Bungie Gets $100 Million To Make Non-Destiny Games

Destiny developer Bungie is getting ready to make non-Destiny games. The studio, which also created the Halo series, recently announced a partnership with Chinese internet giant NetEase to "help us explore new directions."

In a statement on its website, Bungie said NetEase will help Bungie to have the resources to "build new worlds and invite players, new and old, to join us there." Additionally, the money NetEase is pouring into Bungie will help the studio establish one or more separate internal development teams beyond the group working on Destiny.

Bungie stressed that it is still working on the Destiny franchise with publisher Activision. The Destiny franchise will "grow for many years to come," Bungie said. "Our commitment to that world is not diminished by this announcement."

Also in its statement, Bungie said its ambition as a studio is to "become an entertainment company that sustains many worlds simultaneously."

According to Wall Street Journal reporter Sarah Needleman, NetEase invested $100 million into Bungie that will go towards developing games that Bungie will self-publish. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said self-publishing is a big focus for Bungie going forward.

That's noteworthy considering Bungie's biggest and most commercially successful franchises--Halo and Destiny--were developed in partnership with massive publishers. Bungie's Halo games were published by Microsoft, which owned Bungie for a period of time before Bungie regained its independence.

In April 2010, Bungie announced a 10-year publishing deal with Activision for the franchise now known to be Destiny. If the terms of that agreement still hold, the deal would expire in 2020, so it's no surprise that Bungie would be looking to secure its future.

In other news, Bungie has announced the name of Destiny 2's big Fall expansion and released a cryptic teaser video for it. Bungie is holding a livestream reveal event for the expansion tomorrow, while more details are expected to be announced at E3 2018.