Bungie announced it’s shedding about 30% of its staff, and so former employees have taken to social media to share the news. As it turns out, one bittersweet revelation from all this is confirmation from a former Bungie dev that a new raid is on the way.
The news that a newDestiny 2raid is coming has been shared by a former Bungie “test mercenary” Diana Madeline Voyer. A Twitter user asked the tester whether players interested in playingDestiny 2purely for the raiding experience should move on to something else, and she said that the “next raid was looking really good,” and that people shouldn’t give up on “RaD” – Raids and Dungeons – if that’s what they’re into.
A new raid is coming to Destiny 2, at some point
Voyer’s comments don’t necessarily tell us all that much about the nature of this mysterious raid, but the fact that something new is coming in this niche is good news, at least. One thing to note is that Voyer was careful not to specify much of anything about the raid itself: it might be an all-new piece of content, a reprise of one ofDestiny 1‘s remaining raids, or even the firstDestiny 2raid reprisal. To say nothing ofthe dungeons that are still coming to the game, to boot.
If this has you worried about Voyer potentially breaking an NDA or two,she claims there’s nothing to be concerned about: “I’ve read my NDA. I know what it covers,” she said. Voyer also raises a great point: Bungie has dedicated endgame content development teams who’d be getting dismantled left and right if there was nothing else for them to do afterThe Final Shape.
One last bit I’d like to highlight here, for posterity’s sake, is that Voyer was the one who asked Bungie higher-ups during the last layoff spree whether the leadership even considered taking salary cuts to alleviate the losses. In what is by now a truly infamous statement, Voyer was told that Bungie was not “that kind of company,” as per a thorough report posted byIGN’s Rebekah Valentine.
Is it a good thing, though, that Bungie is precisely the kind of company that would sacrifice dozens upon dozensupon dozensof talented, valuable developers before reeling in the root cause of the issues? Not even just once, either, but time and again. Is this the last round of layoffs the company must suffer in such a short time period? We just don’t know, because it’s not that long ago that something similar happened at Bungie.
Layoffs are a “lever” that Bungie will pull, repeatedly. They’ve said as much, and they’ve shown as much. There’s a new Raid on the horizon, yes, and we have a whole year’s worth of content ahead, but how much veteran staff can Bungie really hemorrhage before the studio has lost too much talent?How many more Raids does this game have in it?It is what it is, and folks, it’snot great.
