Bungie has reportedly canceled Payback , an unannounced project in the Destiny universe from former Destiny 2 game director Luke Smith and project lead Mark Noseworthy. Both Noseworthy and Smith apparently lost their jobs in Bungie’s brutal cost-cutting moves this week, but Payback’s cancellation precedes the layoffs. Envisioned as a Destiny spinoff rather than Destiny 3 , it was apparently abandoned “a while ago.”
Everything in accordance with Gaming placeTamoor Hussain, the giant bomb Jeff Grubb and Bloomberg Jason Schreier (source of the quote “some time ago”), as reported by EurogamerPayback’s existence came to lithe in April, though Bungie has yet to officially comment on the matter. According to one of the alleged informantsthe name refers to “Bungie giving back to itself by making something they hope everyone will love.” I don’t quite understand the explanation, but the aforementioned leak predict correctly the introduction of the Prismatic character subclass in Destiny 2, making them more trustworthy than the average Reddit user with a bridge to sell.
Payback’s cancellation appears to pave the way for Smith and Noseworthy’s departures, with Gamespot sources saying that a management shakeup amid this week’s layoffs means the pair “have no path forward at Bungie.”
The shockwaves from Bungie’s job cuts continue to ripple through. As Nic previously wrote, insiders say the cuts have been underway for some time, regardless of the success or failure of Destiny 2’s excellent recent expansion, The Final Shape. Many members of the senior The Final Shape team have departed, including Senior Narrative Designer Robert Brookes AND the main character of the Kwan Perng narrative – a needy reward for pulling Destiny 2 out of the slump that began with the disastrous Lightfall expansion.
In addition to laying off employees, Bungie has also moved 155 roles to parent company Sony Interactive Entertainment. Some of those roles will form a fresh PlayStation studio working on an untitled “action game set in an all-new sci-fi universe.” Those remaining at Bungie will double down on development on the Marathon reboot and future Destiny projects.
The layoffs this year were announced by Bungie CEO Pete Parsons, who admitted that Bungie’s management had shown “too much ambition” in running the business. Parsons hid on social media after discovered that he has spent $2,414,550 on cars starting in September 2022, including a Porsche that cost more than $200,000 after the previous wave of layoffs in October last year.
$2,414,550 is a miniature loss in spending for a video game developer that even now has around 850 people on staff, but still – I wonder how many narrative designers can be hired for $2,414,550? Revenge is certainly the right word: Bungie fired programmers AND Destiny players continue to call on Parsons to do the right thing and resign from his position.
