Within the wake of the very profitable launch of The Closing Form in Future 2, one of many key leaders who helped make that occur has simply introduced that she’s leaving the corporate. That might be Enlargement Challenge Lead Catarina Macedo, a frequent visitor star in vidocs and a driving power between the standard of The Closing Form.
She says she’s taking a while off earlier than shifting someplace unsaid, however constructing one thing completely new, which signifies she’s not heading to work on some present franchise. We have no idea if she is staying inside Sony’s umbrella.
It could be too quickly to announce a brand new Enlargement Lead however the query is…will there be one? And the bigger query that followers have had for a very long time, will Future 2 proceed to get true expansions prefer it’s had for the final seven years?
Bungie stated beforehand they might speak about the way forward for Future 2 after The Closing Form launched. They usually did do this, however they actually solely coated the subsequent three “episodes,” ending with a tease for one thing known as Future: Frontiers, which doesn’t sound like an enlargement, however relatively maybe a complete new arc with a principle that Future gamers will depart its present photo voltaic system. However will that embrace expansions?
There may be some theorizing that Future goes to change to an Episode-only mannequin for some time, which is kind of the equal of stretched out seasons, and there could be no giant enlargement between them.
Nonetheless, even with all this uncertainly and the dearth of affirmation of recent episodes. Even with Catarina’s departure, I’m nonetheless not satisfied that is what’s going to occur. Why? It’s fairly primary.
Cash.
The overwhelming majority of money that Bungie brings in, now straight funneled to new proprietor Sony, is from promoting its yearly enlargement, or a bundle of that enlargement with its subsequent seasons for $100 or so. Or previous expansions as new or lapsed gamers attempt to catch up.
Sure, Future 2 has microtransactions, sure, you should buy seasons, however the large drivers of each income, after which retain a playerbase that spends cash on different stuff, is these expansions. Shedding that may be huge, and would imply much less cash to spend on content material manufacturing, which might imply much less alternatives for engagement and spending, and so forth. Whereas sure, Bungie has Marathon coming as a brand new sport, that could be a large, large threat within the present multiplayer panorama the place everyone seems to be caught enjoying Fortnite and Warzone and Apex for the previous couple of years, not giving many newcomers a shot. Bungie wants Future to proceed, and an expansionless future appears virtually unimaginable to examine.
I’ve heard different theories that that is about scaling again and dealing on Future 3. Simply make episodes for 2 years and launch Future 3 in 2026 or one thing. That timeline is simply unimaginable, persevering with to supply reside content material whereas additionally engaged on a full scale sequel that may be out that quickly. I do imagine a Future sequel will arrive sometime, however not till the subsequent console era, and it may well’t be past a conceptual section proper now. A sport that measurement would take 4-5 years to make most probably, which is why I don’t assume it’s coming till PS6 and Xbox No matter are out. However we’ll see.
I believe Future 2 wants expansions, however a lot is altering over there, it’s onerous to know the place issues are going. Earlier than Catarina left, sport director Joe Blackburn additionally departed. In the meantime, extra controversial leaders just like the seldom-seen Pete Parsons, Luke Smith and Mark Noseworthy stay. I believe Bungie wants to start out being extra particular about what’s coming previous codenames, as the present Episode format alone might begin dropping gamers rapidly.
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Decide up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller sequence and The Earthborn Trilogy.