Bungie's Activision contract revealed

[PsychoPere]

As part of Activision's legal troubles with former Infinity Ward developers Vince Zampella and Jason West, Bungie's contract with the publisher was unsealed through the courts.

Here are some interesting tidbits from the contract regarding Bungie's future games to be published by Activision:

Bungie is to develop four "sci-fantasy, action shooter games," which are currently code-named "Destiny." These games are supposed to be released every other year starting in the fall of 2013. Bungie is also expected to release four DLC packs, most likely in connection to whatever "Destiny" is, every other year starting in 2014; these DLC bundles are also code-named "Comet."

Whatever this Destiny game series is, it's supposed to exclusively debut on the 360 and then have its sequel come out on all the next-gen consoles and PC.

Perhaps the most exciting thing detailed in this contract is the possibility of Bungie working on a sequel to their original game Marathon published in 1994 [...] [but] is only allowed to let 5% of their development team work on this Marathon sequel.

The above links also go into some detail on the financial arrangements.

I think the most interesting news out of all of this is the possibility that Bungie may develop a new Marathon, though I've never played the original titles. I did purchase the Marathon Durandal Xbox Live port, but haven't been able to try it out for more than a few minutes at a time without experiencing discomfort.

 

[clint g]

Hmm what I find interesting is that "Destiny" is supposed to start out as a 360 exclusive, with the sequels being multi platform. It seems like an unusual step to take this late in the consoles life cycle.

 

[StalwartUK]

Why would they not want to release the first game on other platforms too? Unless it's gonna be please don't say it's so - 1 or 2 years afterwards.

 

[PsychoPere]

Joystiq notes that the first game would (some articles I've read say "could" - I haven't looked at the contract myself to clarify) be released on other systems one year after its Xbox-exclusive release.