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After eight years, Bungie and Activision are splitting up. Where does Destiny go from here?

Bungie and Activision split up – where does Destiny go from here?

There were cheers, apparently, when Bungie management told an all-hands studio meeting that it was parting ways with Activision. From the outside looking in, it’s easy to imagine why. The divorce settlement sees Bungie, which owns the Destiny IP under the terms of the ten-year deal signed in 2010, gain independent publishing rights to its shared-world shooter. It now has full creative control of a game whose near-decade in existence has been fraught with problems. No wonder that, as one source told Kotaku, champagne corks were popping.

Yet it may not be as simple as that. There is much to celebrate about the notion of a 700-person studio, which gave the world Halo and Destiny, now being one of the biggest indie developers on the planet. Yet there is much to be concerned about, too. The Destiny story has always been a bit of a mess, and no doubt its hitherto publisher has had a hand in its chequered past. But the studio has been culpable as well, and it must embark on the next chapter in its grand galaxial adventure with no little caution. The real story in all this is not that Bungie has regained its independence; it’s that Activision was willing to walk away.

Activision gave Bungie ten years and half a billion dollars to make Destiny, but as a publicly listed multinational, its senior management and shareholders were naturally going to expect results. And it surely had cause to turn the screws occasionally. Bungie has long had an elastic relationship with the concept of a deadline; for all its profile and success, its development process has often been chaotic (co-founder Jason Jones described the making of Halo 2 as like watching “a cathedral self-assembling in a hurricane”). By the time the original Destiny landed on shelves in September 2014, Bungie was already running a year behind the terms of the contract. That delay bumped Destiny 2’ s due date back to 2016; the studio needed another year on top of that, and given the eventual state of the sequel, it could perhaps have done with even more time. According to reports, that wasn’t an option: if Destiny 2 missed 2017, Activision would be owed a chunk of Bungie stock by way of compensation. The furore that followed the launch of Destiny 2 was the darkest period in not just the game’s history, but also that of the studio that made it. The difficult repair job that followed has been handled with surprising elegance, but the damage was already done. Last September’s Forsaken expansion may have left Destiny in its greatest-ever shape, but Activision admitted in an earnings call it was “disappointed” with sales.

Yet that alone does not explain why Activision would abandon a series, and a studio, in which it had invested so much. Particularly when you consider what it is left with. Eric Hirshberg’s time in charge was successful, but was highly shorttermist, built on a handful of proven successes. Nothing is permanent in an industry that moves as quickly as this. Guitar Hero was milked dry. Call Of Duty is on the wane; over at Blizzard, World Of Warcraft continues its slow decline. Once Sekiro lands in March, Activision’s slate looks worryingly clean.

So, is Destiny 3, if it is to be called that, in similar trouble to its predecessors? Another Kotaku report claims that it, like the original game and its sequel, has been rebooted. But in-development games often are, and given the very public course correction Destiny 2 underwent in 2018, it’s perhaps to be expected that whatever comes next has needed to change in kind.

Indeed, the heart of it may be good old-fashioned musical differences. The journey from Destiny 2 to Forsaken has shown Bungie that its most important audience is its most passionate players. But there aren’t many of them, and Activision would prefer Destiny to become the next Call Of Duty. If both parties insist on pulling in two diametrically opposed directions, a split may be the only option.

Still, Activision is one new IP or studio acquisition away from resetting the situation, and it has the resources to do both several times over. And for Bungie, at least, the benefits are clear. While the publisher’s money and support helped bring Destiny to life, its traditional scheduling model is of no help to a live game. Bungie no longer needs to put something big in a box every September, or make two chunky DLC packages in between. In theory, the divorce enables the studio to move to a contemporary, and presumably more effective, liveservice strategy in which content is released individually as it is completed, keeping the game in the spotlight.

Bungie declined to go on the record for this story about its plans, and for now that’s probably the better option. It has a lot to think about, and much yet to do. The Destiny story is eight years old, yet it seems set to end with something of a new beginning. Ultimately, what happens next will be the thing that truly defines it.

If Destiny 2 missed 2017, Activision would be owed a chunk of Bungie stock by way of compensation