Although many members of the Destiny 2 community thought that Bungie’s split with Activision-Blizzard would be good news for the studio, a recent wave of high-profile departures would seem to indicate rough seas ahead for the Halo creator’s popular MMO shooter.
A couple of days ago, word came out that former Raid Design Lead Joe Blackburn and Narrative Lead Jill Schar had both stepped down from their positions, and shortly thereafter, Gameplay Designer Claude Jerome quietly updated his Twitter bio to state that he, too, had left the company. Their departures came in the wake of multiple other departures, including those of Senior Gameplay Designer Jon Weisnewski and Sandbox Design Lead Josh Hamrick late last month.
Although most of the former Destiny 2 devs have had nothing but positive things to say about Bungie and the Destiny 2 team (Jerome has yet to explicitly announce his departure on Twitter or elsewhere), players are nevertheless concerned about what this may indicate for the future of the game — and understandably so.
As it stands, Bungie has announced DLC content set to arrive each month until August, but beyond that, what lies ahead for Destiny 2 is uncertain. Of course, this could mean that Bungie is wrapping up Destiny 2 in preparation for Destiny 3, as it’s common enough in the industry for developers to seek out new opportunities between projects, but whether that’s the case here or there’s something more worrying afoot remains to be seen.
