Bungie enlists Red Dead Redemption designer for its first post-Halo game

Now that it's no longer churning out Halo sequels, Bungie has picked up designer Danny Bulla to assist with its mysterious next game.

Despite its work on classics like Marathon and the Myth series, Bungie is a developer whose name will always conjure images of the Master Chief gunning down hordes of Covenant soldiers. Up until the announcement that 343 Industries would be developing Halo 4, Bungie was the “Halo company.” It’s been that way since Halo first hit the original Xbox in 2001, and despite the growing excitement of fans for the imminent Halo 4, Bungie will remain closely linked to the series, if only in our collective memories.

Given that decade-plus of being known for exactly one series, it only makes sense that Bungie’s employees might want to do something a bit different for their first post-Halo title. We don’t know much about this game, but with a recent hiring, the firm has maybe shed a bit of light on the topic.

A Bungie community member known as “DJ Yella” asked the firm what it thought of Rockstar Games, the company behind the massively successful Grand Theft Auto franchise, as well as the slightly less successful but no less awesome, Red Dead Redemption. Bungie’s answer was unexpectedly candid.

“We liked Red Dead Redemption so much that we hired Danny Bulla to come here and help us fill your next sandbox,” the firm’s representatives wrote. “He’s doing some amazing work and, so far, he hasn’t tried to lash any of us to a pair of railroad tracks.”

Though you likely don’t recognize the name immediately, Bulla is most famous for his work as a designer on Red Dead Redemption as well as its zombie-focused Undead Nightmare expansion. Prior to joining Rockstar, Bulla worked as a designer on Midway’s relatively average sci-fi shooter Blacksite: Area 51.

Taking all of this information into account, let’s sum up what we know so far: First, Bungie is working on a new game that it describes as its “next sandbox.” Second, Danny Bulla, a designer on one of the most well-designed open-world sandbox titles in recent memory, has been hired to work on this game. Third, the game’s title is rumored to be “Destiny” (though this could easily be a code name or a mere placeholder until the company comes up with a more apropos title).

So far the Internet, with its vast powers of crowd-sourced speculation, believes this to mean that Destiny will be similar to one of Rockstar’s open-world titles, but we’re going to hold off on drawing any conclusions here. Bungie has a new game, it’s going to be a “sandbox” title and Danny Bulla has been hired to work on it. Realistically that says nothing concrete about this project, so until Bungie offers up more solid info, we’ll be waiting patiently and shooing away thoughts of the Master Chief shooting bison from the back of a mighty stallion.