Bungiehas been developing new games alongsideDestiny 2for multiple years now. In 2020,BungieCEO Pete Parsons admitted that the driving force between its breakup with publisher Activision Blizzard was creative freedom.Destiny 2may have been made under Activision’s influence, but Bungie’s future projects will be the studio’s own. With that in mind, some early information could be finding its way out of Bungie about its next game. That info could be hinting that Bungie’s future is free-to-play.
Job listings on Bungie’s website for the positions of Senior Marketing Manager and Multiplayer Systems Designer are stirring up a lot of discussion within theDestiny 2community. There’s one specific bullet point in both listings' “Nice-To-Have Skills” section drawing attention. That bullet point lists experience in “enterprise scale live operations, games as a service, MMO, F2P, and mobile” as an attractive skill. Obviously, Bungie is already providing enterprise-scale live operations, games as a service, and MMO experiences withDestiny 2. It’s the F2P, and to a lesser extent mobile part of the bullet point that’s most intriguing.
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The key point of speculation is that Bungie’s next big project could be free-to-play, a deviation away fromDestiny 2’s premium launch and expansions in favor of a more accessible experience. In essence, Bungie may want something more akin toFortnite,Warframe, or evenGenshin Impactin terms of product availability and monetization. The actual gameplay would assumedly be something entirely different, but free-to-play does convey some likely changes to gameplay as well.
The mobile part of the job listing is also important. There’s a reason thatDestiny 2isn’t on mobile devices, and why games likeFortniteandGenshin Impactare. Gameplay from certain titles doesn’t carry over to mobile devices as well as PC and consoles. Ahigh-intensity multiplayer FPSlikeDestiny 2, a game with impressive modern graphics, is perhaps not best suited for that. A new game from Bungie that is targeting mobile devices may have to offer a different kind of experience as a result.
Obviously, there are no genuine conclusions to be drawn from the listing.Destiny 2technically has free-to-play and mobile aspects to it, withDestiny 2: Beyond Lightcurrently being free and theDestiny 2Companion appoffering a variety of very cool features. The job listing could simply be referring to ideas like that. Few would be surprised if Bungie’s next game ended up as a free-to-play game also available on mobile, however. That’s where the money is nowadays.
As for what Bungie’s next game might be, a trademark for the nameMatterin 2018 continues to be another subject of speculation. But Bungie’s also unlikely to release any new games anytime soon. The closestBungiehas hinted at its plans is that it wants to release its next game before 2025.
