After Bungie Layoffs, Destiny 3's Future Looks Darker Than Ever

I have spent thousands of hours in Destiny 2and after Bungie's layoffs on June 25, it's hard to shake that feeling Destiny 3Now the future looks darker than ever. Even after all the frustration, burnout, bad decisions, and long stretches where I felt like I'd much rather be playing something else, I still don't know if any other shooter has ever felt quite like Fate. Bungie's gun games have always been what the franchise could fall back on when everything else was falling apart, which is why these layoffs, even more than Destiny 2s last patch, feels like the whole thing has really crumbled to a definitive end.

Destiny 2s last update, Monument of Triumph, already felt like a goodbye, but there was still a small part of me that wanted to believe it could pave the way for something new. Bungie's own shipping announcement said Fate needed to live beyond Destiny 2which gave me and many others just enough room to cope, I hope Destiny 3 or any other major Fate the project may eventually happen. But with most things Fate teams reportedly affected by the cuts, future projects still described as in early incubation, and Destiny 3 previously reported as not being in active production, that hope now feels like nothing more than a fool's hope.

Destiny 2's last update made Destiny 3 feel possible again

For a while, the Monument of Triumph made it almost possible to dream again. Instead of going out with a whimper, Bungie gave us one of the most significant, game-changing ones Destiny 2 updates we've ever seen, to the point that the Steam player alone has been breaking records for weeks on end. It was all the quality of life improvements that came rushing when Bungie finally decided to open the floodgates and give us what we've been asking for that kept us all coming back – and many of us, I think, willing to stick around for the foreseeable future. It's all been bittersweet, but it's also been one of the most powerful gaming moments I think any of us have ever had.

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The official dispatch language also left just enough room for us to hope. Bungie said Fate needed to live beyond Destiny 2talked about a new beginning and promised that players would hear more when there was more news to share Fate. Maybe those phrases weren't Destiny 3 teased in a concrete sense, but for a community that has spent years reading between the lines of tabs, post-credit moments, and weird wording in TWIDs, it was enough to make us wonder if this was all going to end with a massive April Fool's joke in June.

I, like many others, wanted to believe there was a plan behind the silence. Perhaps Destiny 2 needed to end so Bungie could finally stop trying to build a new future on top of a nine-year-old game. Perhaps the last update was the necessary closing chapter before something more sustainable could begin. It was the dream I clung to, however irrational it seemed. The problem is that dreams like this need people to build them, and after these layoffs, it's much harder to look at Bungie and imagine a hidden Destiny 3 the machine spins up behind the curtain.

Losing the team of destiny makes the dream feel almost impossible

The hardest part of this moment isn't just that layoffs happened. Layoffs are always brutal no matter what, and the human cost of cutbacks like this should be the first thing on anyone's mind. People who created the memories fans mourn are now losing their dream jobs, and no article about a video game sequel should treat it as just another bullet point in a business story.

Still, it's impossible to ignore what these layoffs likely mean for Fates future. Sony confirmed that the layoffs affect a significant number of employees, including most Fate team. said Bungie themselves Destiny 2 has not lived up to expectations in recent years and that, after the final content update, its future projects are still in early incubation. To me, that doesn't sound at all like a studio preparing to reveal or even start working on Destiny 3but as a studio just trying to survive the end of Destiny 2 so they can continue working Marathon with the people they have left behind.

Studio head Justin Truman's reported departure only makes the moment feel even more final. Leadership changes are always complicated, and there's no reason to pretend that one person alone determines the future of a franchise this big. Despite that, a massive layoff hit Fate team along with the departure of a studio head sends a very clear emotional signal to players who were still hoping that Bungie had another big Fate turn left.

For me, the most painful thing is to think about the people who created Fate feels like Fate. If reports and previous developer public posts are any indication, this “restructuring”, if you even want to put that label on these things anymore, will hit the people responsible for Destiny 2 sandbox. When former developers say something on social media about looking for new studios where they can help bring shooting and looting to modern standards, it says a lot about what the industry is losing at Bungie.

If the people who really understood the bones of the game are gone, or if most Fate the team in general has been hollowed out, that is Destiny 3 officially, it feels like something fans will talk about the way they talk about other games that never really existed. It becomes a what-if rather than a when. It will be a corridor that Bungie may not and probably never will go down.

Destiny 3's chances are extremely slim

All that said, I still want to be wrong. I'd love to wake up one day and see Bungie announce a focused, ambitious Destiny 3 that respects everything gamers loved while leaving everything behind Destiny 2 could never fix. I'd love to think that Monument of Triumph was a farewell to a version of Fatenot that Fate as a living, evolving idea. But right now it is difficult to see that future clearly.

Bungie is moving forward with Marathonfuture projects are still early, and the people who wore Destiny 2 through their final years are now scattered across the industry. There may still be something called Fate one day, though Destiny 3as we all imagined it, feels more distant than ever.

After these dismissals, say Destiny 3 looks unlikely feels like the understatement of the century. Rather, it looks like the dream of a community still trying to process the end of one of the most important looter shooters ever made. Monument of Triumph let's say goodbye Destiny 2but these layoffs make it feel like we might as well be saying goodbye to the one architect who could have built his future.

Released

August 28, 2017

ESRB

T For TEEN for blood, language and violence