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People will get laid off? ... Kinda speechless on that one. *Gestures broadly at the last two-ish years of industry bloodbath*

So: It’s happened to a lot of people at a lot of different companies over the past few years, therefore it doesn’t matter when it happens to people who work at a company you love?

We’re just at opposite ends of this issue fundamentally. I still love Bungie. Not just the memories of what Bungie used to be, but the potential of what Bungie still is and can still become in the future. It sounds like you don’t.

With that said, I might be missing something here. Either way, I do appreciate your earnestness.

I think we can agree at least that Bungie’s management needs a complete overhaul, which the Internet in general has finally come around to embracing, and in one form or another it sounds like we’ll be getting that very soon.

And now, this is the part where I reiterate what I said... cause, folk's... it doesn't matter. Despite the significant corporate changes, ONCE AGAIN happening at Bungie, where they lose independence and become fully integrated into Sony... at the core, what made Bungie special; their games, their ideas, their legacy... will persist in the memories of we its fans.

That's... why this question is even asked, right? Why this curiosity was brought forth? Our memories, and what is to be?

But I say ever yet again, it doesn't matter. Really. Take it from the guy who probably throw a literal book of words pondering such things over a decade... if this is the end, I am content. If this is not, than the answer I give still rings true, me thinks.

No, I think this is correct. Bungie will survive in our memories. I’m not worried about its legacy becoming lost to history or fading away or anything like that.

The legacy of Bungie belongs to all of us. It’s part of the common heritage of all gamers. Mr. Sony can’t take that away from us!

It's very difficult for me to try and keep perspective in all of this. I became a Bungie fan with Halo, I don't know what it was like before.

I just look at the way they interact with their community over the years, and it sucks. It's a change I understand, because spending time interacting with people on the internet sucks now in a way it never really did before. But they spend all this money on a streaming studio, only to basically never use it. Weekly Updates went from fun deep dives into water physics in Halo 3 to paragraphs upon paragraphs of saying absolutely nothing. I couldn't even name a single person who actually develops games at Bungie now (and maybe that's for the better for them). But I constantly look at Digital Extremes and Warframe in comparison, and they stream all the damn time. Rebecca Ford (the now creative lead on Warframe) is on stream interacting with fans all the time, generally making a fool of herself and loving it, and the community reacts positively to actual developers engaging with their own game, cracking jokes, becoming memes and just kinda actually buying into what their game is. Maybe it's all for show and they're really good at faking it, but I look at the people making Warframe, and it genuinely looks like they're having fun making their game and interacting with their fans. When was the last time you saw anyone from Bungie on camera and it didn't look like they had their families locked in a basement somewhere to force them to do it?

And I get it, maybe it's just a difference in the communities. I'd also interact with Destiny players as little as possible, but Warframe has its fair share of shitheads, but they somehow find a way to manage it and not let that become the lead story all the time.

Maybe it's not a fair comparison to make, but Warframe has had all the same turmoil Destiny has for the most part, but they still managed to come out the other side feeling fun and engaged, whereas Bungie came out the other side feeling like a beaten dog. It's just frustrating, because it feels like a pretty easy problem to solve in terms of player sentiment stuff.

It's not like I have any actual insight into how they run things (or even game development in general), but it truly feels like Bungie, the entity, lost their passion along the way, and that's ultimately where I lost interest. If they don't seem to give a fuck, why should I?

Maybe Sony taking tighter control will make things better from a product standpoint, but I'm not sure it'll do anything for the studio culture or fan interactions, or the things that make it even feel like a community instead of just another video game made by a faceless corporation.

However, nothing at Bungie seems very rad anymore. You're free to have a different opinion about that. But I look at Des2ny and Marathon 2026 and just don't see it. That's why it's different this time.

Fine. But my point is that only makes it different to you. For other people who said just the same thing at various points decades ago it was true for them then and no different now. Which is why my point is that claiming this isn't *really* Bungie at the moment it's no longer cool for them is something people say to make themselves feel better.

Aside from the abominable sin that was moving from mac to xbox-first, was there any push-back from the community on Halo when it was released, from a purely gameplay/story/presentation perspective? Any sentiment that it was somehow a lesser game than Myth or Marathon?

Yes.

Particularly the story. I recall numerous complaints that it was simplified and not as deep as that of Marathon. Sure there was some great discussion, but overall the sentiment from many was that the narrative was simplified.

Aside from the abominable sin that was moving from mac to xbox-first, was there any push-back from the community on Halo when it was released, from a purely gameplay/story/presentation perspective? Any sentiment that it was somehow a lesser game than Myth or Marathon?

I don't recall too many Codys--that is, hardcore detractors who hung around for some reason. They simply didn't play it because they refused to buy an Xbox. I held out a month. And, as a Mac Bungie fan, if you've talked yourself into buying a console for Halo, you're kind of already sold. And although the story might not have been as sophisticated in-game as, say, Marathon, we had the Fall of Reach. A universe was established. In most ways, it was a leap forward.