This week, the Destiny and Halo developer Bungie broke off from Activision while keeping the rights to Destiny, sending shockwaves throughout the industry.
This seems to be a common trend right now, as developer and publisher relationships begin to sour over sales figures. Typically, publishers want Call of Duty levels of sales figures, where most of these developers could survive on a lot less.
So we’re seeing a lot of developers cut off from their publisher overlords to strike it out on their own. We’ve already seen IO Interactive split from Square Enix and now Bungie has joined that club.
How does the split suggest a mobile Destiny?
So why could this result in a mobile Destiny? Well, that story in itself wouldn’t but if you cast your memories back to June last year, you might remember a certain few stories detailing NetEase’s $100 million investment in Bungie.
At this point, Bungie was almost certainly negotiating a release from Activision after growing frustrated with an enforced yearly release cycle for Destiny. In case you’re not aware, Activision wanted Bungie to release either an expansion or sequel on a yearly basis, which Bungie found frustrating.
Heck, Bungie even said it out loud when the investment was announced that it wanted to self-publish going forward.
NetEase is a prolific games publisher on mobile
But back on topic. Though NetEase has its fingers in a lot of pies, recently it has worked an awful lot in the mobile space. We’ve seen high profile releases like Rules of Survival, Lineage 2, and the upcoming Diablo: Immortal.
So it’s not a ridiculous leap to suggest that this partnership could lead to a mobile exclusive tie-in to the Destiny franchise. Depending on how ambitious Bungie is feeling, this could be a Shadowgun Legends-style full blown Destiny experience or perhaps a Clash Royale-style arena battler.
Only time will tell, but we’d be very surprised indeed if this partnership didn’t result in a mobile game in some form. Be it Destiny, another IP, or a brand new one entirely, we’re almost certainly getting Bungie games on mobile.
