In June 2018, it was announced that Bungie (Destiny 2) was entering a new partnership with the Chinese company NetEase to develop a new game or multiple new games. They received $100 million for this. The plan was that they would release the games from this deal themselves. 6 years later, it is becoming clear what happened with the partnership.
This was the news at the time: Bungie announced via the Destiny website on June 1, 2018, that it had formed a partnership with NetEase in order to take a new direction and develop new worlds.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Destiny had received $100 million and wanted to develop new games.
Bungie’s CEO Pete Parsons told the Wall Street Journal at the time: Bungie would release these games themselves and also decided with which business model they would go out into the world.
The move was apparently seen as a kind of liberation and the next step in Bungie’s development. Bungie aimed to become a major entertainment company and surely wanted to break away from the overpowering partner Activision Blizzard.
Activision Blizzard was allegedly against the deal – Bungie was to stay with Destiny
What became of the deal? Over the last 6 years, little was heard about the collaboration between Bungie and NetEase:
- In 2018, Bungie trademarked the name “Matter” – it is possible that this was related to the NetEase deal at the time
- In 2022, there was a report that Bungie was developing a first-person shooter for mobile with NetEase.
- In 2023, it was heard that there were already problems with Activision Blizzard regarding the investment from NetEase. The head of Activision was against this deal – Bungie was supposed to focus on the development of Destiny.
But the fact is that since 2018, nothing substantial has come from the deal.
Conditions for Bungie in 2024 are very different from 2018
This has changed: Since Bungie entered the deal with NetEase in 2018, two things have changed:
Bungie is no longer independent but has been bought by Sony. The dream of “releasing games themselves” is therefore history.
On the other hand, Bungie has announced that it will not create new game series, but will focus on Destiny and Marathon.
Bungie’s position has deteriorated significantly compared to 2018.
New game for Destiny sounds like Diablo Immortal
So what kind of game will that be? According to recent reports from early September, Bungie is supposed to develop a Destiny game with NetEase (via thegamepost):
- The game is supposed to be called Destiny Rising
- It is intended to be a mobile game
- It is allegedly going to be an MMORPG shooter with 1st-person and 3rd-person view
Other sources indicate that NetEase is taking on the bulk of the project while Bungie is only providing “minimal support.” It is said that players will use pre-made heroes instead of creating their own characters in the game.
All this information is currently still unconfirmed.
Deal apparently did not go as planned
What’s behind it: After 6 years and $100 million, the question arises whether a “Destiny for Mobile” was really the goal that Bungie originally envisioned when they entered the deal.
If such a game had been developed from the start, it could have surely been released as early as 2021 or 2022. It is quite possible that some prototypes were created in collaboration with NetEase that were ultimately discarded and now they are playing it “safe.”
NetEase are the creators of Diablo Immortal in collaboration with Blizzard. If that is used as a benchmark, something similar to Diablo Immortal could emerge with Destiny Rising. Diablo Immortal was generally praised, but criticized for its heavy monetization through microtransactions: I am now in the endgame of Diablo Immortal and suddenly Pay2Win is no longer the biggest problem
