Is Bungie Really the Right Developer to Aid Sony's Live-Service Push? | Push Square

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When was the last time you read a news story about Bungie and Destiny 2 that was genuinely positive about the game? If you only get your gaming news here at Push Square, it would be last week: the new armour set themed around The Witcher 3 looked pretty cool. It was then pointed out you could actually buy the RPG's Game of the Year Edition for less than the cost of just one of the three armour sets on offer.

A slightly unfair comparison, perhaps, since Destiny 2 is free-to-play and The Witcher 3 is an eight-year-old game, and the latter isn't on sale at all times. However, following a disappointing DLC launch in Lightfall, significant company layoffs, and now an incredibly cynical $15 starter pack that's been pulled as quickly as it was released, it's just another example of how the perception of Bungie has steadily grown more negative over time.

The problem for Sony is it's already bought Bungie for $3.6 billion to help with the company's charge into the live-service space, setting up a «live-service centre of excellence» and allowing it to consult on (and delay) projects like The Last of Us Multiplayer. How can it do so with any authority, though, when the developer doesn't seem so excellent itself?

Bungie may have been a pioneer back in 2014 as it launched Destiny, but fast-forward nine years and it feels like dark clouds have been hanging over the Washington studio for a while now. The downward turn in fortunes really kicked into overdrive with the release of Lightfall at the start of this year, an expansion that was billed as a huge story beat for the series as it nears its conclusion. The end product was not so, disappointing fans with little in the way of proper story or closure.

What's followed in the months