Many fans believe that the lows have been reached in Destiny and Destiny 2 because the influence of Activision Blizzard and the greed for more profit were too strong. However, the game’s director, Luke Smith, contradicts this at the 2019 E3.
This is the theory: There has long been a theory among the Guardians of Destiny. The weak state in which Destiny 2 was released is due to the bad influence of Activision Blizzard. They forced Bungie to:
- make the game as accessible as possible – for the so-called “casuals”
- pay attention to balance so that it becomes an eSports title – this would ruin the feel of Destiny completely
- focus too much on business and neglect making a truly great game
The mistakes in Destiny are attributed to the “business” focus, the concentration on money, which is represented by Activision.
Even at the release of Destiny 1, some wondered, why the story was so fragmented and the game struggled in this respect.
The “Activision is to blame” theory likely stems from the fact that Bungie enjoyed such a good reputation from the Halo days and many couldn’t imagine that the team could mess up so badly at the launch of both titles.
No “business” reasons for the mistakes
This is what Luke Smith says now: By now, Bungie is independent and has ended the partnership with Activision Blizzard.
In a panel at E3 2019, the Franchise Director Luke Smith discussed the lows of Destiny. He uses the English word “slipped”, which refers to something “slipping away” from someone.
“We have slipped with Destiny twice. Once it happened with the original game and it happened again with Destiny 2. We did not do this for business reasons; it happened for purely creative reasons.
At that time, we were trying to do what we thought was best for the game.
What sometimes happens in such relationships between developers and publishers: You work together and make decisions about directions. And sometimes these directions are not the ones that core players are interested in. We have now spent a year just focusing on that.”
This is supposed to change now: The producer Mark Noseworthy adds that they now want to make the player the center of all decisions. Many played and loved Destiny.
Now they want to chase after those players with their newfound independence: “We are going to make Destiny for the people who love it. PERIOD.”
That is exciting and invigorating.
This is what they want to change: In a live stream, they have already presented Bungie with a variety of changes that will come with Shadowkeep. These include:
- a transition to a free-to-play system
- Cross-save for everyone
- no more favoritism for PS4
- the switch from Battle.net to Steam
- Finishing moves and more RPG elements
As a further step to improve Destiny 2, they now want to ensure that seasons transition better into each other. The last seasons felt very isolated, as if they had little to do with each other.
This is what they want to change with Shadowkeep: Something that concludes Season 8 should also initiate Season 9.
This is behind it: We once criticized on MeinMMO that Bungie never truly owned up to the mistakes of Destiny 2. Luke Smith has now publicly made up for that.
It seems that there is indeed a lot changing in Bungie at the moment, also regarding their public image. We are excited to see if this “new spirit” that Smith and Noseworthy are calling for will be reflected in the game in the long term.
