Bungie Denies Acquisition Talks With Microsoft Are Happening

Talks of Microsoft potentially acquiring Bungie, Destiny and former Halo developer, are circulating--but they aren't true, according to Bungie. Initially, VentureBeat's Jeff Grubb spoke on the GamesBeat podcast about hearing that Microsoft and Bungie were in discussions, but that the two companies could not agree on a sale price. Eurogamer then corroborated this, saying it too had heard of such discussions taking place.

However, the CEO of Bungie, Pete Parsons, took to Twitter to succinctly declare the news false. A member of Bungie's community team also requested that people use Bungie's new logo when "circulating gossip" about the company.

Bungie recently left a publishing deal with Activision, ending a 10-year partnership earlier than expected, and is currently independent. In an Activision earnings report, the company explained why it broke off from Bungie. While describing the split as a "mutual amicable agreement," chief operating officer Coddy Johnson stated, "Destiny is highly critically acclaimed, high quality content, but it was not meeting our financial expectations."

Microsoft did own Bungie once and after buying the company in 2000, when the developer was still making Halo games, Bungie and Microsoft split in 2007, with Microsoft retaining the Halo IP.

Bungie received $100 million from Chinese internet giant, NetEase, in 2018. The money will enable the developer make non-Destiny games and establish separate internal development teams. However, as evident in the past few years, Bungie emphasized that it will not stop stop working on Destiny 2 and "will grow [the game] for many years to come."

Destiny 2 is in its third year and is still going strong. In the latest news, Destiny 2's expansions, Forsaken and Shadowkeep, are coming to Xbox Game Pass on September 22. Beyond Light, when it launches on November 10, will be added to Game Pass as well. Destiny 2 is also coming to the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, where it will run at 4K and 60 FPS.