Two senior Bungie executives, Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, have apparently left the company, according to multiple reports.
Jeff Grubb first revealed the news on the Game Mess Decides podcast. According to Grubb, the two are developing a project called Payback, which is set in the Destiny universe.
“[Smith and Noseworthy] Be labeled as committed to giving back. This is going to be the next big thing in Destiny, but it’s not Destiny 3,” Grubb said on his podcast. “Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy are no longer at Bungie. They were released. They were caught up in the executive and leadership shakeup mentioned in the blog post. Returns have been put on hold.
The blog post Grubb is referring to is from July 31, when Bungie CEO Pete Parsons announced that the company would be conducting its second round of significant layoffs since Sony acquired Bungie. Since the announcement, the studio’s executives have been heavily criticized, especially CEO Pete Parsons, who has been criticized for spending millions of dollars on classic cars over the past few years. harsh criticism. Obviously, he has his money to do with as he pleases, but as Bungie has struggled to stay in the red, he and his fellow C-suite executives have yet to take a pay cut, despite the fact that their choices contributed to Bungie’s current problems. Needless to say, like many senior positions at tech companies, Parsons enjoys very high salaries and bonuses, and his acquisitions, and the accusations of bragging about them in the days leading up to the layoffs, don’t look good.
Gamespot’s Tamoor Hussain managed to speak to some sources (possibly sources within Bungie, but he didn’t specify) and stated that “Smith and Noseworthy’s departures occurred when the Payback project was shut down, and executives since The reorganization means they have no path forward at Bungie.
Jeff Grubb tweeted the Gamespot article, confirming Tamoor’s statement: “I said this was part of the layoffs, but a more accurate statement might be that they are “leaving due to a leadership shakeup.” Like, it’s all related, but they’re not fired. Anyway, they’re no longer in the studio.
However, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier tweeted that “Bungie had some very early work on a spin-off project called Payback, but they canceled it a while ago. This confuses the timeline somewhat.
According to previous reports, Vengeance will abandon the class-based system found in Destiny and Destiny 2. They both worked on the Hurricane Lord expansion pack, which is widely regarded as one of the best add-ons ever released for the game.
All this puts Bungie in a dangerous situation. According to previous reports, Bungie’s autonomy is based on the company achieving specific goals. Failure means Sony can, and likely will, begin to take more direct control over the studio.
