Reworking Marathon and restoring "vaulted" content to Destiny are the highlights.

I appreciate that they consider adding back the content they took away in Destiny. It doesn't negate the fact that they took it away in the first place, but it's good to see they wish to make up for it at least.

Only time will really tell. No Man's Sky did the hard work of turning around their awful launch, but it took years. It wasn't until last year they had over 80% positive reviews on Steam. In all that time, all those additions, and they never charged more, never added paid DLC's, it was all added to anyone that ever bought the game. No microtransactions, no loot boxes, no battle basses, just them making the game they originally promised.

I can't imagine Bungie doing the same thing for that long. I see them breaking and enshitifying their games for money. I don't think they have what it takes. But hey, I'd love for them to prove me wrong.

Can we play on Linux yet, is that in your forward chapters?

Without a crystal ball, I can put about 99% confidence in a future where Bungie continues to charge for microtransactions like they always have, and they won't take a route like No Man's Sky of being a single purchase. With a crystal ball, I could give you 100% confidence.

Liam from Gaming On Linux doesn't seem confident, but I don't see them call it out explicitly.

I'm not either, can't say I'd actually go back if it was available. I started self hosting old games and playing those. Like PSO:BB.

The repeated emphasis on storytelling and building trust through actions gives me a tiny bit of hope, especially as it's a new management team. Hopefully everyone on the old management team was taken back behind the shed. The fact that they couldn't see how vaulting half the game was shooting themselves in the dick then continued to shoot themselves in the dick is astounding to me.

Woah. What's going on at Bungie that prompted this sudden change?

Marathon did not hit, and they laid off half the studio.

From what I've heard, the problematic leadership that reportedly held the devs back are all gone as well. Also heard they're rehiring devs that got laid off.

not that I don't believe you but do you have a link for this? I'd love to pass it on to some friends who I'm sure would be really happy to see this news

I'm shocked, flabbergasted even.

25 years on and still hoping they bring back Myth...

Honestly, if they are hiring people back, I don't know how you sustain them with such reduced revenue. It sounds more like false hope to me.

can't argue with that at all, though I'm a sucker for hoping against hope.

these guys adored D2, I would love for them to kind of have it all back, and for their favourite online space to have a future again.

As an oldskool Marathon fan all I can say is be careful what you wish for.

Bungie died an long time ago.

Nothing easy or authoritative for me to link to, just saw people pointing to LinkedIn updates and Twitter posts during a Twitch stream with Aztecross when he went over the news. I wish it were more official.

If they really got rid of the old guard mgmt…that is extremely good news. They seemed hell-bent on killing the game. Heck, they did. Was like being gaslit the whole time as a player.

"We're sorry and we're listening" has basically been Bungie's motto for the entire post-Halo era.

Not saying they can't pull off a comeback, but Jesus Christ... this is like the sixth or seventh time they've had to make an announcement like this. Somebody break the fucking cycle already...

ETA: I'll be curious to see if they shoot themselves in the dick again by charging players to regain access to the vaulted content.

Yeah, around the time they designed The Library in CE.

that's fine. appreciate the news nonetheless

Yeah I have moved on, sorry B. You never should
have "vaulted" (stolen) my paid content in the first place and 5+ years later I am no longer interested in patronizing your business.

That, and the player base stuck around. 14 years old, and put out to pasture ("maintenance mode), yet daily logjn count is still a respectable ~250k or more.

The real answer may actually be something like the Whales are still addicted and buying lots of in-game silver. One viewer donated over $5k USD to Aztecross's stream during the announcement recap, then someone else threw in $500+. D2 has enough sleazy gacha mechanics going on that a lean dev team might be funded nicely by whales.

[edit, popularity.report daily logins around 250k in the last 24h, 40k in the last hour, and fluctuating from 20k to 75k per hour]

The problem with Destiny 2 is that its dev team was anything but lean.

That's a really high confidence value to have for a future where Bungie exists. They're already halfway purged, you don't come back from something like Marathon by trying really hard with half the resources you wasted on Marathon.

I think the servers will be kept on for Destiny as long as it's cashflow positive. In a world where you're not building new content for that game, it could be a long time, and it may outlive Bungie.