Terrifying inside report on Destiny 2 explains the story’s many problems

Bungie has apparently had serious workplace culture issues for more than 10 years, according to a report by IGN. While working on Destiny 1, the story team is said to have been led by a boss who was prone to outbursts and apparently suffered from burnout. Once he threw a chair out the window. Destiny 2 didn’t get any better.

Where are from the information? The page IGN spoke to 26 current or former employees at Bungie. 25 want to remain anonymous, but one of the team’s authors, Cookie Hiponia, can be cited by name.

A multi-page insider report has been published that provides many insights into the work processes of Bungie and repeatedly points to deep-seated, terrifying problems in the story team.

“Laughed as I read Bungie’s response to Activision Blizzard”

Why is the report coming now? Bungie spoke out publicly on the Activision Blizzard sexism scandal in September and announced its own measures to create a safe job. For this, Bungie was praised as “transparent”.

But apparently some employees or ex-employees felt that this was “too little, too late” and were ready to talk about the team’s problems.

An ex-employee is quoted as saying:

“I laughed when I read Bungie’s response to Activision Blizzard. This is not my experience that I had there. They have a core value that says they don’t tolerate asses even if they’re rock stars, but that’s exactly what they do. […] They have values ​​that they want to achieve, but they do not implement them at all. “

Anonymous source from IGN

This is why the insider report is so special: There’s usually no such thing at Bungie. While other employees like to turn to the media with their problems, for example at Activision Blizzard or EA, almost nothing gets out at Bungie.

Bungie is chronically “tight”, except for a few insights that we got in 2015 into the making of Destiny 1 and a few anecdotes from Luke Smith from 2019, there are never such reports from inside Bungie.

In 2016, half of the Bungie company exploded and the boss and dozens of employees left the studio – and we still don’t know what exactly happened there.

Burnout led to tantrums in the story boss

What was going on at Destiny 1? An important part of the insider’s report focuses on the Destiny 1 narrative team. It says:

At Destiny 1 there was a narrative lead who absolutely wanted to implement his vision of the game, but was totally overwhelmed and suffered from burnout. He freaked out and screamed so regularly that you could count on a whiteboard how long ago the last explosion was.

At one point he threw a chair through a window because he had the impression that others would “ruin his creative vision of the game”

The man stayed in the studio for years, then left, but came back for Destiny 2 to do contract work. In this role, he often acted as if he was still responsible for the story and regularly yelled at Destiny 2 writers – once it was so bad that an employee cried and then refused to talk to him on the phone alone.

Male rock stars oppressed women and minorities

So it went on afterwards: The other bosses in the story team were also difficult. We’re talking about egomaniac rock stars who regularly tormented their teams. Women in particular are said to have suffered from the toxic work culture:

• That’s why people were constantly leaving the story team and switching.
• The team was apparently constantly overwhelmed and did not get the employees they asked for. They wanted to take on freelancers full-time, but the studio refused requests. Contracts were not renewed, they were allowed to expire. This resulted in months of time in which the department remained understaffed.
• The male chief writers also portrayed female characters in Destiny in a “degrading, sexist way”. Here you were at odds with the other authors, especially women. It is said that the men on the team drew characters in terrifying, unrecognizable ways, while the women were forced to watch them do it.

• Two male bosses of the story team are described as an “authoritarian, cruel boss” and a “sexist nightmare”, some of whom treated women authors like secretaries.
• When women complained about the treatment, they said they needed to get thick fur.
• The bosses would have killed employees in front of the assembled team and then said that it was meant funny.
• Complaints to the HR department did not lead to anything. It is said that there were people whose job consisted of getting rid of such complaints. The employees felt that Bungie was protecting the company’s “rock stars”, even if they were completely wrong.
• Bungie executives would have code names for the women in the studio that they found attractive. The code names alluded to the physical appearance or the hair color of the women. Some were also simply disparaging. These code names were used without the women knowing about it.

Stress between the story department and the cinematics

What kind of problems did you have with the collaboration?

There were always problems with the management level, especially with previous story managers who rose but were dissatisfied with the current story. The problem, apparently, was that the bosses had a vague idea of ​​what “the vision” of Destiny 1 should be. But it was only vague, diffuse and was nowhere. The writers of Destiny 2 have been repeatedly criticized for not fulfilling this vision.

Another big problem was the collaboration between the story department and the cinematic department, which had a higher reputation within Bungie.

It is said that the cinematic department kept doing its own thing, not consulting with the story department and making decisions that then led to the story having to be completely rewritten.

Authors would not have heard of some changes to their work until the voice lines had already been recorded.

What was the problem with crunch? Because the story team was chronically understaffed and got no help, employees had to work between 60 and 100 hours when an expansion was due. A member of the team is said to have gotten so sick that the person could no longer type, but had to dictate texts.

The problem was closely related to the fact that the story team was constantly criticized from outside and inside.

What was the problem with reddit? It is said, especially the criticism of the 1st DLC of Destiny 2, “Curse of Osiris” was terrible on reddit. Individual women from the story team would have been identified as the culprits and hacked on them.

Those comments were then sent to other bosses at the studio by a Bungie boss to show that the story was the problem.

The team would have been told: They don’t have to worry, the writing team would be brought back from Destiny 1 to solve the problems. As a result, the writers of Destiny 2 were afraid of doing something that would not go down well with the community – so they kept crunching.

How bad was the situation in other departments? While the report primarily focuses on the story team, it says that other departments at Bungie have had issues with individual leaders who have completely misbehaved.

I guess there were always problems with long-time employees in management positions who had been with Bungie since Halo 3, who said they could take it all out, and especially treated women badly. There is also talk of racist and anti-gay statements.

But the report also states that many sources have said Bungie is even better than many other gaming studios. Only a few reported of “physical harassment”, and some had hardly any or no negative experiences.

But you don’t have to have pictures of naked women as posters in the office to be problematic. The problems with Bungie are often more subtle.

The reports also repeatedly mention that problematic people ultimately left or were released – too late, from the point of view of their victims, but at least. It is said in several places that men rose quickly to Bungie because they were popular with the “old guard”, but then quickly left when they reached the top.

They say Bungie has a “clique” problem. To move up, you have to have friends in the company’s inner circle. Because the circle has been white and male since the beginning, it is easier for white men to make a career in the company. For example, one black woman says that in meetings she often felt like she was completely invisible. Their feedback and questions were simply ignored.

Bungie responds immediately to the report

How does report react? The boss of Bungie made a statement on the article on Friday, apologizing to anyone who would have experienced something other than a “safe, fair and professional work environment”.

It is said that a lot has been done in recent years, including removing bad actors.

You have read the story correctly for the first time and digested it – but you believe that everyone who deserves it has already been fired or they are no longer working for Bungie.

They now want to plan better and issue more sensible release dates that take greater account of the health of the teams. In addition, you have and want to continue to intensify your efforts to create a diverse and good working atmosphere.

The report does not name those responsible, but explains many problems

This is behind it: In fact, the issues in the report seem to focus primarily on one department of Destiny, the story team.

The reports explain a multitude of problems and decisions in Bungie’s 7-year history that seemed puzzling from the outside:

• Nobody in the report names the names of the “narrative leads” that are described there so badly, but we do know that the Destiny 2 story lead was changed at short notice when he left the company. Destiny 2 has been rebooted. Luke Smith had to take over and was scolded a lot for the bottom line.
• It is known that the original author of Destiny 1 left the company and that a major rewrite had to take place there too. As a result, the Destiny 1 story was completely under-explained in many places: Keyword “No time to explain why I have no time to explain.”
• However, we do not know whether the people who went before these reboots are also the people described in the article. You should be careful not to attribute anything to anyone.

The original article by IGN is extremely extensive and deals with a large number of individual cases and problems. We’ll be going into more details of the report on MeinMMO in the next few days.

We had known for years that there were problems with the story alternating between Destiny 1 and Destiny 2:

Destiny 2 story: Bungie admits “I have no idea what the darkness is”