Bungie Announces Massive Studio Expansion, New IP Launching by 2025 - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 18 February 2021 / 2,838 Views
Bungie, best known for developing the Destiny franchise and the original Halo trilogy, has announced a massive studio expansion.
Its Bellevue, Washington headquarters will be expanded from 84,000 square feet to over 208,000. This will make room for recent and future hires as nearly one-quarter of Bungie employees have been hired during the pandemic and have never been to the studio.
Bungie will open up a new international studio in 2022, based in Amsterdam, which will mainly focus on publishing and marketing.
"We’re grateful and humbled that our independent success allows us to invest in our talented people and headquarters this year and are delighted to welcome Trace Harris and Pamela Kaufman to the Board of Directors," said Bungie CEO Pete Parsons.
"The past several years have been a time of tremendous growth and opportunity for Bungie. We are home to some of the brightest and best talent in the industry, and we look forward to expanding upon both our talent pool this year and increasing the resources to support them. Pamela and Trace also bring incredible media and entertainment experience, and we’re looking forward to taking advantage of their proven acumen as we continue to build the future of our company."
There will be two distinct teams at Bungie going forward. Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy will continue to work on the Destiny universe. Jonny Ebbert and Zach Russell will lead the second team that will build and drive the creative vision and foundation for future games. The second team plans to release at least one new IP by 2025.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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If it's going to be yet another always online MP based MMO game, I'm not interested.
My wife would be happy for more destiny. She loves that game.
Destiny is one of the most successful new IPs of the 8th gen. There certainly have been some issues with the game, but many people love it, and continue to play nearly 7 years after the first game launched. Bungie successfully struck out on their own, and I feel good about their ability to deliver great new games, while maintaining the strength of Destiny.
I still delve into Destiny 2 when I have a mo or get bored of other games, regardless of it's thing, it's still a great game and so well supported with a lot of players. Bungie really do seem to going in the right direction. I looked forward to what they have to offer for future games (although 2025 is a long way off, Destiny 3 before then?)
Probably not since one of the main reasons they left Activision was to keep Destiny rolling as one GaaS instead of making constant sequels that Activision wanted which is a big risk of keeping the userbase each time instead of building upon the current one.
If it’s another GaaS, hard pass.
I found Destiny to be the first of a trend of online games that were too inaccessible for those without literal days to spend playing. I legitimately can't understand the menus in Modern Warfare, and to this day haven't been able to actually find the spec ops missions. I think only players who progress far enough love it.
if there is no more destiny, then i'll be interested, but if they keep on flogging it, not interested
Sounds like Bungie is trying to become the next Blizzard or Riot Games. Matter was trademarked by Bungie in 2018, with by far their best Game Director, Christopher Barrett, attached to work on it. It's going to be great I'm sure, but Destiny is a franchise that has never reached its potential, and with this type of planned company growth, I doubt it ever will if Bungie is now focusing on other things.
