A former Bungie developer claims he worked for 6 months on a sequel to Destiny 2, but he would have preferred a very different direction for the MMO.
Who is he? Christopher Barrett spent over 24 years at Bungie and worked on Destiny for about 6-7 years. He was notably responsible as Art Director for The Taken King. He was also Producer of “The Rise of Iron” before becoming Game Director of Destiny and later Marathon.
In April 2024, Bungie fired Christopher Barrett for allegedly sending “sexually charged text messages” to female employees and abusing his position of power. He subsequently sued Sony, claiming that he was owed $45 million following Sony’s acquisition of Bungie. He also accused the company of defamation. In July 2026, Barrett finally announced that he and Sony had reached a “very satisfactory” out-of-court settlement.
In recent days, Barrett has increasingly commented on various issues surrounding Destiny 2. This includes Content Vaulting, a temporary reorientation of the shooter, and his vision of how the MMO could have continued.
Ex-Dev would have preferred a continuous MMO instead of multiple games
What does he say? On August 13, Barrett initially spoke in a post on X about one of Bungie’s biggest sins with Destiny: Content Vaulting.
What is Content Vaulting anyway?
When players talk about the so-called Content Vault in Destiny circles, they mean that certain content – for which players even paid money – has been removed from the game and essentially locked away. It has not been playable since. This includes the complete campaign of “The Red War”, the expansions “Curse of Osiris” and “Warmind”, several raids, and the Forsaken campaign. Content Vaulting began with the expansion “Beyond Light”.
According to Barrett, there were a few legitimate reasons for the decision, including the hard drive space on consoles. Barrett believes that the entire content of the game could not fit on the base systems. Another reason is the size of the base installation for new players. The final reason is the development effort required because the entire content must be tested with every new addition.
However, Barrett agrees that these reasons are not acceptable to players and discusses alternative solutions, such as the option for content to be removed or re-downloaded once players select certain content. Permanently taking away content that players have paid for is simply not the best solution.
One X user commented that Bungie should have developed a Destiny 3 because the expansion “The Witch Queen” would have been the perfect start for the new game. Shortly afterward, he asks Barrett if he or other developers with a comparatively high position pushed for a Destiny 3 at any point.
Barrett explains that Destiny should have continued in a very different way according to his vision.
What Barrett says about Destiny 3 and how he would have continued the MMO: Barrett states that he was originally not even for a Destiny 2. Instead, he would have preferred to develop Destiny as a continuous MMO – essentially a game with all contents instead of multiple, divided games.
At a later point, he did push for a Destiny 3: “At some point, I definitely pushed for D3, I even worked for about six months on a sequel to D2.” (Source: X)
Would you prefer Destiny 1, 2, and 3 or a single, continuous game where all the content of the loot shooter exists, but may need to be downloaded as separate items or in the form of seasonal content? Let us know in the comments!
In another post on X, Barrett reveals that the lead person of Destiny 2 spoke out against “flavor of the month” enemies and had described them as slop. Instead, there should be more meaningful, human stories like in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). On the other hand, Barrett was convinced that players want “cool, gigantic bosses with new loot” every season.
After the final update of Destiny 2, fans of the loot shooter created a way to express their frustration – resulting in tomatoes being thrown at digital luxury cars. Read more about it here on MeinMMO: Destiny fans create their own game: You face the completely fictional character “Pete Carsons” in the “Vault of Cars” and throw tomatoes
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