Bungie is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and Microsoft’s head of gaming Phil Spencer has discussed the studio.
In a recent interview with Axios, Spencer understood why Bungie chose to leave Microsoft.
“At the time they had big ambitions. They had sold their business for a certain amount of money. They saw what Halo turned into. And it’s like, ‘OK, Microsoft benefited more than Bungie did from the success of Halo.’ There’s no other story that can be written there.”
He continued, referring to Bungie’s Destiny series. “If you’re saying, ‘Hey, I think I’ve got another one of those in me. I want to really take another chance,’ I can understand the allure of doing that as an independent company.”
Bungie recently released images of armour sets included as part of the 30th anniversary. They each include some references to Bungie’s past, with the titan armour appearing to have a needler based shoulder pad. Spencer previously told Axios that he didn’t know if any crossover content was planned for the event.
When discussing the history of the partnership between Microsoft and Bungie, Spencer said, “We’ve learned a lot.” He added that keeping Bungie in the Microsoft family would have been more likely now than when they initially parted. “Could we do it today? I think we could.”
A significant update to Destiny 2 is set to release as part of the anniversary celebrations. The armour system will get a major update that will allow third-party software to change equipped armour mods around without asking the player to return to the tower and do it manually.
There will also be significant changes to how abilities and supers work. Grenades and supers will now be on timers specific to the ability in question. These changes should allow for more precise tuning of power levels from Bungie.
In other news, Square Enix has announced compensation for lengthy Final Fantasy 14: Endwalker queue times.
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