For the first time since they left the Halo franchise, Bungie has been talking about games that are not Destiny – but they won’t be out soon.
Bungie are the masters of second chances. In 2000 they were bought by Microsoft and that seemed to guarantee them a life of making nothing but Halo games.
But the developers grew restless at constantly working on the same franchise and left to become an independent studio again in 2007.
They then walked straight into the arms of Activision, for a publishing deal for Destiny and its sequel. But when that relationship started to go sour last year they walked away again, taking over control of the franchise for themselves.
Their plans after that have been a little hazy but while they’ve committed to more Destiny 2 expansions, and a free-to-play version, they seem to have no intention of making Destiny 3 before 2022. But they have confirmed they want to make other non-Destiny games.
Bungie never specifically said that Destiny 3 wouldn’t be out before 2022, but since they have a five-year roadmap for Destiny 2 that would end that year there doesn’t seem to any time for it before then.
But in a new interview with IGN, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons revealed that the company’s overall goal was to become ‘one of the world’s best entertainment companies’ by 2025.
‘By 2025 we have a pretty specific path to make sure we transform Destiny and that we have other franchises within the marketplace’, said Parsons.
And if that wasn’t unambiguous enough, he added: ‘We need to build our publishing group, but part of our vision is also to become a multi-franchise entertainment company.’
It’s not clear whether work has begun on any new games, but Parsons implied that they would be at least somewhat similar to Destiny in terms of offering a persistent online world.
‘I think the long-term vision of Bungie would be, we have worlds like Destiny that are great places to go and build friendships in’, he said. ‘And we begin to introduce new worlds that people care a lot about’.
With financial backing from Chinese gaming giant NetEase, Bungie certainly has the funds to work on more than one game at once but it’s anyone’s guess as to when we’ll hear some concrete details about it.
Destiny 2: New Light (the free-to-play version) and Destiny 2: Shadowkeep (the paid-for expansion) will be released on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on Tuesday, 1 October.
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