In a shock announcement on Jan. 30, Destiny 2 game director Joe Blackburn is departing his position and Bungie in February just months before the release of the game’s biggest expansion to date, The Final Shape.
The Final Shape marks the end of Destiny 2’s “main story” as we know it, and what the game has planned for beyond the expansion’s release isn’t set in stone just yet. To oversee this critical transition, Bungie’s Tyson Green is taking the reins as game director.
Who is Tyson Green and what projects has he worked on at Bungie?
Green is one of Bungie’s longest-serving staff members with over two decades of experience since working on Myth II, an RTS game developed by the company back in 1998. He has worked on a myriad of projects at the iconic company across a variety of genres and is best known for his work on Bungie’s Halo, with design credits in Halo, Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo: Reach.
Green primarily worked on the design team during this time, helping to create missions and Halo 3’s multiplayer, as well as completing work on Halo: Reach’s epic Firefight mode. After Bungie left the Halo series to Microsoft and 343 Industries, Green’s talents were repurposed for Destiny, where he has remained a constant throughout both the main game and its sequel.
Blackburn himself called Green a “critical part of Bungie’s legacy” since the days of Myth II, which is high praise, and it’s clear the Destiny franchise is in safe hands with someone of Green’s caliber and experience at Bungie.
What will happen to outgoing game director Joe Blackburn?
Blackburn has not revealed where he’s headed after he officially wraps up following The Final Shape’s end-to-end playtest, only stating he was taking some time away from social media and likely the industry before pursuing a new endeavor.
Blackburn worked his way through Destiny 2’s early expansions as the lead raid designer before departing in April 2019 for a role on Riot Games’ League of Legends research and development team.
He returned to Bungie in 2020 after just 10 months to take up the lead game director position and then spent the next while guiding Destiny 2 through some of the game’s biggest challenges, including navigating the COVID-19 pandemic while working from home and fronting the enraged fandom after critical reception of The Witch Queen and Lightfall.
