I all the time inform folks that I’ve been with Future because the first alpha check. For some motive, it’s all the time been some extent of delight for me. My very own manner of claiming, “Hey, I’ve been behind this imaginative and prescient because the starting. I’ve been there by the highs and the lows, and I’m nonetheless right here.” However following a second spherical of brutal layoffs which have seemingly gutted Bungie and a lot of the groups engaged on Future 2, I’m not fully certain what’s going to be left to be “right here” for.
Nearly all of the cuts at Bungie this week have raised a number of alarms. Not solely do they arrive practically two months after the vastly profitable launch of The Last Form, Future 2’s conclusion to a decade-long story, however they’ve additionally torn points of the group all the way down to studs. The participant assist group is nearly fully gone, raid designers have been laid off, sound groups have been eviscerated, and QA looks like it’s going to largely fall on Sony fairly than Bungie’s inner groups. The narrative group has been all however eradicated. There are nonetheless tons of individuals supposedly left behind to proceed engaged on Future 2, however these cuts sign shifting priorities at Bungie, and recommend that this recreation goes to be radically completely different transferring ahead.
In keeping with Big Bomb’s Jeff Grubb, “completely different” goes to appear like a wholly new content material supply methodology that may rub the Future neighborhood the incorrect manner. The cuts at Bungie seem to mission a brand new imaginative and prescient of the live-service recreation’s future, a imaginative and prescient that strikes away from large-scale expansions full of latest areas, belongings, and so forth which have traditionally come about annually. As a substitute, new content material will dip into the studio’s current sources—which seems to be in step with the deliberate updates for the remainder of the 12 months—and be launched in smaller “content material packs.” In different phrases, the group is transferring away from rising the sport to easily protecting it operating.
Bungie will proceed supporting Future 2 with smaller releases whereas it will get Marathon (due in 2025) off the bottom and spins off an in-development title in a brand new franchise right into a full-fledged studio beneath the PlayStation banner. However with a dwindling headcount—Bungie nonetheless has over 800 staff, however is down a number of a whole bunch since this time final 12 months—and all these new initiatives, Future 2 is now simply sitting in a form of vegetative state, and it doesn’t really feel like one it’ll stir from anytime quickly.
Learn Extra: Bungie Devs React To Extra Mass Layoffs: ‘My Complete Crew Is Gone’
The hope seems to be to proceed producing content material for the live-service treadmill, however in the reduction of on spending, which will probably be mirrored within the dimension of future updates in addition to the variety of folks truly engaged on Future 2. Regardless of repeated requires Bungie to drop the sport in favor of manufacturing one other numbered sequel within the franchise, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has confirmed that Future 3, which was believed to have been canned as a part of these layoffs, was by no means in growth within the first place.
To be clear, most followers assumed that after The Last Form, Future would decelerate because it ramped up new narrative arcs or a possible new recreation. Following the newest growth, the studio reworked its seasonal mannequin into an episodic one, chopping again from 4 seasons a 12 months to a few episodes. The episodes are divided into three acts every, which Bungie prompt would translate to much more content material. However contemplating the tepid response to the comparatively skinny episode that’s in progress, gamers are already starting to really feel like they’ve been led on by the studio and we’ve barely gotten exterior of The Last Form’s launch window.
Now that it’s been confirmed that no new recreation is on the horizon, the neighborhood is left with an more and more convoluted and shortly growing older recreation, a disappointing evolution of a busted content material supply mannequin, and no promise for one thing higher within the close to future. They’ve been stranded.
Furthermore, discontent with Bungie continues to foment locally over a scarcity of communication about this unsure future. The studio has refused to outwardly decide to any future plans past what’s been introduced, which consists of the following 12 months’s episodes, and a content material pack codenamed Frontiers. Individuals wish to be excited in regards to the journeys to return. and extra importantly, they wish to know that Future is a factor they will proceed to return again to. They wish to really feel like their investments within the collection aren’t fully wasted. In return, Bungie’s management appears content material to string them alongside within the hope that nebulous guarantees make good whereas they tear the studio aside searching for any remaining stones to bleed for a bit more cash.
Paired with the affirmation that there is no such thing as a numbered sequel within the works, the severity of those layoffs, the dearth of significant communications, and a transfer away from expansions portend a grim image for Future. Regardless of being billed as the top of the start, The Last Form actually is starting to really feel just like the nail within the recreation’s coffin. There seems to be no certainty that Future will even be round in just a few years, or that it’s a precedence to the studio exterior of being a money cow riddled with microtransactions. As long as it may well preserve plenty of gamers who’re actively enjoying (and extra crucially, spending), Bungie appears to have positioned any plans for Future’s continued progress on an indefinite hiatus.
Throwing additional gas on the fireplace, one one who wasn’t impacted by this week’s layoffs was Pete Parsons, Bungie’s CEO and the person who a number of former Future builders declare is basically responsible for the arduous instances the group’s fallen on. As builders had been laid off earlier this week, repeated requires Parsons’ job popped up from plenty of senior builders who’d beforehand departed the studio, with one calling Parsons a “joke,” whereas one other accused the CEO of turning Future into “a cash pit with no return.” Accordingly, it was found that Parsons, who gamers and staff now must belief to steward the franchise and studio, has spent greater than $2.3 million shopping for vehicles since Bungie was acquired by Sony.
I belief that the gifted builders left behind are going to proceed to strive their hardest to care for Future, a franchise I look after greater than I wish to admit. However it pains me to say that I don’t know if I belief Bungie’s management to ever allow it to be the perfect that it may be. And in order regrettable as it could be, it could be time to let Future go. No less than till it’s in succesful and caring fingers once more.
