Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy, two senior executives at Bungie, have apparently left the company, according to several reports.
Speaking on the Game Mess Decides podcast, Jeff Grubb broke the news first. According to Grubb, the pair were working on a project titled Payback which was to be set in the Destiny universe.
“[Smith and Noseworthy] were labelled as working on Payback. It was going to be the next big thing for Destiny, but not Destiny 3,” Grubb said on his podcast. “Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy are no longer at Bungie. They were let go. They were caught in the executive and leadership shakeup mentioned in the blogpost. Payback has been shelved.”
The blogpost Grubb mentions is from July 31st when Bungie CEO Pete Parsons announced that the company would be undergoing its second round of substantial layoffs since Sony bought Bungie. Since the announcement, the studio’s executives have come under heavy fire, especially CEO Pete Parsons who has been heavily criticised for spending several million on classic cars over the last few years. Obviously, his money is his to do with as he pleases, but as Bungie has struggled to stay in the red, he and his fellow executives have yet to take a pay cut despite their choices leading to Bungie’s current issues. Needless to say, like many in high positions within tech companies, Parsons enjoys a very large salary and bonuses, and his purchases, along with accusations of bragging about them days before laying off staff, do not look good.
Gamespot’s Tamoor Hussain managed to confer with some sources – presumably inside Bungie but he doesn’t specify – and said that “Smith and Noseworthy’s departure came as the Payback project was shut down, after which executive restructuring meant they had no path forward at Bungie.”
Jeff Grubb tweeted out Gamespot’s article confirming what Tamoor said: “I said this happened as part of the layoffs, but it’s probably more accurate to say that they “left due to the leadership restructuring.” Like, it’s all related, but they were not laid off. Either way, they are no longer at the studio.”
Jason Schreier of Bloomberg has confused the timeline somewhat however, by tweeting out that “Bungie did some very early work on a spinoff project called Payback, but they canceled that a while ago.”
According to previous leaks, Payback was going to move away from the class-based systems of Destiny and Destiny 2. It was an exciting prospect as both Both Smith and Noseworthy were veterans of the studio. They both worked on the Taken King expansion, widely considered one of the best add-ons the game ever got.
All of this leaves Bungie in a precarious place. According to reports written previously, Bungie’s autonomy is based upon the company hitting specific goals. Failure means Sony can and probably will start taking more direct control of the studio.
