It’s the age old question is it not? I doubt it is, but Bungie fans are most definitely asking themselves that question. Can Bungie rise up from the layer of dirt that Activision helped bury them under? Bungie and Activision parted ways in January of 2019, Activision allowed Bungie to keep full rights to Destiny and all the properties that come with it. Bungie has stated that they will continue going forward with the planned roadmap of Destiny 2, they also made sure to thank Activision for “a successful eight year run.” Many fans would rightfully question the term “successful” when you are using the word to describe what Destiny has accomplished so far. I believe most fans will tell you that while they definitely improved on the first Destiny, the second entry still didn’t blow us away either. The right word to describe the Destiny franchise so far, mediocre, but have faith, Bungie is no longer reporting to The Man per se, they can now put whatever they want in Destiny. Seems like a comeback of the decade is in order for Bungie.
Bungie is no stranger to the video game scene, they have been doing it since the early 90’s. They started off developing mostly computer games; having moderate success on that platform. We all know of course what really cemented Bungie as one of the most powerful development studios in the modern area, Halo of course. Not many people know this but Halo was originally going to be a third person shooter for Mac and Windows. That changed course when Microsoft purchased Bungie in 2000, leaving Halo to be exclusively on Microsoft platforms to this day. Bungie released three Halo titles while under Microsoft’s wings, all three being a success with critics and fans. Bungie and Microsoft split in 2007, but Bungie would continue to work with Microsoft until 2010. (Bungie developed Halo: Reach and Halo 3: ODST while being an independent company) In 2010 Activision and Bungie agreed on a 10 year publishing plan that we now know did not get to last the full 10 years. This partnership is where Bungie seemed to be making a smart financial decision, but fans were skeptical because of Activision’s checkered past. Activision of course has been looked at as a money hungry organization, similar to EA. Many fans were worried about Bungie’s future games and how much say Activision would have in their development cycle. Unfortunately, a lot of those fan’s worries came true.
Bungie released their first game that was published by Activision in 2014, that game of course was Destiny. Initially Destiny was given average review scores, roughly 7/10 from most media outlets. It played like an MMO, just not as much depth that you would expect from a game like that. Bungie fans saw this as a clear Activision move, since Bungie always released very linear first person shooters. To the more serious gaming crowd, this seemed to be a ploy for Activision to milk Bungie’s talent and gain a consistent income through dlc and micro transactions. Thus planting the first seed of distaste for the future of Destiny games. While Destiny had the signature smooth mechanics that come with Bungie games, it was obvious that there was a huge issue in the story telling of the game, eventually this was fixed with dlc content. Upon the release of the Taken King dlc, the game was looking much better, but still far from perfect.
Destiny 2 was released in 2017 and was met with slightly better reviews than the first game. This time around the story was much better, in fact, the main campaign was so well put together that it seemed the developers forgot to put enough effort into the post-game content. The experience was still leaning towards a shared world shooter that quite honestly, Activision could monetize to the fullest with the help of Bungie’s incredibly talented team. Again, it isn’t that it was a bad game, it just isn’t what people want out of Bungie. They want a game that has heart like the Halo series, and while Destiny 2 did that better, it still couldn’t hide all of the ways they wanted you to spend money. Now, while all this sounds bad there seems to be a happy ending in all of this, the breakup of Activision and Bungie.
Now with Bungie out from underneath Activision, they can do things the way they want to. The proof to this is shown perfectly on September 17, 2019 when Destiny 2 became free to play, not everything, but all the content that was released when the game came out, as well as all the first year updates. They didn’t stop there either, they did two things that I believe every gamer can truly appreciate; the game was switched from battle.net over to Steam, making the game much more accessible to PC gamers. Their other big change was making the entire experience cross compatible between PS4, Xbox One and PC, this is something I truly appreciate as I like to use all 3 to play on. Here are three beautiful things that Bungie has done in not even a full calendar year, leaving us to believe that we should have high hopes for the future of Bungie.
