The leaked "Project Payback" sounded like a Destiny 3 to many fans, but now the huge wave of cancellations at Bungie is causing concern among the community about the future of this project.
What comes after "The Final Shape"? After players defeated the Thanos of the Destiny universe, known as "The Whitness", the community wondered what danger now awaited them. When the name "Project Payback" started circulating on the internet, fans were left with a few question marks.
What is Project Payback?
According to a leaker, Project Payback was supposed to be the possible third part of the series. However, as is most commonly the case with leaks about projects, no one could really be sure what was behind these names. After the layoff of 220 game developers, which was around 17% of the studio, the future of Destiny did not look good.
It's All Just Rumors
Gaming journalist Jason Schreier posted on X that the wave of layoffs and the canceled project have nothing to do with each other. In fact, the project had been canceled much earlier. In addition, the project was not a third part at all, but a spin-off. The sequel was therefore just rumors.
Just to clear up some rumors floating around, Destiny 3 was not canceled because it was never in development, per people familiar. Bungie did some very early work on a spinoff project called Payback, but they canceled that a while ago. I'll have a story tomorrow with more info
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) August 1, 2024
Only Bungie itself knows exactly how the future of Destiny will unfold. Whether and how the recent wave of cancellations will affect the game remains to be seen. The game development studio recently announced a potential new expansion for Destiny 2, titled "Codename Frontiers," scheduled for 2025. It is still unclear whether this will indeed be an expansion.