Bungie Developers Repeatedly Pitched a Destiny Dating Sim, but Leadership Rejected It

Bungie developers were apparently very passionate about a Destiny dating simulator, but leadership had no interest.

Former Bungie community member Liana Ruppert dropped this piece of trivia on players after seeing a fan expressing interest in a Destiny dating sim.

“Fun fact, the team actually made one, but leadership [gave a] very hard no [and felt] that nobody wanted romance or silliness. Very Dream Daddy inspired. It was fun getting to be a small part of it.”

Former Bungie senior narrative designer Robert Brookes chimed in, revealing that the concept came out of an event where the studio was allowed to prototype fun side projects for a week. However, a small group of devs continuously tried to scale it into a full-blown project.

“To be fair, the dating sim that was made was a part of the ‘Carnival’ event Bungie used to do, where devs had a week to make fun prototypes. So it was never a full-fledged project. That said, we did pitch that as a full-fledged project every year.”

Brookes also noted that two of the people who were behind the pitch came from romance game design, saying they even created a pitch deck with costs and metrics, but Bungie leadership remained uninterested. Although the idea is silly and fun, it’s easy to see why Bungie was hesitant to move forward on such a project. A side project like that could easily be spun by frustrated community members as a waste of resources and time, when other parts of Destiny 2 could’ve used that support.

If that sounds extreme, all you have to do is look at how Marathon has been treated by some members of the community, and that’s a proper big-budget Bungie shooter. Unfortunately, it seems unlikely this dating sim will ever happen, as a lot of doubt has been cast on Bungie’s future as of late. Bungie recently ended support for Destiny 2, and it has been reported that the studio will undergo “significant” layoffs as a result.

Similarly, Destiny 3 is not in active development, and it seems unlikely that it will happen anytime soon, given Bungie’s recent performance. Smaller-scale Destiny games may be feasible, but it could be years before we see them materialize.

Cade Onder is a freelancer for IGN’s news team. He covers all things entertainment, including gaming, film, and more. You can find him on Twitter @Cade_Onder.