According to a new job listing, Bungie is looking to hire a “Senior Executive, Development (Film, TV, Transmedia)”, whose role at the company will be to “drive projects that extend the Destiny franchise into new categories including TV, films, books, comics and audio formats.”
In a cheeky reference, the job listing even refers to this executive-to-be as the ‘guardian’ of the IP. While we’re sure many of you fans think you know the perfect way to direct the Destiny narrative, unfortunately a lot of upvotes on a story theory won’t cut it - the candidate needs to be credited in several major films and series to be considered, though the plans to expand reach beyond motion picture. To be fair, barely any ‘cinematic universe’ aside of the MCU has truly succeeded, even with other huge Hollywood studios trying their best. Games, with their interactive angle, may be better suited for this business model though. While turning everything into a universe seems like a gimmicky trend, Destiny is definitely one property that could benefit. While things are definitely better than with the first game where you literally needed an external app to be able to read most of the flavor text, Destiny and Destiny 2 have always struggled with an issue wherein the gameplay was at odds with the story. It would help if Bungie could finally figure out whether D2 is a PvP or PvE game primarily and which side should propel the plot. Due to the fleeting nature of content in ‘game-as-a-service’ models, updates and the various forms of monetization and ways that progression is implemented, the game’s ability to deliver its narrative elements is always crippled - good luck hoping to actually experience the whole Destiny storyline if you are only just adopting the game, for example. An extended Destiny Universe would alleviate much of these issues, allowing the developers to compartmentalize all that story content that they are clearly putting a ton of effort into, and deliver it to the fanbase in more accessible formats. Whatever one might feel about Destiny 2 as a game - there are plenty of points of contention recently - it cannot be denied that a ton of effort has been put into the worldbuilding and the atmosphere of it all. Would be great if all that story could comfortably coexist with the latest grind. In any case, it is clear that the Destiny IP is in a healthy place right now, financially speaking. If the plans for a huge expansion into a bunch of other mediums isn’t enough indication, Bungie also more than doubled the size of its Washington headquarters, and announced the opening of its first international offices in Amsterdam. There’s also a brand new IP in the works behind closed doors. Bungie definitely has the budget and the chops to get this off the ground, and we’re hopeful in the success of the Destiny Universe. While derivative on the surface level, there are a lot of unique concepts chugging along in the Destiny lore that while intriguing, do not seem like the kind of story beats or themes that would be adequately explored in an FPS. If you have what it takes, you’re probably not reading this you can apply here. We’re definitely looking forward to what this Destiny Universe will produce, as Bungie has spent the past few years hinting at colossal amounts of backstory and introducing a dizzying cast of interesting characters.
