Bungie’s latest round of major layoffs and a revamped focus on Destiny 2 and Marathon, brought up some questions about the projects that were left behind. One of those, Payback, a spinoff of Destiny 2, was canceled –months ago.
According to a report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Payback was the incubator project that rumors had pegged as a potential Destiny 2 sequel. Instead, it was more of a spinoff, and “would pivot from a first-person to a third-person perspective and allow players to use the franchise’s characters to explore a large world while cooperating to battle monsters and solve puzzles. The pitch took elements from popular games such as Warframe and Genshin Impact”.
Pete Parsons’ announcement late last week did mention that some projects would be canceled, and one would move from an incubator project to its own project under PlayStation Studios. As for Payback, it was canceled, but not as a result of the latest round of cuts. It was canceled months ago, with most of that team moving to Marathon. It’s unclear how much of that team was subject to the most recent layoffs.
With the rumors and guesses that accompanied Payback in terms of considering it might be a Destiny 2 sequel, it also raises the question if there is a sequel in the works. The Bloomberg report says that there isn’t one–yet. Of course, with Bungie’s tightened focus and The Final Shape being the endpoint of a decade-long story, that speculation is not going to go away. While Destiny 3 may not be in any sort of production now, Bungie has given some teases and promised more on the future of Destiny to come.
However, whatever that future holds, it won’t include that third-person spinoff.
