Destiny is the biggest property Bungie has worked on since the studio hit it big with the Halo franchise on Microsoft’s consoles. Now, it has Destiny all to itself.
Bungie announced on Thursday that it’s taking over Destiny for itself, effectively splitting from Activision, which it had released the game and its various expansions with over the last eight years.
Today, we're announcing plans for Bungie to assume full publishing rights for the Destiny franchise.
Read the full story at https://t.co/nxcJOVXAv6.https://t.co/RyD1jvi0hW pic.twitter.com/giFKmkyc9y
— Bungie (@Bungie) January 10, 2019
“When we first launched our partnership with Activision in 2010, the gaming industry was in a pretty different place,” Bungie said in a statement. “As an independent studio setting out to build a brand new experience, we wanted a partner willing to take a big leap of faith with us. We had a vision for Destiny that we believed in, but to launch a game of that magnitude, we needed the support of an established publishing partner.”
Since then, Bungie says, it’s grown an audience of millions of gamers and now says it’s ready to develop and publish the title on its own. Destiny 2 came out in 2017 and has seen some DLC releases, but as of this week, all future Destiny titles will only come from Bungie.
“We have enjoyed a successful eight-year run and would like to thank Activision for their partnership on Destiny,” Bungie said. “Looking ahead, we’re excited to announce plans for Activision to transfer publishing rights for Destiny to Bungie.”
Bungie said the process should be “as seamless as possible,” and perhaps the biggest news is that Destiny will still find a home on Blizzard’s Battle.net, at least for now.
Destiny 2 will still receive full support on BattleNet and we do not anticipate any disruption to our services or your gameplay experience. https://t.co/FFOE1iae3R
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) January 10, 2019
As Kotaku notes, there’s been tension between Activision and Bungie for years, namely over the annualized schedule for Destiny updates and new content at least once a year. The result has been some rocky titles and DLC, including Destiny: Forsaken, which failed to meet Activision’s sales goals. The site reports that when news of the split was announced at Bungie headquarters, employees cheered and some even popped champagne. Hopefully that means a bright future for Destiny, and maybe one that sees fewer releases of better products for gamers to enjoy.