Last April, a Redditor who claims to have connections with former Bungie devs raised a few eyebrows with initial details of a Destiny 3-style project codenamed Payback; there was bare little information beyond the fact that a classless system was the main hook while this tipster wasn’t sure whether the game was even in development or if it was even Destiny 3 to begin with.
Thanks to insider reports shared by Bloomberg, we now have a clearer picture of just what happened to Payback – as well as suggestions of what happens next for Destiny 2 in the face of another round of layoffs at the studio.
First, the fate of Payback: According to sources, the game was not the third Destiny game because of the fact that it was such a departure from the series, with things like a third-person perspective, use of the franchise’s characters to explore a large world, and gameplay involving cooperating with these characters to battle monsters and solve puzzles in what was described as something like Warframe and Genshin Impact. For these reasons, Payback was being classed internally as a spinoff.
However, about two months ago the project itself was completely scrapped, with most of its dev team moved to work on Marathon except for executives Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, who reportedly left Bungie as Payback was axed because they had “no path forward” within the studio.
As for Destiny 2’s future, there is now an obvious gulf in the studio’s senior talent as a result of the latest layoffs, as well as continued concerns about the decision makers at Bungie, but devs also claim that there is optimism for the looter shooter with Tyson Green now directing the game.
Update plans for D2 will move away from expansions to smaller-scale content drops similar to 2020’s Beyond Light update. These updates will reportedly be free for all players, with unexplored characters and worlds in the game’s storyline and overhauls to existing activities to appeal to the hardcore contingent. There is also a reported focus on another smoothing out of onboarding for the game, including a potential rebranding. This direct focus on D2 appears to be replacing any efforts on a third entry in the shooter, which sources say has not been in development at all.
