Bungie Devs Pitched a Destiny Dating Sim Multiple Times, but Leadership Shut It Down

Bungie developers were apparently very passionate about creating a Destiny dating simulator, but leadership had no interest. Former Bungie community member Liana Ruppert shared this trivia after seeing a fan express 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 originated from a studio event where devs had a week to prototype fun side projects. 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 behind the pitch came from romance game design, and they even created a pitch deck with costs and metrics, but Bungie leadership remained uninterested. While the idea is silly and fun, it's easy to see why Bungie hesitated. A side project like that could easily be spun by frustrated community members as a waste of resources when other parts of Destiny 2 could have used that support. If that sounds extreme, look at how Marathon has been treated by some community members, and that's a proper big-budget Bungie shooter.

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely this dating sim will ever happen, as doubt has been cast on Bungie's future. Bungie recently ended support for Destiny 2, and it has been reported that the studio will undergo "significant" layoffs. Similarly, Destiny 3 is not in active development, and it seems unlikely to 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.