It’s been a chaotic few days for Bungie, with the Destiny developer having laid off 220 people, in addition to moving on many more people into positions outside of the studio. Now, new report published by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has shed further light on the situation, revealing more behind-the-scenes details on the inner workings at the company.
Specifically, the report claims that Bungie cancelled a project codenamed Payback two months ago, with focus shifting to the development of Marathon. Past reports had suggested that Payback was the codename given to an in-development Destiny 3, but Schreier says that wasn’t the case, and that Destiny 3 is not (and has never been) in development.
Instead, Payback was a third-person spinoff set in the Destiny universe. Though some perceived it as the next big Destiny game, it was designed as a significantly different kind of experience, allowing players to play as a variety of different characters in the Destiny universe. The game would have involved co-op, with gameplay revolving around fighting enemies and solving puzzles, with inspiration allegedly being taken from the likes of Genshin Impact and Warframe.
The report further goes on to reveal that longtime Bungie veterans Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy have also left the studio as part of its shake-up, following which there are allegedly some internal doubts over the future of Destiny.
In addition to the cancellation of Payback, and one of its incubation projects being spun off into a new and separate studio, it’s reported that Bungie will also be reformulating its future content plans for Destiny 2, with annual expansions supposedly being ditched. Read more on that through here.