An increasing number of players are demanding a third installment of Destiny, and Sony needs to address this!

Last week, Bungie shocked the gaming industry by announcing that development on Destiny 2, its nearly decade-old shooter, is no longer active and that it will not receive any major updates after June 9. Calling this the end of an era is an understatement. Fans have made it clear what they want the studio to do next. The petition for Destiny 3 has already gathered 218,000 signatures – more than double the highest concurrent player count recorded for Marathon on Steam.

The petition was launched four days ago, shortly after it was revealed that Bungie would end development on Destiny 2 after nearly nine years. This follows the news that Destiny 3 is not in active development and that Bungie employees are facing significant layoffs rather than having a new project to work on. However, Forbes points out that at least some developers have already been reassigned to Marathon, which will be the studio’s only active game for the foreseeable future. Forbes backs up this claim with evidence showing just how much the studio’s future hangs in the balance. With the development of new Destiny 2 content halted, everything now depends on Marathon – a game that reportedly attracted 2.2 million players in March, though exact sales figures are unknown.

According to Forbes, some Bungie employees have known for some time that Destiny 2’s days were numbered. The decision to halt active development of the game was made earlier this year. Only those reassigned to work on the final update, scheduled for release in June, were informed of this. Those working on the game reportedly begged management to inform the rest of the team. They argued that a growing divide was forming within the company between those who knew what was coming and those who did not. Forbes added that several Bungie employees were unaware of what was happening until the news was made public on Thursday. While it’s clear that the upcoming layoffs will be significant, they aren’t necessarily imminent. Bungie’s leadership is reportedly dodging questions about the scale and timing of the layoffs.

As for why Sony didn’t automatically approve Destiny 3, the answer is obvious, even without an official statement. The company is proceeding cautiously with approving such an expensive project. As previous rumors have suggested, Bungie will submit new projects to PlayStation in the near future, some of which may be new Destiny projects.

While Bungie’s future is uncertain, fans have made their opinions clear about what the company should do.

Source: WCCFTech, Change.org, SteamDB, Forbes