Destiny 2 director ‘not disappointed’ by Forsaken’s commercial performance

Destiny 2 director, Luke Smith, has responded to reports that its latest expansion, Forsaken, "did not achieve [Activision’s] commercial expectations" stating that the development team at Bungie is "not disappointed" in the latest instalment.

In a recent earnings call, COO Coddy Johnson explained that Activision’s MAU were “up sequentially from Q2” thanks to the good performance of Destiny 2’s expansion Forsaken, launched on September 4th. However, Forsaken actually performed below the firm’s expectations. Johnson added: “Now while Forsaken is a high-quality expansion with strong engagement and new modes of play, it did not achieve our commercial expectations, and there’s still work to do to fully re-engage the core Destiny fan base.”

CFO Spencer Neumann further revealed that Activision’s Q3 revenue reached $397m (£305m), with the "key contributors [being] Call of Duty digital in-game revenue and Destiny 2: Forsaken, although the latter underperformed [their] expectations".

"We have not yet seen the full core re-engage in Destiny, which has kind of led to the underpeformance against our expectations to date. Some players we think are still in wait-and-see mode," Johnson added. "So when you’re in, you’re deeply engaged. If you’re not, we’re hoping now’s the time to bring players back in and win them back."

While Smith did not direct Forsaken, he has publicly stated that the development team "love" its latest chapter, and are "not disappointed".

"We are not disappointed with Forsaken," Smith asserted via a tweet over the weekend. "We set out to build a game that Destiny players would love, and at Bungie, we love it too. Building Destiny for players who love it is and will remain our focus going forward."

Bungie has long been something of a single-franchise developer, and you have to go back seventeen years to find a point where the company was developing and releasing games set in more than one universe at a time. But now the Destiny and Halo developer ‘will begin the creation of new worlds’ as part of its new deal with Netease.

“We are excited to partner with Bungie as they transform from a single franchise development team into a global, multi-franchise entertainment studio,” said NetEase CEO and director, William Ding, at the time of the announcement.