It’s arduous to consider that it’s been practically two years since I successfully stopped enjoying Future 2. I caught round for a few months after the discharge of The Ultimate Form, however it rapidly grew to become clear that the sport I had spent extra hours in than every other two video games mixed was winding down. On the time, I considered my exit from the Future franchise as a “So long,” however it’s change into clear within the time since that it was truly “goodbye.” With Future 2 being taken off life assist at this time after receiving its closing massive replace, I wished to take a while to articulate my ideas and emotions.
Previous to The Ultimate Form releasing on June 4, 2024, there was a sense throughout the group that Future 3 was in improvement. It needed to be. The logical conclusion for the Mild and Darkish saga had arrived and it will make sense for Future 3 to launch within the subsequent 12 months or two. Then, on July 31, 2024, Bungie CEO Pete Parsons dropped the bomb that 220 folks at Bungie could be laid off. Regardless of the success and reception of The Ultimate Form, Bungie was chopping about 17 p.c of its workforce. The reporting over the subsequent days and weeks painted a grim image, and phrase got here that not solely was Future 3 not coming quickly, however it wasn’t deliberate in any respect.
On August 3, 2024, Forbes’ Paul Tassi wrote an article about Future 3 and the state of Bungie. There was a bullet level that jumped out and has caught with me ever since.
That’s not Paul’s opinion. That’s data he’s gathered from different reporting and his personal conversations with of us at Bungie. That’s a priority expressed by Bungie management. It’s additionally proof that Bungie management was disconnected from its gamers and delusional about its probabilities of catching lightning in a bottle once more.
Let me briefly let you know about my expertise with Future 2’s older gamers. For starters, I’m certainly one of them, as are all of my pals who’ve every sunk hundreds of {dollars} and hours into Future 2. Moreover, Shacknews had an energetic Future 2 clan that featured greater than 20 energetic gamers who purchased each season, each growth, raided each week, and spent all day speaking about Future 2 in Discord. For a few of them, that was the one sport they performed. Most of them had expendable revenue, which is one thing that youthful gamers (by no fault of their very own) can wrestle with.
x-Rumpo-x on Cortex
Quick ahead practically two years and the place are we at? Marathon launched its second season on June 2, which included a free play week that’s nonetheless occurring on the time this was printed. On June 8, 2026, Marathon had a peak of 32,637 gamers on Steam over the earlier 24 hours. Future 2 had a peak of 37,851 over the earlier 24 hours, the day earlier than its closing massive replace. Sure, there’s a Future 2 resurgence occurring with this replace, however Marathon can also be solely six days faraway from a brand new season and is presently free to play. All that’s to say that Marathon is just not in place by way of every day concurrent gamers. Actually, the day earlier than the launch of its second season, Marathon solely had 13,736 gamers on Steam. The Marathon wager is just not understanding, and there’s no Future 3 in improvement to fall again on.
As an outsider, it’s powerful to place myself within the headspace of Sony and Bungie management. I ponder if Bungie believed that it may do no mistaken, and they might simply spin up different tasks that may be superb and other people would love them the way in which they liked Future? Did they fail to acknowledge that there’s a diploma of luck concerned and that nice concepts (and nice video games) don’t all the time equal success? Did they fail to comprehend that, regardless of the jokes and complaints, what gamers actually wished was for Bungie to promote us Gjallarhorn for a 3rd time?
The most effective time to begin growing Future 3 was 4 years in the past. The second greatest time is at this time.
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