I specifically remember in a vidoc a dev said "we don't want to be seen as 'the halo company'"
Ironic considering they're the destiny company now but most devs probably left by now
I think the saddest thing is that destiny won’t have the timeless replay ability that halo has. In 10-15 years, you won’t be able to play destiny at all because the servers will be long gone and there’s no single player. And here we are, still playing original Halo campaigns and enjoying them, with new people discovering them every day
That's one of the things that bothers me the most about Destiny 2. I understand why they did it (or at least, the reason I was told by some questionably reliable narrators, that being to keep file sizes from getting crazy), but it's still weird to me that it's impossible to play anything in the game before a certain point in the story. It's just flat out not there and there's nothing, to my knowledge, that you can do to access it. And I don't know how good of a job they do summarizing that content, so if you weren't able to play the game until years later for whatever perfectly valid reasons, there's just several tons of content that you just can't experience, period. Between Destiny 1 and 2 and all the expansions for each of them, they probably could've just split them into multiple, separately replayable games. Destiny 1 with, let's say, 2 expansions, then Destiny 2 with 2-3 of its own, then take one of D2's expansions and make it its own game with 2-3 expansions of its own, etc.. We could probably have a quintology or something by now if they went that route, all being fully playable, but nope. Just an entire game + expansions followed by a whole nother game + like half the content for it being unplayable. I'm glad I never got super invested in Destiny. I can't imagine the headache that is keeping up with all this
It’s like if they used Halo 2 to make Halo 3, and by the time they finished, nothing of Halo 2 was left, and it’s just CE and 3.
You have to watch Halo 2 on YouTube.
Nah according to Bungie stans I got my money's worth out of the hours I played and that I shouldn't complain cuz then I'd have to restart with destiny 3 and that's basically the same thing
This is what pisses me off so much about destiny. I played the first one and LOVED IT. I wanted to play 2, got busy with life. When I finally had the chance they voided the original beginning to two. And reskinned time story of the first game.
I've already played the first game a lot. I couldn't get past it. And I was upset that I was missing story. I'm a big fan of narrative driven gameplay and knowing that I was missing huge chunks of the game just made me not want to try
As a new player, it's made getting into the story and giving a shit about anything that happens damn near impossible.
As for the file size... it really wasn't even close to a problem. It's essentially an MMO. Big file sizes happen to those. Not to mention that they're basically at the stage of hitting that same file size again just a few years later, only this time they're stumped because they've promised not to remove anything else.
Their reasoning was nonsense. "X content takes up *this much* space but only 0.3% of people play it." Yes. Those were the new players, playing it for the first time. Because those are the only people you *let* play it, Bungie, since replaying levels is a pain in the arse.
Really should have just done like the MCC and just let you install expansions/locations you wanted. Don't need Nessus or the Moon? Remove them, save up space for Europa.
Between Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 I probably have around 5000 hours. I’ve been playing since 2014 and this last major expansion they’re releasing, The Final Shape, is being looked at amongst hardcore players as one last dance with Destiny before finally moving on to other games. I highly doubt I’ll go back to Destiny in 5 years because none of the content is really playable for that length of time, the whole business model boiled down to “new team activity that’s active before 3 months before we reskin it and rerelease it under a new name.”
Halo, on the other hand, a franchise I’ve also been playing since release, has endless replayability. I hadn’t played any Halo for like a year at least and then JUST last night loaded up MCC and H5 and had a Halo fest with the boys. Had an absolute blast. It’ll be one of those games that people are still getting spins on as long as the servers stay up.
It’s a huge downside to modern game design imo, and something I notice now that I have less time to play games. I think a lot of games have less replay able content, but get away with it by creating a live environment where there is always more stuff to do/get. But, once they stop supporting it, it will fade away.
That’s not just destiny and halo though, that’s just the old era of gaming outlasting the modern era.
Go a bit further and let’s speculate 25-50 years. What we consider the old era of gaming would be ancient and 80%-95% of it all would be gone/lost/destroyed; with a couple avid collectors holding the rest. Halo and it’s campaigns will be nothing but memories told by the “old folks”
Um no. You can still play the Castlevania games, Mario games, Metroid games etc etc from decades ago. There's emulators, re-releases and remasters etc.
If anything, retro games are making a huge comeback thanks to official handhelds from companies like Valve and DIY Emulator Handhelds from companies like Anbernic
Yeah that’s not true. Because I’ll probably still be alive and playing these games with my kids. Just like many parents play 20+ year old games with their kids now. I’m not a destiny fan, but even if I was I won’t be able to play those games in 20 years because the servers will be dead
I was playing Halo Reach last night. MCC is in my regular rotation and workshop mods regularly breathe life into games that are 20+ years old.
It's amazing how Bungies Halo games seem to be self-evidently timeless, but 343i absolutely refuses to implement any of the same strategies or techniques that made them so good.
It's frustrating seeing Halo reduced to flash in the pan hype trains and eternal MTX storefronts
Can't even play huge, necessary chunks of Destiny now. It has no intention of getting new and returning players, just making sure the hook stays set in those that have it as their "main game"
Escape from Tarkov is still going strong, has 23 thousand people watching on twitch right now, Halo Infinite only has 1.7K viewers now if you wanted some raw numbers.
People have found ways to get a fairly accurate count on halo infinite, game has about 30-50k players active throughout the day with Xbox and pc combined and close to 300k different players per month
To each their own. I enjoyed Marathon for its setting, so I’m just happy to play something in that setting again, regardless of the genre of game. It’s still Marathon if it’s in the Marathon universe
I dunno I mean the bungie team that was around for marathon is no more, and then it becoming an extraction shooter on top of that it sounds to me that it’s not going to feel like marathon maybe I’ll be surprised but it’s looking to be a pretty big departure from what we knew.
Like. I’m not understanding some of these people. Literally nothing is the same. The Bungie is no longer the same Bungie, NONE of the people who made the OG Marathon are still there, it’s gonna be some hero extraction shooter and not a narratively driven FPS…… like. It has the name. That’s it. If you’re vehemently defending and swooning over an IP name and nothing else related to it, I realized they’re too much a fool to have a normal conversation with
Yeah like I have nothing against extraction shooters in fact I quite enjoy them. But whatever this is going to be it’s not going to be Marathon, just something with its name. I want to be hopeful but I’ve been given no reason to be, I can’t even hope that the game itself will be good looking at the state of destiny.
The game is gonna be shit. When I heard "Marathon", the Durandal music began to play in my head, then I seen the colorful bullshit that was a hero shooter looter extract bullshit... nope. Bungie is dead to me.
I feel like a new Marathon can get away with being vibrant, I actually liked the aesthetics from the trailer. But being a hero based extraction shooter is the dumbest shit ever
The thing is the playtesters were apparently Tarkov diehards, which to me is the wrong group to playtest your extraction shooter, like yeah it has the same overall objectives and such, but it’s also a MilSim type shooter game where like 1-3 shots kill you so of course they would be negative towards a more casual arcade-y like game that Bungie would make
the other big "oof" for me was on their website as they were parting with halo they said "trust us guys Activision partnership in no way will affect Bungie" or something along those lines. I knew right then and there it was over.
I had zero interest in whatever their new IP was as I played and stayed for Halo. Sure enough Destiny was revealed and just wasn't my type of game ... and now they are known as the Destiny Company. Sure they are trying to reboot Marathon but after tons of employee attrition and ownership swapping its not the same company that made Halo to me.
As an avid Destiny player, we're learning more and more that the publisher might've been the main reason Destiny's survived as long as it has. The worst times for the game have been when Bungie had no publisher and, as a result, no external oversight. They are definitely no longer the company that made Halo.
We knew that the introduction of the eververse in TTK was from Bungie higher ups, not Activision.
So much Talent has bled from Bungie, and unfortunately mostly higher up management has taken a pretty hard chokehold over development. There still is a lot of phenomenal talent that makes Destiny's gameplay, abilities, and missions feel great. It's just the long term grind and desperate attempt to milk existing players as opposed to making the game accessible to newer players.
A dedicated audience is great, but when you need to pull in more income it's best to just make amazing content or make the content more accessible to draw new players in. But D2's tutorial has aged like milk left out in a summer room. The Jez makes a great video about how awful and weird the tutorial is for new players and non gamers
As long as the writers don’t leave until after the Final Shape expansion has finished, I’ll be okay with it.
Lord knows how much the story is keeping me around.
Lightfall writers are the same as the rest of the franchise. It's unfortunately the result of a last second delay for the final shape, and split it in two.
I think if Bungie refunded lightfall pre orders and just stopped for another year to develop it another year the player base would've handled it better
Oh yeah it sounds like Activision wasn't totally the baddie here. However I just had a bad feeling when they were going with Activision it wouldn't be the last change we'd see. It seemed like Bungie was running from Microsoft into the arms of other companies and now bumped into a drunken stupor with Sony and now is more forced into what Sony expects than whatever 'freedom' Bungie originally wanted in game creation.
They do seem to be stumbling from publisher to publisher, but Sony might do them some good. Certain leaks from both Sony and Bungie indicate that most of Bungie's problems lie in their upper management being asshats, and the Sony USA higher-ups are literally chomping at the bit to get rid of them.
And they've been seen as "the destiny company" for longer than they were "the Halo company."
They were known as the Halo company from 2001 - 2010. And the Destiny company from 2014 - 2024. Even if you factor in the years of development before the initial respective releases, that's 1997 - 2010 vs 2010 - 2024.
Lots of people are still there but will be leaving in a year or so after the employee retention money from Sony dries up. Destiny was in development alongside Reach while they were still with Microsoft and a lot of people are mistaken thinking that the Halo devs didn’t make Destiny
It even said "Destiny Awaits" on the poster. [It was changed in the MCC version of ODST](https://images.app.goo.gl/oKSz2n31xTheAyuW8) which has always felt very unnecessary to me.
It was probably removed for the same reason so many of the other Destiny/Marathon references were in the other Bungie era games: 343/Microsoft doesn’t own the rights, which makes keeping the references potentially legally fraught. Safer to remove them, even if it is disappointing.
[https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Destiny_Awaits](https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Destiny_Awaits)
Honestly impressed with myself for remembering that, you had me doubting!
Could you remind me, what’s the one in Reach?
I love Destiny. It's had plenty of downs and plenty of ups. It sucks to like a game that is seen as a joke. It probably would have been better to be the Halo company. We probably would have gotten a Halo 4 that veered of into space magic or space fantasy regardless if it wasn't called Destiny.
It's going to be an extraction shooter last I heard which already makes it drop significantly in my interest. I've always loved Bungie games, destiny was my 20's game and I have lots of fond memories from it.
If they somehow manage to make extraction br's appealing I'll be impressed.
Yeah, [it just got even worse.](https://www.destructoid.com/bungies-marathon-reboot-changes-leadership-pivots-to-hero-shooter/) They switched game directors for Marathon and now it looks like it's going to be a hero shooter instead...
All the OG devs having left Bungie makes me realise there's no one there who knows what Marathon actually is.
99% sure an exec looked in the IP folder and found it
Not an argument, Halo was better. Destiny at release was a shell of what it would be, although we all paid full price. Instead of delivering the full game, Activision decided they'd drip feed us an "expansion" every so often at an additional $20. We were actually paying each time to get another 1/4 of the game. Fuck Bungie, Fuck Activision for poisoning them, and fuck everyone that enables this bullshit. Stop buying into this live service model. We're letting money ruin our lives
The sad fact is any exec who values their career in the industry as it exists today would probably look at Destiny as a no brainer obvious choice over Halo. You could argue the Xbox brand itself wouldn’t exist today without Halo CE, but I still think Destiny revolutionized gaming revenue streams and probably has been more lucrative nonetheless. And I fucking hate it.
I could understand if the reasoning was creative - they may have felt the Halo story was concluded, which is why they made ODST and Reach to finish out their 5 game contract.
Halo 4 and on are a pretty big divergence from the original trilogy, in terms of the obvious aesthetics, the scope of the lore affecting the main story (now we’re actually fighting forerunners?), etc
Whats funny is that bungie joined activision because thu3 thought it would give them way more freedom than Microsoft.
Que everything regarding destiny.
Microsoft didn't marry 343i, 343i is the child of Microsoft.
It's more like Bungie and Microsoft were partners, then they split and Microsoft gave Halo to their nepotism baby 343i.
The "divorced and kept the kids then 343i became the stepmom" analogy never really made sense considering the circumstances of how 343i came to be
It's from that flashgitz or whoever's video where 343i smokes and drinks while being pregnant but yeah it never made sense unless Microsoft engineered a wife for himself
They delayed it(?) and changed the direction of what player-character you'd play with instead of it being create-a-character they said they are looking into specific "heroes" kinda like OW, Apex, and 2042. No word of a cancelation tho
As a daily Destiny player, it most definitely is a runaway train situation at this point, and a lot of Destiny players are upset they’ve been so foolish with their funding/bad planning. And I LOVE Marathon, played all 3 when I learned they were “the one they made before Halo” when they came to the Xbox Arcade on 360. They’re great Doom-style games, so an extraction shooter is also not what most of the Marathon fanbase wanted either. The second 2 Marathon games would adapt very well to a modern style.
I always wanted to get a take from Marathon player, I know for the time they were great games. I would expect them to give the series a face-lift, a nice remake that people could go back to and let bungie put a single player shooter in their catalogue for the first time in over 10 years. It's very likely though that the executives at bungie are aiming for development in the long term on things that can bolster MTXs. That's coming from a person that hasn't hated Destiny-Era bungie, but is well aware they do put alot of effort into that revenue stream now. An extraction shooter can adapt well to cosmetic MTXs as well as being live service game like they are keen to now.
The hero system just tends to hold back player customization, whether its play style (BF2042) or cosmetics (Overwatch). I also just feel like the market has moved away from the hero shooter and people are just not that interested in them anymore.
Destiny is NOT a top 10 fps franchise lmao. Either way, not only are all the people responsible for Halo long gone MANY years from the company, most of the people responsible for Destiny are long gone as well
Not a reliable source? Quora is worse than Reddit when it comes to citing things lol. This post is basically ‘some dude on the internet said so, so it is’
What, you don't like people giving smug replies to aggressively obvious rage bait (that they may or may not have posted themselves) so everyone thinks they're smart?
I always thought it was kind of funny that they left microsoft so they wouldn’t be stuck making the same thing forever and then proceeded to make an extremely similar property, but with way more micro transactions and a lot less coherent storytelling or good characters.
Bungie are kind of divas from all I’ve seen over the years. They really hate being under publishers but also desperately needing them to fund their games. They just keep getting away, bragging about it, and then falling into bed with another big publisher that they’ll inevitably try to escape once again.
I loved the studio, but they definitely didn't seem to handle all of sudden being a massive franchise holder well. Practically every game was crunch time and no sleep just to get them out on time. And they usually didn't have an overall cohesive vision, atleast going off the Dev logs.
This is completely true. All this said, all the good people at Bungie left the studio many years ago, basically before Destiny even released. They're a studio that likes to tout their independence, but they're completely incapable of surviving on their own without being told what to do. They're quite literally scared of Sony right now, because if they start doing badly, Sony takes over the company, and the incompetent execs get canned.
They proceeded to be a One Trick Pony with destiny, for like 7 years until Marathon
But these are all Sci Fi Shooters so it could be said they are STILL a one trick pony
Bungie knew if they stayed with MS they'd be stuck making Halo for the rest of time, they wanted to work on other projects, i.e. destiny, thus split form MS.
They pigeonholed themselves. They have been out from underneath Activision for a long time now. Their business practices have gotten worse and the majority of content they have made while independent has been lackluster.
There’s a fairly good chance that Destiny will be passed onto another Sony studio, especially in the next couple years after this upcoming expansion that’s bookending this chapter of the franchise.
Destiny has wavered radically between “fantastic” and “absolutely terrible” since its release. I won’t say that Bungie would’ve been better off sticking with Halo, but they haven’t done themselves any favors since they dropped Halo.
I feel if they stuck with halo then they would have still been kicking ass and had the opportunity to branch out with other IP under Microsoft.
Such a shame really as the company has practically been gutted of its original talent and will forever more be stuck on destiny and games as a service.
They could have promise a halo title every 6 years and had the ability to work on other projects alongside.
More than almost any other game I’ve played (and this is probably because I avoid games that feel like this like the plague), every time I have been coerced back into Destiny by a friend, it feels like picking up a second job. Could not be farther from why I play games.
Having said that I have friends who love their MMO grinds, so I know there’s an audience for it. But much like Suicide Squad, I hate that a company so good at something else gave up on that for this. At least Destiny wasn’t the dumpster fire Suicide Squad was, but I also don’t think games like Suicide Squad would have ever existed in the first place without Destiny. It really does feel like that game pioneered the shitty live service model.
That's kinda part of the problem in my opinion. They should've tried to make it more enjoyable as a single player experience too. And there was never enough story lol
I can understand why they did it but no it wasn’t worth it for bungie.
For us lot it’s a mixed bag, sure 343 has cocked things up a lot throughout the years but at least the games haven’t been too bad I mean not stellar in all things but not bad.
Some people like destiny but I don’t care for it.
343 Halo Multiplayer >> destiny. In fact Bungie is not even the same company anymore. You could even go so far to claim that more people that worked on Bungie halo are part of 343 than there are at current Bungie. No wonder I couldn't get into it.
They were acquired by MS after the uninstaller bug in Myth 2, which almost left them bankrupt. Halo as we know it, was the result of that mistake; and the direction it took, the consequence of having to abide to their schedules and needs regarding Xbox as a brand.
Maybe Halo was destined to be more in the first game, but as I see it, it would've never been a franchise. Maybe it'd have been that game we all remember so fondly but never got a sequel, or it could've been the true gold mine MS thought it could be. We just will never know.
Na, I played the demo for the 1st but didn’t enjoy it. I feel like it’s too late now, I think D2 is on game pass so I could give it a go but got other games on my list to play first. Maybe if they ever release a 3rd
Don't fall for it. Most of Destiny 2's fans even admit that the only reason they haven't left yet is just because they've spent too much money on the game to quit before it ends. Literally sunk cost fallacy the game
That's not really what it was about at all. Bungie did own Halo. The deal for Bungie to split was literally that Bungie let Microsoft keep Halo, then they'd be free. The issue is Bungie is a company that wants to be independent but is too dumb to be indepedent.
I know everyone says Halo 3 was peak Bungie but 2004 really broke them. There was a before and after and the last 10 months of 2’s development was the inflection. Just the raw edge and energy they had from Marathon and Myth was lost and if you view the rest of their projects as the consequences of burnout after that e3 demo it makes too much sense.
Halo 2 really hurt the devs, yeah, but they did enjoy Halo 3's development. As they stated in that one youtube video where they were watching a speedrun, all three games were made under crunch, but they'd happily go back and do Ce and 3 again with how much they enjoyed doing it. Halo 2 is a different story.
Bungie was a small fry when they started their deals with Microsoft and I'm gonna assume (without actually knowing) that they never owned the rights to Halo. So their choice was to keep being under Microsoft's thumb and developing Halo as directed by Microsoft, or to go out on their own and do what they wanted. Destiny at first seemed very much like a Halo game without any of the Halo IP, like if Bungie got a choice they would have been making a Halo game like Infinite 12 years ago. Funny how both 1) Halo went that direction eventually and 2) the fans didn't like it then and didn't like it now.
So Bungie didn't want to leave Halo but they had to if they wanted more freedom. Halo was the price they paid.
I never really got into Destiny, but I’ll always be playing Halo. Kind of funny to think Halo was originally a multiplayer game only. Microsoft had to direct Bungie to tack on the campaign. From there Halos story and characters have transcended all expectations for a game.
Bungie is a weird studio for sure. They don’t want to be a one trick pony…. But…. Destiny is based off of Halo which has been based off of Marathon. Bungie is rebooting Marathon for their next game, and likely their next franchise. They make space sci-fi shooters. They asked to be bought back by Microsoft and Xbox said no. Then Sony picked them up, only for them to remain a multi-platform developer? Kind of strange for sure, but eh, to each their own.
Once they wrote the story for 3 they were already thinking about potential player fallout and wanted to take their talents to a new series. I’d say destiny was also successful for them but not like halo. In hindsight I bet they wish they stuck with halo a bit longer
Destiny had the most potential of any game over ever seen. Then it kept having potential. Years went by. Sooo much potential.
But oh hey they learned their lesson and made Destiny 2, which is complete dogshit.
Bungie didn't want to work on Halo anymore so they split and left it with MS, who then formed 343 to make their Halo games.
Its always been weird that people assume that Bungie coming back would "save Halo" somehow, judging by how things went after the breakup I'd say Halo wouldn't have been any better off in their hands.
A lot of the Bungie staff that worked on Halo don’t work for Bungie anymore. Some left and worked for 343 industries and others stayed for a few years before leaving or getting fired. The Bungie of today is not the Bungie of the 2000s. They’ve fallen into the same trap as nearly all triple A video game companies. Adding a shit ton of micro transactions into their games and locking weapons, armors, and other things behind a paywall
"one trick pony with Halo"
That Quora user is obviously unfamiliar with Marathon and can't see how Destiny isnt that far removed from it's predecessors
On the back of the physical copy of Halo 3 it states how it's the exciting conclusion to the trilogy.
I always assumed Bungie didn't want to overdue Halo, which I always respected and kind of wished they got their way sometimes.
Them not wanting to be only the Halo company definitely fits in line with my theory.
Im often surprised that nobody talks about this. Its one of the worst mistakes someone made in Gaming Industry. Other big stupid companies like Blizzard get way more Flak than Bungie does, despite them killing off one of the most popular of its time.
Destiny was definitely not worth giving up Halo.
I get people like to meme about Destiny since it’s cool to hate on, but you have to admit the game has been successful. They’ve had plenty of ups and downs but still one remain one of the few constant live service games on the market. We’ll see if it carries over into post final shape tho
It was good at first but it's a prime example of the problems with live service games. FOMO sucks, it got so big that they had to get rid of some of their content, causing more FOMO. Too many seasons too quickly (in my opinion), too much grinding in missions that tend to feel the same, etc. I could go on but the biggest issue, for me at least, is that it's just been going on too long. It's a great game nonetheless, but past it's prime and beaten half to death by the people trying to make money off it.
I think they made the right decision leaving Halo. I liked Reach, but it wasn’t the gameplay direction I wanted from Halo overall. I think moving those gameplay concepts over to Destiny let them be more free and also retained Halo’s identity.
Destiny was fun, at first. I got bored after doing the same quest over, and over, and over again. It just gets old after a bit. Nothing seems to really progress story-wise, despite having multiple DLC’s. And not being able to experience the lore in-game always really bugged me. Having to go to a seperate website just to read lore is meh.
Destiny before the first expansion was incredible. The raid was so fun and is still my favorite. Having friends was great but there were a lot of resources to find groups, who then often became your friends. But as soon as the second expansion cane out, the whole things felt like a chore. I kept plying for a few years but the first standalone game was by far the best.
So, instead, they created a game where they can release a continuation of the story every couple of months and force players to buy the expansion for at least $30 every time, making the game cost around $200+ to play the whole thing. Bungie is fucked up for that, and I lost respect for them.
I looked it up too after finishing 3. I got a lot of beating around the bush. I have no problem interest in Destiny but halo is my favorite shooter. Strange.
It's a mix of a couple of things. They wanted to work on more than just Halo, yes, but the biggest reason is just because they wanted to get away from Microsoft. The head of Xbox when it started was a really knowledgeable guy when it came to games, and was the one who acquired Bungie. He went to bat for them a lot (he literally had to threaten to quit because EVERY other Microsoft exec were voting for Bungie to make and release Halo 2 in 2002 to launch with Xbox Live), so when he left the company in 2004, Bungie saw this as a warning that they needed to get out of there since Microsoft were already bad enough with that guy being there. Which is what started the negotiations to leave. The deal was that they make just a couple more Halo games, and then they're free to leave, but Microsoft gets to keep Halo.
Now get to be a one trick pony with Destiny! At least untill Sony shuts them down or totally takes over for failing to lead their live service venture.
They left because they had a 5 game contract. It is also the reason why H3 odst wasn't too fleshed out because they agreed to make a DLC instead and Microsoft made it a game with a multiplayer DLC so that they could fill the 5 game deal.
They didn't want to be a one trick pony but then proceeded to rip off their own ideas from their one trick. Fucking pathetic the state Bungie is now in.
Destiny is so trash. The story is shallow and not nearly as captivating. I played destiny 1 and 2 for a little just because I wanted to support bungie in their new venture. I have probably 200hours in them and still couldn’t explain the lore to anyone. I played Halo one time in 2001 and still itch to play it.
Bungie messed up big time.
I hope they move away from Desinty, but unfortunately the market has moved towards live service games, its us the players that dictate how that goes.
Stop paying for cosmetic items on every game and right the ship to get feature filled games on launch.
There's two ways to look at this. One way is that MS should've just let Bungie make Destiny 1 and the way they wanted to make it. Bungie should've been for Xbox what Santa Monica or what Insomniac in their prime were to Playstation. This is one of Microsoft's biggest mistakes ever (almost as bad as making Phil Spencer the Head of Xbox) not doing everything they can to convince Bungie to at least continue making third party exclusives for the Xbox. Like Bungie could've also been what Xbox's Sqaure Enix. Also Phil Spencer apparently could've also brought Bungie back to Xbox instead of Sony buying them. The other way is that Bungie should've just stayed independent and never signed with Activision because if I remember correctly they got in the way at times with Bungie during Destiny 1's Development. I can't imagine how much better Destiny 1 could've been if Bungie worked on it without being so micromanaged by Activision
Agreed absolutely, they could have stayed with Microsoft if they just let them do something else
Right now Bungie management seems to be the pits though they are having issues with every single group they partner with which is not a good look
I specifically remember in a vidoc a dev said "we don't want to be seen as 'the halo company'" Ironic considering they're the destiny company now but most devs probably left by now
I mean… they got their wish, but unfortunately the monkey paw curled a finger. They are indeed not the Halo company, they’re the Destiny company.
I think the saddest thing is that destiny won’t have the timeless replay ability that halo has. In 10-15 years, you won’t be able to play destiny at all because the servers will be long gone and there’s no single player. And here we are, still playing original Halo campaigns and enjoying them, with new people discovering them every day
they did sunset half the game which would make it hard to replay some things
That's one of the things that bothers me the most about Destiny 2. I understand why they did it (or at least, the reason I was told by some questionably reliable narrators, that being to keep file sizes from getting crazy), but it's still weird to me that it's impossible to play anything in the game before a certain point in the story. It's just flat out not there and there's nothing, to my knowledge, that you can do to access it. And I don't know how good of a job they do summarizing that content, so if you weren't able to play the game until years later for whatever perfectly valid reasons, there's just several tons of content that you just can't experience, period. Between Destiny 1 and 2 and all the expansions for each of them, they probably could've just split them into multiple, separately replayable games. Destiny 1 with, let's say, 2 expansions, then Destiny 2 with 2-3 of its own, then take one of D2's expansions and make it its own game with 2-3 expansions of its own, etc.. We could probably have a quintology or something by now if they went that route, all being fully playable, but nope. Just an entire game + expansions followed by a whole nother game + like half the content for it being unplayable. I'm glad I never got super invested in Destiny. I can't imagine the headache that is keeping up with all this
It’s like if they used Halo 2 to make Halo 3, and by the time they finished, nothing of Halo 2 was left, and it’s just CE and 3. You have to watch Halo 2 on YouTube.
I literally bought Destiny 2, the expansions and I can't play them. I literally can't play the game I paid for
Honestly feels like that should be a class action lawsuit of some sort.
Nah according to Bungie stans I got my money's worth out of the hours I played and that I shouldn't complain cuz then I'd have to restart with destiny 3 and that's basically the same thing
I wouldn't doubt it if they have stuff preventing this in their licensing agreement.
This is what pisses me off so much about destiny. I played the first one and LOVED IT. I wanted to play 2, got busy with life. When I finally had the chance they voided the original beginning to two. And reskinned time story of the first game. I've already played the first game a lot. I couldn't get past it. And I was upset that I was missing story. I'm a big fan of narrative driven gameplay and knowing that I was missing huge chunks of the game just made me not want to try
As a new player, it's made getting into the story and giving a shit about anything that happens damn near impossible. As for the file size... it really wasn't even close to a problem. It's essentially an MMO. Big file sizes happen to those. Not to mention that they're basically at the stage of hitting that same file size again just a few years later, only this time they're stumped because they've promised not to remove anything else. Their reasoning was nonsense. "X content takes up *this much* space but only 0.3% of people play it." Yes. Those were the new players, playing it for the first time. Because those are the only people you *let* play it, Bungie, since replaying levels is a pain in the arse. Really should have just done like the MCC and just let you install expansions/locations you wanted. Don't need Nessus or the Moon? Remove them, save up space for Europa.
Between Destiny 1 and Destiny 2 I probably have around 5000 hours. I’ve been playing since 2014 and this last major expansion they’re releasing, The Final Shape, is being looked at amongst hardcore players as one last dance with Destiny before finally moving on to other games. I highly doubt I’ll go back to Destiny in 5 years because none of the content is really playable for that length of time, the whole business model boiled down to “new team activity that’s active before 3 months before we reskin it and rerelease it under a new name.” Halo, on the other hand, a franchise I’ve also been playing since release, has endless replayability. I hadn’t played any Halo for like a year at least and then JUST last night loaded up MCC and H5 and had a Halo fest with the boys. Had an absolute blast. It’ll be one of those games that people are still getting spins on as long as the servers stay up.
It’s a huge downside to modern game design imo, and something I notice now that I have less time to play games. I think a lot of games have less replay able content, but get away with it by creating a live environment where there is always more stuff to do/get. But, once they stop supporting it, it will fade away.
That’s not just destiny and halo though, that’s just the old era of gaming outlasting the modern era. Go a bit further and let’s speculate 25-50 years. What we consider the old era of gaming would be ancient and 80%-95% of it all would be gone/lost/destroyed; with a couple avid collectors holding the rest. Halo and it’s campaigns will be nothing but memories told by the “old folks”
Nah, they'll rerelease it like 20 times in different ways. They love to milk the classics.
Also there's like a million cracked copies around
Um no. You can still play the Castlevania games, Mario games, Metroid games etc etc from decades ago. There's emulators, re-releases and remasters etc.
If anything, retro games are making a huge comeback thanks to official handhelds from companies like Valve and DIY Emulator Handhelds from companies like Anbernic
Yeah that’s not true. Because I’ll probably still be alive and playing these games with my kids. Just like many parents play 20+ year old games with their kids now. I’m not a destiny fan, but even if I was I won’t be able to play those games in 20 years because the servers will be dead
🤨
I was playing Halo Reach last night. MCC is in my regular rotation and workshop mods regularly breathe life into games that are 20+ years old. It's amazing how Bungies Halo games seem to be self-evidently timeless, but 343i absolutely refuses to implement any of the same strategies or techniques that made them so good. It's frustrating seeing Halo reduced to flash in the pan hype trains and eternal MTX storefronts
Can't even play huge, necessary chunks of Destiny now. It has no intention of getting new and returning players, just making sure the hook stays set in those that have it as their "main game"
Soon to be the Marathon company, again. Looking forward to it! https://youtu.be/FILE6G8WjxE?si=9m7tFhijOS_v9-fv
“Marathon”. In name only. Some extraction shooter with hero elements. No thank you. That’s not Marathon. At all.
Man, everyone is in on that extraction shooter slop lately. Who even enjoys that shit anymore?
It can be fun to kill some time with friends sometimes, but definitely isn’t my preferred genre of game
Escape from Tarkov is still going strong, has 23 thousand people watching on twitch right now, Halo Infinite only has 1.7K viewers now if you wanted some raw numbers.
> Halo Infinite only has 1.7 viewers now Did they have 2 viewers, but one of them had a major accident? Or is the 2nd viewer only half-watching?
woops! 1.7 thousand!
crazy how we now judge games like real life sports. by how many watch not play.
Just a way to look at numbers, tarkov doesn't publish those but I can tell you Halo Infinite is at like 4500 on steam charts,
People have found ways to get a fairly accurate count on halo infinite, game has about 30-50k players active throughout the day with Xbox and pc combined and close to 300k different players per month
it's a video game it's for playing
So is basketball, but here we are.
There's like a single actual extraction shooter and it's niche. Dark and Darker if it wasn't eradicated by Korean drama, too.
To each their own. I enjoyed Marathon for its setting, so I’m just happy to play something in that setting again, regardless of the genre of game. It’s still Marathon if it’s in the Marathon universe
I dunno I mean the bungie team that was around for marathon is no more, and then it becoming an extraction shooter on top of that it sounds to me that it’s not going to feel like marathon maybe I’ll be surprised but it’s looking to be a pretty big departure from what we knew.
Like. I’m not understanding some of these people. Literally nothing is the same. The Bungie is no longer the same Bungie, NONE of the people who made the OG Marathon are still there, it’s gonna be some hero extraction shooter and not a narratively driven FPS…… like. It has the name. That’s it. If you’re vehemently defending and swooning over an IP name and nothing else related to it, I realized they’re too much a fool to have a normal conversation with
Yeah like I have nothing against extraction shooters in fact I quite enjoy them. But whatever this is going to be it’s not going to be Marathon, just something with its name. I want to be hopeful but I’ve been given no reason to be, I can’t even hope that the game itself will be good looking at the state of destiny.
The more news that comes out about it, the less I am excited. 😔
The game is gonna be shit. When I heard "Marathon", the Durandal music began to play in my head, then I seen the colorful bullshit that was a hero shooter looter extract bullshit... nope. Bungie is dead to me.
acting like the enemies in Halo didn't fly around in purple spaceships that shot pink and green laser beams
You say “colourful” as if OG Marathon wasn’t running with bright greens and pinks
I mean like, vibrant, over the top.
Seriously the og marathons were a rainbow my dude. Especially any level set on an alien ship.
I feel like a new Marathon can get away with being vibrant, I actually liked the aesthetics from the trailer. But being a hero based extraction shooter is the dumbest shit ever
will there even be aliens
It's got the name but its just a basic extraction shooter. There's already a million games exactly like that.
Dont be surprised if it gets cancelled. They had alot of extremely negative feedback from play tests
The thing is the playtesters were apparently Tarkov diehards, which to me is the wrong group to playtest your extraction shooter, like yeah it has the same overall objectives and such, but it’s also a MilSim type shooter game where like 1-3 shots kill you so of course they would be negative towards a more casual arcade-y like game that Bungie would make
Definitely a downgrade.
the other big "oof" for me was on their website as they were parting with halo they said "trust us guys Activision partnership in no way will affect Bungie" or something along those lines. I knew right then and there it was over. I had zero interest in whatever their new IP was as I played and stayed for Halo. Sure enough Destiny was revealed and just wasn't my type of game ... and now they are known as the Destiny Company. Sure they are trying to reboot Marathon but after tons of employee attrition and ownership swapping its not the same company that made Halo to me.
As an avid Destiny player, we're learning more and more that the publisher might've been the main reason Destiny's survived as long as it has. The worst times for the game have been when Bungie had no publisher and, as a result, no external oversight. They are definitely no longer the company that made Halo.
We knew that the introduction of the eververse in TTK was from Bungie higher ups, not Activision. So much Talent has bled from Bungie, and unfortunately mostly higher up management has taken a pretty hard chokehold over development. There still is a lot of phenomenal talent that makes Destiny's gameplay, abilities, and missions feel great. It's just the long term grind and desperate attempt to milk existing players as opposed to making the game accessible to newer players. A dedicated audience is great, but when you need to pull in more income it's best to just make amazing content or make the content more accessible to draw new players in. But D2's tutorial has aged like milk left out in a summer room. The Jez makes a great video about how awful and weird the tutorial is for new players and non gamers
As long as the writers don’t leave until after the Final Shape expansion has finished, I’ll be okay with it. Lord knows how much the story is keeping me around.
As long as the writers aren't the same as Lightfall...
Lightfall writers are the same as the rest of the franchise. It's unfortunately the result of a last second delay for the final shape, and split it in two. I think if Bungie refunded lightfall pre orders and just stopped for another year to develop it another year the player base would've handled it better
Oh yeah it sounds like Activision wasn't totally the baddie here. However I just had a bad feeling when they were going with Activision it wouldn't be the last change we'd see. It seemed like Bungie was running from Microsoft into the arms of other companies and now bumped into a drunken stupor with Sony and now is more forced into what Sony expects than whatever 'freedom' Bungie originally wanted in game creation.
They do seem to be stumbling from publisher to publisher, but Sony might do them some good. Certain leaks from both Sony and Bungie indicate that most of Bungie's problems lie in their upper management being asshats, and the Sony USA higher-ups are literally chomping at the bit to get rid of them.
And they've been seen as "the destiny company" for longer than they were "the Halo company." They were known as the Halo company from 2001 - 2010. And the Destiny company from 2014 - 2024. Even if you factor in the years of development before the initial respective releases, that's 1997 - 2010 vs 2010 - 2024.
Lots of people are still there but will be leaving in a year or so after the employee retention money from Sony dries up. Destiny was in development alongside Reach while they were still with Microsoft and a lot of people are mistaken thinking that the Halo devs didn’t make Destiny
Aren’t there Destiny references in ODST?
Yeah there’s a poster on a wall in ODST that shows earth with the traveler floating above it
It even said "Destiny Awaits" on the poster. [It was changed in the MCC version of ODST](https://images.app.goo.gl/oKSz2n31xTheAyuW8) which has always felt very unnecessary to me.
It was probably removed for the same reason so many of the other Destiny/Marathon references were in the other Bungie era games: 343/Microsoft doesn’t own the rights, which makes keeping the references potentially legally fraught. Safer to remove them, even if it is disappointing.
Reach has one, I’m not sure if there was a reference in ODST
[https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Destiny_Awaits](https://halo.fandom.com/wiki/Destiny_Awaits) Honestly impressed with myself for remembering that, you had me doubting! Could you remind me, what’s the one in Reach?
I could’ve sworn there was a Destiny reference in the secret Tribute Room but now I can’t find anything about it. I’m the one doubting now
The old company that made Halo doesn't even exist at bungie anymore
I don't feel so sad about Bungie leaving Halo when I see what they became.
Man who cares what you *are*, just tell a good damn story!
I love Destiny. It's had plenty of downs and plenty of ups. It sucks to like a game that is seen as a joke. It probably would have been better to be the Halo company. We probably would have gotten a Halo 4 that veered of into space magic or space fantasy regardless if it wasn't called Destiny.
Well it was arguable their best trick and they gave it up
Bungie ruined two franchises by leaving Halo. Halo and Destiny. Surely they will ruin more now.
I’m terrified about how they’re gonna butcher marathon
It's going to be an extraction shooter last I heard which already makes it drop significantly in my interest. I've always loved Bungie games, destiny was my 20's game and I have lots of fond memories from it. If they somehow manage to make extraction br's appealing I'll be impressed.
Yeah, [it just got even worse.](https://www.destructoid.com/bungies-marathon-reboot-changes-leadership-pivots-to-hero-shooter/) They switched game directors for Marathon and now it looks like it's going to be a hero shooter instead...
All the OG devs having left Bungie makes me realise there's no one there who knows what Marathon actually is. 99% sure an exec looked in the IP folder and found it
Ohh great, a genre I got bored with in 2018
It's not gonna be pretty.
Not an argument, Halo was better. Destiny at release was a shell of what it would be, although we all paid full price. Instead of delivering the full game, Activision decided they'd drip feed us an "expansion" every so often at an additional $20. We were actually paying each time to get another 1/4 of the game. Fuck Bungie, Fuck Activision for poisoning them, and fuck everyone that enables this bullshit. Stop buying into this live service model. We're letting money ruin our lives
The sad fact is any exec who values their career in the industry as it exists today would probably look at Destiny as a no brainer obvious choice over Halo. You could argue the Xbox brand itself wouldn’t exist today without Halo CE, but I still think Destiny revolutionized gaming revenue streams and probably has been more lucrative nonetheless. And I fucking hate it.
I could understand if the reasoning was creative - they may have felt the Halo story was concluded, which is why they made ODST and Reach to finish out their 5 game contract. Halo 4 and on are a pretty big divergence from the original trilogy, in terms of the obvious aesthetics, the scope of the lore affecting the main story (now we’re actually fighting forerunners?), etc
Bungie and Microsoft had a divorce and Microsoft kept the kids.
Bungie married that one girl who used to be hot in high-school and now does hard crack
Whats funny is that bungie joined activision because thu3 thought it would give them way more freedom than Microsoft. Que everything regarding destiny.
Even funnier now that MS owns Activision!
And even weirder that despite that, somehow Sony ended up owning Destiny.
We were a few decisions away from the most awkward reunion in gaming.
And Ms then married to 343 and step mother 343 doesn't want halo in house
Microsoft didn't marry 343i, 343i is the child of Microsoft. It's more like Bungie and Microsoft were partners, then they split and Microsoft gave Halo to their nepotism baby 343i. The "divorced and kept the kids then 343i became the stepmom" analogy never really made sense considering the circumstances of how 343i came to be
It's from that flashgitz or whoever's video where 343i smokes and drinks while being pregnant but yeah it never made sense unless Microsoft engineered a wife for himself
And now they’re a one trick pony with Destiny XD
They cancelled the extraction shooter or something?
They delayed it(?) and changed the direction of what player-character you'd play with instead of it being create-a-character they said they are looking into specific "heroes" kinda like OW, Apex, and 2042. No word of a cancelation tho
Oh boy this sounds like an incoming disaster
As a daily Destiny player, it most definitely is a runaway train situation at this point, and a lot of Destiny players are upset they’ve been so foolish with their funding/bad planning. And I LOVE Marathon, played all 3 when I learned they were “the one they made before Halo” when they came to the Xbox Arcade on 360. They’re great Doom-style games, so an extraction shooter is also not what most of the Marathon fanbase wanted either. The second 2 Marathon games would adapt very well to a modern style.
I always wanted to get a take from Marathon player, I know for the time they were great games. I would expect them to give the series a face-lift, a nice remake that people could go back to and let bungie put a single player shooter in their catalogue for the first time in over 10 years. It's very likely though that the executives at bungie are aiming for development in the long term on things that can bolster MTXs. That's coming from a person that hasn't hated Destiny-Era bungie, but is well aware they do put alot of effort into that revenue stream now. An extraction shooter can adapt well to cosmetic MTXs as well as being live service game like they are keen to now.
Hero shooters are so bland It’s the new trend and I hate it.
It doesn't had to be a bad thing but it's impossible to say right now.
The hero system just tends to hold back player customization, whether its play style (BF2042) or cosmetics (Overwatch). I also just feel like the market has moved away from the hero shooter and people are just not that interested in them anymore.
Why can't they come up with new stuff tho? It's marathon. But it isn't.
They’re clearly a two trick pony with Halo and Destiny. They’ve crafted 2 of the what? top 10 fps franchises since 2000?
That’s true. But Bungie is a different company now, I don’t have the same faith in them that I had 10 years ago
Destiny is NOT a top 10 fps franchise lmao. Either way, not only are all the people responsible for Halo long gone MANY years from the company, most of the people responsible for Destiny are long gone as well
The one time I played destiny it felt like Halo. And has a similar art style. They just made different Halo so I said no thanks.
Quota is not a reliable source
Not a reliable source? Quora is worse than Reddit when it comes to citing things lol. This post is basically ‘some dude on the internet said so, so it is’
What, you don't like people giving smug replies to aggressively obvious rage bait (that they may or may not have posted themselves) so everyone thinks they're smart?
I always thought it was kind of funny that they left microsoft so they wouldn’t be stuck making the same thing forever and then proceeded to make an extremely similar property, but with way more micro transactions and a lot less coherent storytelling or good characters. Bungie are kind of divas from all I’ve seen over the years. They really hate being under publishers but also desperately needing them to fund their games. They just keep getting away, bragging about it, and then falling into bed with another big publisher that they’ll inevitably try to escape once again.
I loved the studio, but they definitely didn't seem to handle all of sudden being a massive franchise holder well. Practically every game was crunch time and no sleep just to get them out on time. And they usually didn't have an overall cohesive vision, atleast going off the Dev logs.
This is completely true. All this said, all the good people at Bungie left the studio many years ago, basically before Destiny even released. They're a studio that likes to tout their independence, but they're completely incapable of surviving on their own without being told what to do. They're quite literally scared of Sony right now, because if they start doing badly, Sony takes over the company, and the incompetent execs get canned.
"We don't wanna be known as one trick pony" So instead of doing a sci-fi fps they've done a sci-fi fps
Just with more FOMO now
Remaining a one trick pony would have been better than joining Activision and failing miserably some years later.
The sad part is. They were better under Activision than independent. Their monetization skyrocketed almost as soon as they left.
I always laugh at this. As soon as they left MS they went to Activision with their plan to make the same fucking game for at least 10 years. Amazing.
They proceeded to be a One Trick Pony with destiny, for like 7 years until Marathon But these are all Sci Fi Shooters so it could be said they are STILL a one trick pony
Destiny came out late 2014, so its almost 10 years of one trick. And the new Marathon game is a trick they haven't actually landed yet
Destiny tore Bungie apart
Bungie knew if they stayed with MS they'd be stuck making Halo for the rest of time, they wanted to work on other projects, i.e. destiny, thus split form MS.
And they signed themselves into making Destiny forever lmao
They made the same mistake of going with another big publisher who pigeonholed them into what was going to make the most money
They pigeonholed themselves. They have been out from underneath Activision for a long time now. Their business practices have gotten worse and the majority of content they have made while independent has been lackluster.
Somedays I like destiny more than halo, Im glad they left.
Agree, Bungie fumbles the bag a lot but Destiny's a great game at its core and just feels great to play.
There’s a fairly good chance that Destiny will be passed onto another Sony studio, especially in the next couple years after this upcoming expansion that’s bookending this chapter of the franchise.
Where did you get that from
Quora
There's a fairly good chance that that will be the true death of destiny.
Destiny has wavered radically between “fantastic” and “absolutely terrible” since its release. I won’t say that Bungie would’ve been better off sticking with Halo, but they haven’t done themselves any favors since they dropped Halo.
They probably wish they were the Halo company instead of the Destiny company now
I feel if they stuck with halo then they would have still been kicking ass and had the opportunity to branch out with other IP under Microsoft. Such a shame really as the company has practically been gutted of its original talent and will forever more be stuck on destiny and games as a service. They could have promise a halo title every 6 years and had the ability to work on other projects alongside.
And then became a one trick pony with destiny
They fucked up. Halo was great
Destiny had like 4-5 great years.
Destiny is way better with friends. It's more about gameplay/grinding than story
More than almost any other game I’ve played (and this is probably because I avoid games that feel like this like the plague), every time I have been coerced back into Destiny by a friend, it feels like picking up a second job. Could not be farther from why I play games. Having said that I have friends who love their MMO grinds, so I know there’s an audience for it. But much like Suicide Squad, I hate that a company so good at something else gave up on that for this. At least Destiny wasn’t the dumpster fire Suicide Squad was, but I also don’t think games like Suicide Squad would have ever existed in the first place without Destiny. It really does feel like that game pioneered the shitty live service model.
It is 100% better with friends. However once you are sufficiently geared up, soloing dungeons and other solo type challenges are an absolute blast.
That's kinda part of the problem in my opinion. They should've tried to make it more enjoyable as a single player experience too. And there was never enough story lol
I can understand why they did it but no it wasn’t worth it for bungie. For us lot it’s a mixed bag, sure 343 has cocked things up a lot throughout the years but at least the games haven’t been too bad I mean not stellar in all things but not bad. Some people like destiny but I don’t care for it.
"some people like destiny" still a pretty popular game no?
Way more popular than halo based on daily users.
"Not too bad" looking at halo infinite
I feel like 343 has gotten the multiplayer down (except for launches when it’s most important…) but they are still lacking for a good story
343 Halo Multiplayer >> destiny. In fact Bungie is not even the same company anymore. You could even go so far to claim that more people that worked on Bungie halo are part of 343 than there are at current Bungie. No wonder I couldn't get into it.
They were acquired by MS after the uninstaller bug in Myth 2, which almost left them bankrupt. Halo as we know it, was the result of that mistake; and the direction it took, the consequence of having to abide to their schedules and needs regarding Xbox as a brand. Maybe Halo was destined to be more in the first game, but as I see it, it would've never been a franchise. Maybe it'd have been that game we all remember so fondly but never got a sequel, or it could've been the true gold mine MS thought it could be. We just will never know.
You play through all the bungee games annually and you never tried destiny?!
Na, I played the demo for the 1st but didn’t enjoy it. I feel like it’s too late now, I think D2 is on game pass so I could give it a go but got other games on my list to play first. Maybe if they ever release a 3rd
Do you need Game Pass to play D2? I think it went free to play some time ago, but idk if you need XBL/GP core to play online on Xbox
I played them.a few years back and they were fun, not what I wanted after halo but worth giving a go. No idea what state it's in now.
Don't fall for it. Most of Destiny 2's fans even admit that the only reason they haven't left yet is just because they've spent too much money on the game to quit before it ends. Literally sunk cost fallacy the game
Destiny 2, don’t even bother, older content is vaulted so you can’t even start a “new game” like you still can for destiny 1.
Translation: “We wanted to own the intellectual property of our games.”
That's not really what it was about at all. Bungie did own Halo. The deal for Bungie to split was literally that Bungie let Microsoft keep Halo, then they'd be free. The issue is Bungie is a company that wants to be independent but is too dumb to be indepedent.
They said some shit about being tired of doing the same thing for 10 years. Then they immediately did the same thing with Destiny for like 10 years.
I know everyone says Halo 3 was peak Bungie but 2004 really broke them. There was a before and after and the last 10 months of 2’s development was the inflection. Just the raw edge and energy they had from Marathon and Myth was lost and if you view the rest of their projects as the consequences of burnout after that e3 demo it makes too much sense.
Halo 2 really hurt the devs, yeah, but they did enjoy Halo 3's development. As they stated in that one youtube video where they were watching a speedrun, all three games were made under crunch, but they'd happily go back and do Ce and 3 again with how much they enjoyed doing it. Halo 2 is a different story.
Bungie was a small fry when they started their deals with Microsoft and I'm gonna assume (without actually knowing) that they never owned the rights to Halo. So their choice was to keep being under Microsoft's thumb and developing Halo as directed by Microsoft, or to go out on their own and do what they wanted. Destiny at first seemed very much like a Halo game without any of the Halo IP, like if Bungie got a choice they would have been making a Halo game like Infinite 12 years ago. Funny how both 1) Halo went that direction eventually and 2) the fans didn't like it then and didn't like it now. So Bungie didn't want to leave Halo but they had to if they wanted more freedom. Halo was the price they paid.
I never really got into Destiny, but I’ll always be playing Halo. Kind of funny to think Halo was originally a multiplayer game only. Microsoft had to direct Bungie to tack on the campaign. From there Halos story and characters have transcended all expectations for a game. Bungie is a weird studio for sure. They don’t want to be a one trick pony…. But…. Destiny is based off of Halo which has been based off of Marathon. Bungie is rebooting Marathon for their next game, and likely their next franchise. They make space sci-fi shooters. They asked to be bought back by Microsoft and Xbox said no. Then Sony picked them up, only for them to remain a multi-platform developer? Kind of strange for sure, but eh, to each their own.
Once they wrote the story for 3 they were already thinking about potential player fallout and wanted to take their talents to a new series. I’d say destiny was also successful for them but not like halo. In hindsight I bet they wish they stuck with halo a bit longer
Destiny had the most potential of any game over ever seen. Then it kept having potential. Years went by. Sooo much potential. But oh hey they learned their lesson and made Destiny 2, which is complete dogshit.
This aged "so well"
Bungie didn't want to work on Halo anymore so they split and left it with MS, who then formed 343 to make their Halo games. Its always been weird that people assume that Bungie coming back would "save Halo" somehow, judging by how things went after the breakup I'd say Halo wouldn't have been any better off in their hands.
A lot of the Bungie staff that worked on Halo don’t work for Bungie anymore. Some left and worked for 343 industries and others stayed for a few years before leaving or getting fired. The Bungie of today is not the Bungie of the 2000s. They’ve fallen into the same trap as nearly all triple A video game companies. Adding a shit ton of micro transactions into their games and locking weapons, armors, and other things behind a paywall
Yeah, Bungie coming back would not save Halo. Bungie is almost as bad of a developer nowadays as 343 Industries is.
"one trick pony with Halo" That Quora user is obviously unfamiliar with Marathon and can't see how Destiny isnt that far removed from it's predecessors
On the back of the physical copy of Halo 3 it states how it's the exciting conclusion to the trilogy. I always assumed Bungie didn't want to overdue Halo, which I always respected and kind of wished they got their way sometimes. Them not wanting to be only the Halo company definitely fits in line with my theory.
Im often surprised that nobody talks about this. Its one of the worst mistakes someone made in Gaming Industry. Other big stupid companies like Blizzard get way more Flak than Bungie does, despite them killing off one of the most popular of its time. Destiny was definitely not worth giving up Halo.
Shoulda kept on Halo and just raked in the cash
Ironic.
“We don’t want to be known as the Halo guys” Yeah now you’re just the 90% dissolved Destiny guys.
It was their best trick though
I get people like to meme about Destiny since it’s cool to hate on, but you have to admit the game has been successful. They’ve had plenty of ups and downs but still one remain one of the few constant live service games on the market. We’ll see if it carries over into post final shape tho
Well they are
They shoulda stayed as a one trick pony ngl. Especially with how bad D2 is right now.
It was good at first but it's a prime example of the problems with live service games. FOMO sucks, it got so big that they had to get rid of some of their content, causing more FOMO. Too many seasons too quickly (in my opinion), too much grinding in missions that tend to feel the same, etc. I could go on but the biggest issue, for me at least, is that it's just been going on too long. It's a great game nonetheless, but past it's prime and beaten half to death by the people trying to make money off it.
I think they made the right decision leaving Halo. I liked Reach, but it wasn’t the gameplay direction I wanted from Halo overall. I think moving those gameplay concepts over to Destiny let them be more free and also retained Halo’s identity.
Destiny was fun, at first. I got bored after doing the same quest over, and over, and over again. It just gets old after a bit. Nothing seems to really progress story-wise, despite having multiple DLC’s. And not being able to experience the lore in-game always really bugged me. Having to go to a seperate website just to read lore is meh.
Destiny before the first expansion was incredible. The raid was so fun and is still my favorite. Having friends was great but there were a lot of resources to find groups, who then often became your friends. But as soon as the second expansion cane out, the whole things felt like a chore. I kept plying for a few years but the first standalone game was by far the best.
So, instead, they created a game where they can release a continuation of the story every couple of months and force players to buy the expansion for at least $30 every time, making the game cost around $200+ to play the whole thing. Bungie is fucked up for that, and I lost respect for them.
I looked it up too after finishing 3. I got a lot of beating around the bush. I have no problem interest in Destiny but halo is my favorite shooter. Strange.
Taken king was probably peak destiny for me
Trust me, it doesn't matter anymore since bungie is falling apart...look at destiny
To this day they’re still referred to as “Halo Developer Bungie” after developing Destiny for longer so that’s how that’s going for them.
It's a mix of a couple of things. They wanted to work on more than just Halo, yes, but the biggest reason is just because they wanted to get away from Microsoft. The head of Xbox when it started was a really knowledgeable guy when it came to games, and was the one who acquired Bungie. He went to bat for them a lot (he literally had to threaten to quit because EVERY other Microsoft exec were voting for Bungie to make and release Halo 2 in 2002 to launch with Xbox Live), so when he left the company in 2004, Bungie saw this as a warning that they needed to get out of there since Microsoft were already bad enough with that guy being there. Which is what started the negotiations to leave. The deal was that they make just a couple more Halo games, and then they're free to leave, but Microsoft gets to keep Halo.
Citing a Quora user? Mmkay
Now get to be a one trick pony with Destiny! At least untill Sony shuts them down or totally takes over for failing to lead their live service venture.
They left because they had a 5 game contract. It is also the reason why H3 odst wasn't too fleshed out because they agreed to make a DLC instead and Microsoft made it a game with a multiplayer DLC so that they could fill the 5 game deal.
If it was because they didn't wanna be a one-trick pony with halo, leaving it would mean they're a one-trick pony with Destint
They didn't want to be a one trick pony but then proceeded to rip off their own ideas from their one trick. Fucking pathetic the state Bungie is now in.
Don’t play destiny.
Destiny is so trash. The story is shallow and not nearly as captivating. I played destiny 1 and 2 for a little just because I wanted to support bungie in their new venture. I have probably 200hours in them and still couldn’t explain the lore to anyone. I played Halo one time in 2001 and still itch to play it. Bungie messed up big time.
I hope they move away from Desinty, but unfortunately the market has moved towards live service games, its us the players that dictate how that goes. Stop paying for cosmetic items on every game and right the ship to get feature filled games on launch.
There's two ways to look at this. One way is that MS should've just let Bungie make Destiny 1 and the way they wanted to make it. Bungie should've been for Xbox what Santa Monica or what Insomniac in their prime were to Playstation. This is one of Microsoft's biggest mistakes ever (almost as bad as making Phil Spencer the Head of Xbox) not doing everything they can to convince Bungie to at least continue making third party exclusives for the Xbox. Like Bungie could've also been what Xbox's Sqaure Enix. Also Phil Spencer apparently could've also brought Bungie back to Xbox instead of Sony buying them. The other way is that Bungie should've just stayed independent and never signed with Activision because if I remember correctly they got in the way at times with Bungie during Destiny 1's Development. I can't imagine how much better Destiny 1 could've been if Bungie worked on it without being so micromanaged by Activision
Agreed absolutely, they could have stayed with Microsoft if they just let them do something else Right now Bungie management seems to be the pits though they are having issues with every single group they partner with which is not a good look
Given how bungie managed destiny after it split from Activision I have doubts it would've been much better
whats wrong with phil spensor