord
It clear Sony is slowly taking control of Bungie. I don't think this is Microsoft situation where management will buy Sony out either. I wouldn't be surprised if in five years it a completely different management team and all that really remains is Bungie the name, and Destiny and Marathon and it other IPs.
@Neither_scene Ah, yes. A true modern fan. Nothing like hoping for the failure of multiple titles, amiright?
@MFTWrecks so you think both titles will be around for multiple decades?
In the current economic climate and given the failure rate on live service titles, particularly new IP, it’s quite unlikely that they both achieve the success that Sony would demand in order to achieve continued funding and support.
I know nothing of marathon, but the current situation at bungie is obviously pretty dire and rumours have suggested multiple shifts in direction for the game during development. Concord is a known, and the play tests have not really set the world on fire and the uptake on the open play test was pretty lacklustre.
I don’t want either to fail as I don’t want any of the devs working at the studios to lose their jobs. Unfortunately for both, Sony and its shareholders will be measuring their success against that of helldivers.
Edit: Jason Schreier just recently had this to say: "[Marathon] sentiment is not great, there's a reason it slipped a whole year and some developers don't even think it'll even hit it's current deadline"
Sony Just isn't a fit for Bungie and they payed way to much for them.
They could start by just enabling all the old campaigns so you can play the whole Destiny 2 story from start to finish.
@MFTWrecks I just hope it has some kind of progression system attached to it like Vigor has with upgrading your base with the materials you extract. Otherwise it'll get old very fast.
I played a lot of D1 on about every platform. A flawed fun game then D2 came and was just a absolute rollercoaster in a bad way mostly for 7+ years. Gambit was the true shining star in that mixed bag of story and expansions. The gunplay and movement is what kept Destiny alive. It just felt too good to play.
Honestly 'Destiny' is done and it should have been done if D3 was never planned years ago.
They need to get Marathon in a absolute aggressively impressive state to wow back fans. Then possibly keep it going via expanding on modes and make single player content over time to get new players to join and try to get hooked on multiplayer.
Bungie was the leader in their FPS "space" for so long if they can't do it with Marathon maybe it's time for a company full reset or split into different companies within Sony if the " Bungie magic" is gone as a large entity.
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