Developer Bungie has ended its eight-year partnership with publisher Activision and is taking full control of the Destiny franchise. The news was revealed in a blog post on Bungie’s website, which revealed that the transition is already in its early stages, as Activision transfers Destiny publishing rights over to Bungie.
According to Kotaku, Bungie and Activision had shared a tense relationship since before the release of the first Destiny game. It seems like that tension was only made worse when Destiny 2: Forsaken, Bungie’s latest expansion for the game, failed to meet Activision’s sales expectations.
The studio originally had a 10-year publishing deal with the publisher, and there were even rumours that Bungie was beginning work on Destiny 3. It remains to be seen whether Bungie does indeed plan to move forward with another Destiny game. At the moment, the developer plans to continue to work on Destiny 2 and the upcoming updates it has already promised.
“With Forsaken, we’ve learned, and listened, and leaned into what we believe our players want from a great Destiny experience. Rest assured there is more of that on the way. We’ll continue to deliver on the existing Destiny roadmap, and we’re looking forward to releasing more seasonal experiences in the coming months, as well as surprising our community with some exciting announcements about what lies beyond.”
Destiny 2‘s current DLC roadmap promises updates all the way through this August, including both free and paid content. At this time, it sounds like that’s still the case.
Bungie’s split from Activision couldn’t come at a more interesting time for the studio, which is in the process of creating a brand new IP after receiving a $100 million investment from Chinese publisher NetEase in June 2018. The new game is rumoured to be called Matter, although Bungie has made no official announcement regarding the project beyond its partnership with NetEase.
We’ll keep you updated as we learn more about this new era for Bungie and what’s next for Destiny.