Thanks to a mammoth buyout by Sony, Bungie is now officially part of the PlayStation family. Despite being under the PlayStation umbrella, Bungie’s games will continue to be multi-platform, fans have been assured.
Formed in 1991, Bungie gained popularity and recognition with its Marathon first-person shooter series, followed by the Myth real-time tactics games. Later, in 2000, Microsoft acquired Bungie and the Halo franchise was born. 2014 saw another of Bungie’s most successful projects launched in the form of Destiny, which was a multi-platform effort, a far cry from Halo being Xbox and PC exclusive due to the studio’s relationship with Microsoft.
In January, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced a £2.6billion ($3.6billion) purchase of Bungie which saw fans raising questions about the future of the studio’s projects. Bungie, which is known for being vocal about issues it cares deeply about, was very quick to quell any rumours or worries, and stressed that the acquisition would not mean that it would become a PlayStation-exclusive studio.
The agreement to acquire Bungie has closed. So now we can officially say… welcome to the PlayStation family, @Bungie! pic.twitter.com/x5jVmelaxl
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) July 15, 2022
Speaking on the acquisition news in January, Bungie said, “We remain in charge of our destiny. We will continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games. We will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.”
The studio continued that the acquisition would see Sony’s support providing the capability for Bungie to hire more talent across the “entire studio,” and reiterated that its new parent company “understands that our people and our community are both the priority”.
With a report that Bungie is working on a new game set in the Destiny universe, it remains to be seen how PlayStation will be involved with that, if at all. The game has reportedly been in development for several years already, and is not a replacement for Destiny 2, but is linked to the series.
In other gaming news, EA has announced that Sims 4 players will be able to select their characters’ sexual orientation with the next update.
