The Best Case Scenario For Bungie, ‘Destiny 2’ And ‘Marathon’

There has been an overwhelming sense that these days, Bungie may be teetering on the edge of extinction at any given time due to mass layoffs, mass leadership departures (with a few problematic people staying) and the “end” of Destiny 2 in its current form, twisting into something else.

But today I want to be both realistic and optimistic, to a certain extent, as I theorize about the best-case scenario of where I think Bungie can go from here.

Destiny 2

I think we have to be realistic about at least the short-term future of Destiny 2. There is no going back to the highs we’ve seen over the past year or two as we ascended toward the finale of the Light and Darkness saga and reached The Final Shape. The best they can hope for is sustainability.

Now, after this odd Episode-based year, we know the long term plan of two smaller expansions a year and “updates” in between them. We don’t know exactly how this is going to play out, at the very least it feels like less FOMO and easier places to jump on board with more unique campaigns, but the ultimate goal of Destiny 2 has to be to settle into a reasonable number of loyal players in this new period of time, even if that number is lower than before. But it needs to be high enough to sustain it.

Steam numbers show a trend, but are only part of the story, given that the game is also widely played on console. Destiny has indeed now gotten its lowest average playercount via its last 30 days across its lifespan, 28,000 concurrents on Steam, more than a 90% loss since the highs of The Final Shape. The goal is absolutely to be above that, and the game needs to find a number that balances the investment in the game, which is now going to be less than before, with the players who are still there and still spending money, which will also be less than before. Destiny’s biggest problem is that it has been in the red for a long time, and that needs to change. If they can find that balance and Sony has enough patience, the game can continue indefinitely.

However, if Destiny is to survive more than a year or two into its second decade, there does need to be work done on Destiny 3, something that would hopefully launch at least by the next PS6/Xbox Y console generation. All internal reporting is that this is not a priority right now, and as such, players are not especially hopefully about the long term lifespan of the franchise as a whole. It’s possible D3 is indeed starting to take shape, but Bungie also may not want to announce that, as it could lead to even more players quitting current content and saying they’ll just wait for the sequel in a few years. But a sequel, a true leap forward, does need to happen or this franchise will fade altogether.

Bonus: Destiny Mobile Game

This is reportedly still in the works from NetEase and while it is safe to assume that no, it will not necessarily grab a giant chunk of current Destiny players given a drastic format switch, if this can be a game that ends up printing money like other mobile hits in whatever region (Asia?), that could be a lifeline for the main game itself.

Marathon

There’s no beating around the bush here, Marathon needs to be a hit. No, I don’t think it’s a requirement that it launches with some absurd playercount like Helldivers 2, but it does need to settle into a much higher playercount than where Helldivers 2 is now, which is 22,000 peak players a night just seven months after launch. For a live game, no, that’s not going to be acceptable for Marathon. It needs to be a hit hit.

I do not worry that Marathon is going to pull a Concord. Concord was a failure on a level that was totally unprecedented and just because this is another Sony live multiplayer game, I do not think we need to assume the worst in that regard. Concord was bashed from 30 seconds into its first trailer. Marathon’s first look was well-received, and if future showcases (which need to happen soon) are similarly good, then it’s going to build momentum rather than a slow downward spiral of bad buzz.

If recent information is confirmed that the game is not a “hero shooter” and instead is more of a customizable Battlefield-ish class system, that should reassure players who were spooked about its switch to “hero” gameplay under the Valorant director. And speaking of Valorant, if Joe Ziegler could help guide that game to success, if Marathon could get itself to that level, that would absolutely be the kind of hit Bungie, and Sony, needs.

The Rest

The only main project we know about is Gummi Bears, now being made by a new studio of Bungie people working directly under Sony. There is positive internal sentiment about that game, but it does seem somewhat less likely to be a widescale breakout hit. Predicting the next say, Fall Guys or Splatoon or something is a tough objective with how little we know.

Bungie cannot stretch themselves too thin with additional projects, however. They’ve fired 200+ employees and lost dozens more to voluntary departures. One of the stated problems with the company to date was that they did indeed try to take on too much at once, and that has to stop. Supposedly all of Bungie that remains is working on Marathon and Destiny, and that’s how it has to stay if either of those are going to succeed, due to the scale they need to achieve and sustain.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.