Additional details have reportedly been revealed about Bungie’s canceled project, Payback.
According to a new Bloomberg report by Jason Schreier, Payback was an “incubation project” set in the Destiny universe.
Rather than being a full-fledged Destiny 3, Payback was intended to be a spin-off played from a third-person perspective rather than Destiny’s typical first-person perspective.
According to Schreier, the game will “allow players to explore vast worlds while working together to battle monsters and solve puzzles using characters from the franchises,” and will take inspiration from Genshin Impact and Warframe.
Payback was canceled two months ago, with most of its team members reportedly moving on to work on Bungie’s upcoming game, Marathon.
The report backs up comments from journalist Jeff Grubb, who recently reported that Bungie veterans Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy left the company following Payback’s cancellation.
“Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy are no longer at Bungie, they have been let go,” Grubb said on the Game Mess Decides podcast. “They were part of the executive and leadership shakeup mentioned in the blog post. Their compensation has been withheld.”
Grubb later clarified his remarks, saying that while he did say he was “fired,” it would be more accurate to say he “left due to a management reshuffle.”
Last week, Bungie announced that it was laying off 220 employees (about 17% of the studio) and “consolidating” 155 employees into Sony Interactive Entertainment.
According to Stephen Totillo’s GameFile newsletter, citing three separate sources, the deletion was planned as early as 2024 and was set to happen regardless of the success of Destiny’s upcoming expansion The Final Shape, which launched in June.
