Bungie On ‘Destiny 2’ And Xbox One X: ‘We Would Never Hold Back Game Performance To Appease A Partner’

Destiny 2 has had an eventful E3 2017 thanks to questions surrounding the online shooter and Microsoft’s new Xbox One X console. Project Lead Mark Noseworthy issued a statement via Twitter Thursday to dispel rumors surrounding the PS4 marketing deal and why the title runs at 30fps on all consoles.

Noseworthy issued the statement following an appearance by Community Manager David “Deej” Dague on IGN’s Fireteam Chat Wednesday. He was asked about bringing 4K resolution to consoles.

“We’ve confirmed PlayStation 4 Pro,” Dague said. “Have not made any promises about Scorpio [aka Xbox One X] as of yet. It’s a very recent development. They just announced two days ago. So, we are working behind the scenes to see what it’s future holds for us and these are announcements that we’ll make at some point and time. But, I didn’t want to let any assumptions or presumptions go unchecked.”

This statement caused an explosion within the Destiny community and Xbox One community on Reddit, with many fans pointing out the Xbox Scorpio was announced one year ago at E3 2016. Additionally, development kits have already been provided to many developers. Presumably, that includes Bungie, given the weight Activision holds in the game industry.

There was also continued speculation that the Destiny marketing deal with Sony will result in the Xbox One X version of the game to be less than the PS4 Pro.

Noseworthy made the following statements on Twitter to address these issues.

“We would never hold back game performance on a platform to appease a partner. No partners asked us to either.”

“We optimize for each platform’s tech to deliver the best social action game experience we can. Period.”

“All consoles will run at 30fps to deliver [Destiny 2]’s AI counts, environment sizes, and [number] of players. They are all CPU-bound.”

“We are currently evaluating 4K for Xbox One X. It launches after [Destiny 2] and so we are focused on the launch consoles right now.”

As reported yesterday, PlayStation Europe boss Jim Ryan said he is unaware of any Destiny deal that would require Bungie to make games look worse on the Xbox One. He further explained there is nothing “nefarious” going on behind the scenes.

While Bungie’s Noseworthy and Dague are not ready to get into the specifics of the Xbox One X, Crucible Design Lead Lars Bakken did make a statement to about what will likely be the case for many third-party AAA games. He told WCCF Tech at E3 that Bungie is aiming to deliver the same experience on all platforms. Additionally, there are no specific enhancements planned for the Xbox One X.

Destiny 2 launches September 6 for the PS4, PS4 Pro, and Xbox One, with the PC release arriving on October 24. The Xbox One X launches November 7. The beta will become available for PS4 pre-orders first on July 18, followed by the Xbox One pre-orders on July 19. The open beta for both consoles will then follow on July 21 and conclude on July 24. The PC beta is planned for sometime in August with no specific dates set yet.

[Featured Image by Bungie / Activision]