Since approaching the release of Lightfall itself, there’s been a second, very big Destiny 2 leak happening. The bulk of it is what appears to be footage from an internal Bungie presentation mainly about Season 21 and some subsequent content.
The last time this happened, information leaked from within Bungie itself, and people lost their jobs as a result. This time, Bungie has come up with a statement That this was someone who attended a recent community summit in the company, and as such, he not only broke the trust, but also lost the non-disclosure agreement.
I’m not entirely sure if this happened now because they only just confirmed who the leaker was, or because they might also be saying something about it because so many things have been proven true, and already confirm that the leak, and its future reveals, is legit. So they can also address it, and warn anyone else not to try something like this.
Community Summits are when Bungie gets out to content creators big and small and players to try out some metrics of Destiny’s future content and plans early on, though this latest summit was digital. This is a little different from what I’ve been doing as a journalist recently as we had a preview a few weeks before Lightfall, where the ban falls on all of us to give our first impressions. Community summits, by contrast, are used to gather feedback on what’s coming so tweaks can be made or Bungie can gauge how things are being received. And you sign a non-disclosure agreement which means you I can not Share this information, lest the company legally pursue you. Which… might be what’s going to happen here, as Bungie has been no stranger to launching lawsuits lately.
I’ve seen quite a few individual employees tweet quotes on the original statement restating how hard this was for them as a studio to screw their work, and how many bridges to burn in the dropout industry. Liana, Bungie Community Manager, repeat that society Must not Start by trying to find the leaker, as Bungie has dealt with that on their end, and it’s unclear if the leaker’s name might be mentioned publicly in the future as is the case with Bungie’s lawsuits against serial cheaters and harassers.
I can’t express how bad this is, not only for exposing people’s work early on but also burning every industrial bridge and opening yourself up to legal trouble. It’s really awful when someone can be trusted enough to get an invitation to a summit. People say they did this for “leverage” even though this was all done anonymously, and that may still be the case, I’m not sure what leverage is being gained here.
When these leaks first appeared, I avoided them as best I could. Over time, I plunged into one that listed a number of promising sounding buffs and reworks on the upcoming Alien Species next season. But I’ve tried to stay away from any and all actual plot points. I’m really unsure of the full scale of the leaks from this because I’ve tried to avoid consuming it entirely, but I do know that it’s a huge amount of content and can no longer be dismissed as a possible fake after that, so a lot of things are messed up beyond repair.
Bungie has indicated that they may not even be able to hold community summits anymore if such things are going to happen. It’s a case of one person potentially screwing it all up, and we’ll see if that has a chilling effect on Bungie’s closed-door previews. More is coming.
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