In June 2018, Bungie received a $100 million investment from NetEase to become a multi-franchise studio. At the time, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons stated: This new partnership will enable us to accelerate our global vision while building new teams dedicated to delivering brand-new experiences. NetEase creates and operates some of the most popular games on the planet. We’re excited for them to bring their experience as we enter this new chapter in Bungie’s history. Just a few months later, a new trademark was found for a project called Matter. Bungie stayed silent for quite some time before announcing its updated growth plans in early 2021. The studio revealed its plans to move into a much bigger office by Fall 2022, which would also facilitate its goal to release at least one new IP by 2025. A new job opening for a Lead Gameplay Engineer now indicates that the game will be a third-person action game, in a departure from Halo and Destiny since both games were only playable in first-person view. Interestingly, an earlier version of the job opening (captured by The Game Post) also mentioned that the project would be developed with Bungie’s own Tiger Engine, the same one used for Destiny 2. It is unclear whether the job listing’s subsequent modifications were made because the studio was not yet ready to publically announce the engine or because the project has since switched engines. At any rate, if the scheduled launch window of 2025 holds, there’s a chance we could hear something concrete about the new Bungie IP at some point next year. Meanwhile, it’s worth reminding that a recent rumor suggests the studio could be reviving the Marathon IP through an extraction shooter game. This would likely be a different project since Marathon is obviously not a new IP. The studio is working hard to release the next Destiny 2 expansion, Lightfall, scheduled to launch on February 28th. As a reminder, Bungie was acquired by Sony earlier this year in a $3.6 billion deal. Its projects will remain multiplatform.
